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    #38 Regret, worry, forget

    We regret the past, worry about the future, and forget about the now.

    What if I:

    • learn from and let go of the past
    • create an empowering vision of the future, informed by your imagination AND lessons of the past
    • act in the now, confident that every action you take brings you closer towards that vision

    To let go of the past:

    • Write Morning Pages – Stream of Consciousness journaling
    • Did I give it my all? Whether my actions were aligned or misguided, did I go for it 100%?
    • Did I allow myself to learn something and see the silver lining?

    To create a future with fewer worries:

    To be in the moment:

    • Write Morning Pages – Stream of Consciousness journaling
    • Breathe
    • Walk in nature
    • Create something
    • Talk… and listen

    The constant: write Morning Pages.

  • #443 Be consistent with the how, not the what

    If you’re curious about one topic, you can stay curious, even if your interests change over time.

    If you’re kind to one person, you can stay kind when talking to other people.

    If you showed leadership in your last job, you can show leadership in your new job.

    You can be consistent in how you do things, without having to be consistent in what you do.

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    #92 The true purpose of memory

    Memory isn’t an objective account of the past – and that’s not its purpose either.

    Memory stores the lessons we extract from life experience. And to do so, it modifies, adds, subtracts, highlights, and hides.

    Hot soup burns my tongue – next time, I’ll remember the pain, but not if it was tomato soup or chicken soup. And I’ll remember to wait a couple of minutes before having the first spoon.

    Experience lived. Irrelevant info deleted. Lesson learned. Memory created.

    My country gets invaded – and that causes so much pain, I won’t just deliver an objective account of what happened: I’ll make sure to tell everyone who the evil guys are too.

    Experience lived. Story modified. Lesson learned. Memory created.

    I eat the most delicious dessert at a Mexico City restaurant – that’s the memory I’m going to tell my friends about, not which glass of dessert wine I had with it.

    Experience lived. Dessert highlighted. Lesson learned. Memory created.

    You’re going to make memories anyway. Which lessons do you want to learn?

  • #231 When everything is urgent

    When everything is urgent, how do we know what to do first?

    One solution is adding more nuance:

    What’s the most urgent?

    What’s the most important?

    Breathing is urgent.

    A crying child is urgent.

    A toilet visit can be urgent.

    Sending that email out tonight right before bed instead of tomorrow, maybe not so much?


    Here’s the important question:

    If you’re going to prioritize the urgent matters anyway, why stress yourself out by calling everything urgent in the first place?

    Making everything urgent devalues truly urgent matters.

    Because when everything is urgent, nothing is urgent anymore.

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