Re Human — Week 16 Reflections — Day 112
We are what we repeatedly do. I’m reinventing myself by improving in 15 areas at a time.
This process post is part of my Re Human project.
This week was full of road trips, flights, and time with family and friends. Was definitely harder to do all of the activities. As a new year reflection (last week) I determined I didn’t want to be stuck by the glue of having to do everything every day without fail. Opportunity cost is real, and sometimes there are more important or high leverage things to focus on.
But I’m not letting mental laziness be a factor for not doing things. And the trick is to not let bad specific instances turn into patterns (and make patterns of good things).
Throughout this week, I practiced piano every day in my small travel-size keyboard, practiced soccer juggling outside in a winter location, meditated in long car rides, worked on the plane, and talked with users and got feedback from many people about my startup.
Some other cool things that got done this week:
- Published live my VR library, currently with my favorite books from 2018. Link here.
- Lots of people messaged me that they loved my post on how to create your best year (it’s the top 3 exercises I use around this time of the year and set up for the whole year). Even the best-selling author of The Third Door, Alex Banayan, followed me on my @re.human instagram! Likely as a result of this post.
- Pretty proud of how this eye I’m drawing on my iPad is coming together:
- Finished reading The Order of Time. Started and finished reading Bad Blood, and Rest: why you get more when you work less. Started and read a good portion of Be Here Now, and just started The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. And continued reading Why Greatness Cannot be Planned.
- Have had a great time with my family and recently with my friend Cliff.
This Week’s Breakthrough Knowledge
Novelty is a better discovery mechanism than objectives: In short, objectives mean sailing to a distant destination with an unknown path while novelty requires only steering away from where we’ve been already. Deviating from the past is simpler and richer with information because we can look at the whole history of past discoveries to inform our judgment of current novelty. So it’s not unreasonable to believe that novelty is a meaningful engine for progress.
What could you do to increase someone’s happiness? Increase their capacity to experience pain.
Negative emotions aren’t bad. They are useful information you can use if you’re aware of them. Being able to differentiate your emotions is paramount for navigating through life. Emotional clarity creates a space between triggers and acts (like provocations and aggression).
Using different variables to identify smaller, specific things to increase/decrease, like:
Envy = (Pride + Vanity)/Kindness. (Envy defined as Worrying that someone else has something you can’t get.)
Jealousy = mistrust/self-esteem. (Jealousy defined as Worrying about losing something you have).
Disappointment = expectations minus reality.
Despair = suffering minus meaning.
4 Factors for Deliberate Rest: Relaxation: low activation, positive effect, Control: controlling time/ what to do, Mastery experiences: engaging interesting things you do well (FLOW), Mental detachment from work
Read the next day’s post. Read the previous day’s post.
Read the next week’s post. Read the previous week’s post.
Receive a free weekly Present of the highest quality things I’ve ever found (not only throughout the week) here 🎁.
Enjoy stories on my my instagram (@re.human).
Thank You.
