#71: growth and change

Apr 28, 2023

👋 Welcome to the 71st 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.

In this issue:

📚 Outliers

📝 Ten things

🧘‍♂️ How to rest well

⚡️ Are you the same person you used to be?

📚 Outliers

To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success with a society that provides opportunities for all.
The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty four is two-tens-four and so on. That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster that American children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to forty. American children at that age can count only to fifteen, and most don’t reach forty until they’re five. By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math skills. The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily.

→ reza.so | 8-min read

📝 Ten things

Such amazing prose from

Lisa Olivera

. Highlighted nearly every single paragraph. So relatable.

It’s so damn hard to know someone is misunderstanding you, not seeing you clearly, or not assuming the best about you… and choosing not to try to convince them otherwise.
It’s so tempting to make sure everyone knows our intentions, knows where we’re coming from, knows we’re goodhearted or humble or kind… and it hurts to be seen in ways that feel deeply inaccurate, deeply un-attuned to who we really are.
Yet when we can let others hold their views of us, without doing the mental gymnastics of trying to convince, we remind ourselves of what is and isn’t our responsibility, what is and isn’t in our control, what is and isn’t our problem. None of this is easy — but the work of allowing others to be who they are is a whole lot more fulfilling than the exhausting work of convincing that often doesn’t lead to the results we hope it will.

→ Human Stuff | 8-min read

🧘‍♂️ How to rest well

If you’re particularly busy and highly driven, you need to give the benefits of rest a chance to manifest. Don’t rush it. Remember, rest is a skill that improves with practice. Just as it takes time to settle into a new job or place, or a few days to shift into vacation mode, so too will your mind require time to start harnessing the power of rest.

→ Psyche | 15-min read

When you love someone,

the best thing you can offer that person is your presence.

⚡️ Are you the same person you used to be?

Through such self-development, we curate lives that make us ever more like ourselves. But there are ways to break out of the cycle. One way in which people change course is through their intimate relationships.
The Dunedin study suggests that, if someone who tends to move against the world marries the right person, or finds the right mentor, he might begin to move in a more positive direction. His world will have become a more beneficent co-creation. Even if much of the story is written, a rewrite is always possible.

→ New Yorker | 18-min read