Reading this in Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks made me reflect on my relationship with career and I gained prospective on what truly matters in life.
‘’The Latin word for business, negotium, translates as not-leisure, reflecting the view that work was a deviation from the higher calling [of ease]’’
Absolutely iconic. I actually shared a paraphrased version (to get it down my 1-minute-or-less constraint, haha) of it, shortly after my son was born and I hadn't been reading anything new, so was reflecting on the most impactful things I've ever read.
"Your changed approach might not work. Of course it might not work! But you’ve no reason to believe that not attempting it – holding back, and continuing as before – is suddenly about to start working any better."
It reminds me of Annie Duke's approach to knowing when to quit vs. persevere—the possibility of failure is better than having no possibility of success!
Reading this in Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks made me reflect on my relationship with career and I gained prospective on what truly matters in life.
‘’The Latin word for business, negotium, translates as not-leisure, reflecting the view that work was a deviation from the higher calling [of ease]’’
That's super interesting. I love etymology! Even in English, it's worth noting that business = busyness!
Thanks for sharing, Michi!
Culling through hundreds of highlights and notes from this year, If by Rudyard Kipling stands out....
Obviously not new to 2024 (I think it was written in 1895), but I memorized the poem this year and sometimes recite it to my son at bedtime.
A nice reflection on how meditating on ideas elevates them.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46473/if---
Absolutely iconic. I actually shared a paraphrased version (to get it down my 1-minute-or-less constraint, haha) of it, shortly after my son was born and I hadn't been reading anything new, so was reflecting on the most impactful things I've ever read.
https://jwby.substack.com/p/1-72-if
Memorizing it is a great suggestion!
> A nice reflection on how meditating on ideas elevates them.
... is an insight, all on its own! Thank you for sharing 🙏
From Oliver Burkeman's newsletter:
"Your changed approach might not work. Of course it might not work! But you’ve no reason to believe that not attempting it – holding back, and continuing as before – is suddenly about to start working any better."
Such good perspective! Thank you for sharing!!
It reminds me of Annie Duke's approach to knowing when to quit vs. persevere—the possibility of failure is better than having no possibility of success!
She talks about that in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwZdYgCEN70
Thanks, again!
"writing is thinking. In fact there's a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing. You can't make this point better than Leslie Lamport did:
If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking."
https://paulgraham.com/writes.html
Nice! Yeah, reminds me of Stephen King's comment: "I write to find out what I think."
Thank you for sharing!