#54: never feeling rushed
👋 Welcome to the 54th issue of Out of Curiosity, a weekly newsletter promoting ideas to help get 1% better everyday.
My name is Reza, and every week, I go through nearly 100 pieces of content (from books and podcasts to newsletters and tweets), and bring you the best in this newsletter.
The final week of the year is a good opportunity to slow down and reflect back on the past 12 months: the highlights, lowlights, and everything in between.
I’ve been a lot more consistent with daily journaling (in Day One) over this past year. At minimum, I uploaded a picture of that day to remind myself of how a particular experience or interaction felt.
If I can’t remember a day, it’s as if it never happened. The same way, if I can’t recall what I read in a book or an article—through highlighting passages and coming back to them later—it feels like reading it was a waste of time in the first place.
The other day I read a journal entry from April 2013, and my style of writing from a decade ago pleasantly surprised me. Like, “Why the heck don’t I do this more often. It’s such a gift to my future self.”
To continue building on this daily reflection mode, I’m thinking of doing an annual review next week. In case you’re considering it too, check out some templates/inspirations from Eva Keiffenheim, Sahil Bloom and Tiago Forte.
Now, let’s dive into this week’s ideas!
In this issue:
⭐️ True wealth is “never feeling rushed”
😌 Trusting your instincts
🤓 The zone of genius
📚 Stillness is the key
📝 Finding your principles
⭐️ True wealth is “never feeling rushed”
I found that in these activities, When I apply more effort, the output decreases. I cannot impose my will into writing a great email. When I paddle furiously into a wave – I don’t catch it. Trying becomes striving and striving undoes itself.
In Daosim, they call this “Wu Wei” or Effortless Action. You may know it as Flow. Or the Zone. Rowers refer to it as swing: The swing carries us; We do not force it. We pump our legs to drive our arc higher, but gravity does most of the work.
We are not so much swinging as being swung. The boat swings you. The shell wants to move fast: Speed sings in its lines and nature. Our job is simply to work with the shell, to stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat speed.
😌 Trusting your instincts
We’re all scared kids trying to figure it out.
And so, so many of us get caught in, let’s be appropriate. Let’s do it right. Let’s not offend anybody.
And what I see is, the neater we try to get, the less growth we actually get to experience most of the time.
We can certainly create environments that are too edgy where people are so anxious that they can’t learn and grow. And that’s not the kind of mess I’m talking about. But I’m talking about, can it be okay to have some tension sometimes?
🤓 The zone of genius
Now, whenever I’m feeling ineffective, I ask myself: do I need more discipline, or do I need to be more inspired?
Both can be solved for. To solve for inspiration, we can put ourselves in particular environments, consume content, and meet people that whet our creative appetite. Solving for discipline boils down to structure, systems, and negotiating with yourself.
📚 Stillness is the key
Always think about what you’re really being asked to give. Because the answer is often a piece of your life, usually in exchange for something you don’t even want. Remember, that’s what time is. It’s your life, it’s your flesh and blood, that you can never get back.
h/t to my dear friend—and an avid + kind follower of this newsletter— Amir Azimi who shared this quote with me earlier this week. I'm yet to read the book in full.📝 Finding your principles
My solution is to treat life advice like I can only remember a few pieces at a time. Meaning, whenever I encounter valuable wisdom, I distill it into a decision-making principle and ask myself: Is this more useful than one of my existing memorized principles? If so, I swap it in for one of them. I keep doing this until I curate the ultimate list of decision-making principles.
✨ One last thing…
You’re amazing, Apple.
Happy Holidays! 🎄
