Week #15, 2025
Week #15 of 2025 has arrived... Let me check... yep... here in Week 15 of 2025, you still can only really control what is in your head. Most of the rest is outside of your control.
Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square. Done?
I have been thinking about my self-talk a lot lately. That is one HUGE benefit of a regular competitive habit... basketball is mine... I hope you have one.
I am a positive guy who likes himself most of the time. Brain chemistry, upbringing, and a few key habits have been kind to me. But at the same time, I am telling myself lots of stories, and I can get in my head a lot... especially when I am shooting a basketball, or driving to the lane.
And so I have been interrogating some of the "truths" I hold about myself as a way of testing them, and perhaps finding new ones that work better.
What are some things that you believe are foundational truths about you that are actually just ways of being that could be changed?
Listen to this newsletter as podcast. We're on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
ON WEEK #15 OF 1849...
Walter Hunt sold the patent rights to his invention, the safety pin, for $400.
He was 2,749.57 weeks or 52.73 years old.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"To change one's life, start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions." - William James
With regard to "do it flamboyantly, no exceptions,": the older I get, the more things look the same. I suppose it is a side effect of the industrial revolution... processes standardize, markets consolidate, and then pretty soon the only style of fence picket, or baseboard trim, or front door that you can buy in all 50 states is one of the three options Home Depot offers.
It's boring. That's one of the reasons Europe is so fun to visit for Americans... Hundreds more years of custom, one-off building, where every carpenter had their own solution.
Instead of living an off-the-shelf life, where your house looks the same as all the people you are trying in vain to impress, have the courage to listen to your actual preferences, and do the work to be different. Sure, it's less efficient, but it is so much more fulfilling!
And it's more fun for the rest of us!
WHAT I AM CONSUMING THIS WEEK
-
Cautionary tales. The old man and the wrecking crew. Remember this guy? I do... I suppose I don't totally blame his daughter...
-
Stay tuned with Preet. What are you Worth in America.
Interesting conversation with Preet, and his Former professor about the current sea change in political philosophies. -
The Tim Ferriss Show, Robert Rodriguez. A great conversation about living a creative life... Although I did get a bit tired of how awesome his kids are!
-
The Ezra Klein Show, the Origins of Abundance. (his book)
A very interesting discussion on what actually should happen to make the US a better place to live. - The Prof G Podcast with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson A continuation of the Abundance discussion... very interesting.
WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK
The big and little of it all.
I spent the first half of today, and most of the weekend replacing a small bit of fence in our backyard. The old fence line was overgrown and had become a semi-permeable dog membrane, to say the least, and so 75 feet of decorative picket fence is almost done. I have about 20 hours in it so far, and likely 10 more to go. (turned out it was 20more!)
And if the treated posts last the maximum amount google says is reasonable, then in 25 years, I will need to replace it. I will be 73 years old.
I have been enjoying it. I like that kind of work, and I love making things "quirky" and so I took the time to cut a Victorian profile on the pickets, just so it wouldn't look like any other fence. Different is a reason in and of itself.
But it doesn't matter. Even if you ignore its ephemeral nature. It isn't building a legacy, or saving the world, or curing cancer. While I was building the fence, real people were getting their lives crushed by one bureaucratic steamroller or another. I do believe that you and I are our brother's keeper, with a responsibility to one another... but fences still need to be replaced, right? And it's okay to enjoy it, right?
I don't have a tidy bow for this one. Is there a way to judge the value of how you "spend" your finite time? What matters? It's like "What is offsides" from Ted Lasso... It ain't easy to explain, but I know it when I see it.
As an anecdotal case in point... The other day I was deleting my voicemail messages. I don't ever answer the phone, and I don't ever check my voicemail, so there were more than two years of messages. I got back a year and a half, and I found a few unopened messages from my dad.
Longtime readers will know that my dad died just before Christmas a year and a half ago.
I talk to his picture on the wall sometimes, and I think about him often, but I don't really cry about missing him anymore.
Hearing his voice was different. And in that surprising moment was all the proof that how he spent his life mattered, in spite of (and maybe somewhat because of) all the time he frittered away, doing the daily chores, replacing fences, mowing the lawn, driving to the store, etc., etc., etc.
So, I suppose who cares what you do with your time, as long as you are enjoying yourself, people will sincerely miss you when you're gone, and.. occasionally, you reach your hand out to help someone else.
DAD JOKE O' THE WEEK
Why can you never trust atoms?
They make up everything.
or... and I just made this up... they're always splitting
Think you can do better? Join our Dad Joke thread!
Leave a comment: