⏱️ The Best Minute: Finding yourself is impossible
💡 1 IDEA FROM ME
You should never aspire to “find yourself.”
Why?
Because it is an undefinable goal. And undefinable goals can never be accomplished.
How do you know when you have done it? What happens when you change (as everyone does)? How can you tell which parts are “you” and which parts are external things you have taken on to help you face life?
What if you don’t like what you find?
How can you decide what you should keep and press into and what isn’t the real “you” and must be discarded?
Ok. Enough with the existential questions; you get my point.
Instead of trying to “find yourself,” decide the type of person you want to become and create small rhythms and habits to help you slowly become that person. Now you have agency. Now you have a destination to work towards. Best of all, you have a real goal that you can continue to adapt and change and work towards.
Who you are today was not who you were 5 years ago and will be different than you who you are 10 years from now. So decide who you want to be in 10 years and become that person.
Or you can just keep searching for something that can’t be found.
Deciding is the better option.
Next week in The Best Minute I’ll share one thing you can do if you’re stuck on a decision that needs to be made.
💬 1 HELPFUL QUOTE
I. Paul Graham on the big mistake made by entrepreneurs (and everyone really):
“What you will get wrong is that you will not pay enough attention to your users.
You will make up some idea in your own head that you will call your “vision,” and you will spend a lot of time thinking about your vision. In a cafe. By yourself. And build some elaborate thing without going and talking to users, because that’s doing sales, which is a pain in the ass, and they might say no.
You will not ship fast enough because you’re embarrassed to ship something unfinished, and you don’t want to face the likely feedback that you will get from shipping. You will shrink from contact with the real world, contact with your users. That’s the mistake you will make.”
📖 1 BRIEF BOOK REVIEW
Never Enough by Jennifer Breeheny Wallace
A helpful book (particularly the first half) on how achievement culture is harming our kids.
Some good insights, and I would probably have enjoyed the book more if I hadn’t read other books on how our modern society not developing healthy kids that I thought were better.
I also couldn’t help but think as I read that a contributing issue to all of these is the rise of secularism. If life has no inherent meaning, and this is all we get, then of course it’s hard to think we matter outside of what we can achieve.
Still, a good look at how the overabundance of extracurricular activities kids are involved in doesn’t actually increase future life fulfillment and often makes kids and parents miserable.
7/10
🤔 1 QUESTION TO LEAVE YOU WITH
What is one important lesson for life that isn’t taught in school, but that you want to teach to your kids?
P.S. The best way to sleep.
