Week 34, 2024
Week 34 of 2024 has arrived. Families are walking to the school by my office again, and carpool lanes are growing all over the city. The whole world seems to be anticipating the phase shift from the carefree breeze of summer to the determined gusts of fall.
Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square. Done?
So many great, thoughtful responses to my 6 questions last week! If you missed them, here they are.
What is the #1 thing you need out of your life?
What is the #1 thing you want out of your life?
What is your biggest fear about your life?
What do you deeply desire about your life?
What have you tried in the past to get that out of your life?
What did you hate about the things you have already tried?
I am still sifting through the responses - there is so much in there.
One very common theme: “I don’t want to waste it.” This regularly showed up as an answer in one way or another in question 1-4 “I need to not waste it”, "I want to not waste it”, “I am afraid of wasting it”, “I desire a full life..(not a wasted one)”.
So here is a radical thought… As far as the universe and the rest of us are concerned, you can’t waste your life. You can only live it. There is no way you “should” or “shouldn’t” live your life. There is only the way you are living it. “Should” is an internal judgment, not an external truth.
Anxiety about wasting your life is wasted energy. I think it mostly results from mental time travel to the past or the future.
It’s fine. Enjoy the breeze.
Thanks to everyone who responded. And no, Rocky L., I am not going to use the answers to develop “a marketing scheme for coaching”! I'm just always curious what you all want and want to hear about… and I thought those questions might be good at quickly getting to some truth.
Enjoy the email this week… I had fun writing it!
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Remarkable Weeks
Week 34 of 1913, Jack London lost his 15,000-square-foot stone mansion called Wolf House to a fire, just two weeks before his family planned to move in. He was best known for his novels and short stories like "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang." He was 1,962.29 (37.63 yrs).
Week 34 of 1920, Jim Thorpe became the president of the newly-formed American Professional Football Association, which was later called the National Football League. He won Gold at the 1912 Olympics for Pentathlon and Decathlon. He also played in professional baseball, football, and basketball. He was 1,733.86 weeks old (33.25 yrs).
Week 34 of 2019, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was named the highest-paid actor for the second year in a row. That year he earned $89.4 million. He was 2,468.14 weeks old (47.33 yrs).
Quote of the Week
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -Leo Tolstoy
All around us people are beating their heads against a wall. It’s amazing that we are able to see them, considering how we are also beating our heads against a wall.
The area of our influence is vanishingly small. There are almost no things that we can control, and yet we walk around wanting other people, and the world, to be different.
Of course it satisfies the hero complex in all of us to think about grabbing a big lever and changing the world.
There is no ticker tape parade for a person who gets their own life in order, no standing ovation for a small kindness, no gold medals for walking away from a fight, and no one gets carried on their team's shoulders for not throwing a fit when things don’t go their way.
This is your life. I want you to dream big and reach for the stars. But if you succeed, it will be because you built the strength to pull yourself up to them, not them down to you.
What I am Consuming This Week
Lots of Prof G. Podcast and Nate Silver this week... I really like Nate Silver... Clear headed analytical thinker...
Freakonomics Radio, #600. "If We're All in It For Ourselves, Who Are We?"
Hook, line and sinker with that title...
Freakonomics Radio, "Here's Why You're Not an Elite Athlete"
Good, good... I needed the reminder!
Prof G. Podcast, "No Mercy/No MaliceWeapons of War: Higher Ed."
Ok, this is terrifying. I am certainly not an isolationist... but there should be some restrictions on what we will share... right? A friend to all is a friend to none?
The Daily: "James Lankford Tried to Solve Immigration for the GOP"
This is a good interview... and neither of them seem to shrink from the awkward.
Prof G Podcast, "Cold War II with Niall Ferguson"
Pretty good interview with Niall Ferguson... I like to listen to people who see the world differently... Especially while working out... I disagreed loudly with Niall this week while doing my last set of squats.
Prof G Podcast, "Smart vs. Stupid Risk Taking-with Nate Silver"
I really like Nate Silver.
The Ezra Klein Show. "Nate Silver on How Kamala Harris Changed the Odds"
Have I mentioned that I really like Nate Silver? Always have.
Instagram Nuggets
- Hmm... okokokokok.
- You can't be exceptional if you don't do exceptional things.
- Basketballs as a metaphor for resilience? I'm in.
- It's never been better.
- If you don't want to want to have kids, don't watch this.
What I am Thinking About This Week
Struggle : Life
What if the struggle is all there is, and when the struggle leaves… that’s it.
I wrote this on a notecard earlier in the week. I was working on a sculpture (a sculpture of a bunny in a top hat, since you asked) and when I am sculpting I have a lot of thoughts… like seriously… a class 5 rapids, huge volume in a small space, steady stream of thinking… I wonder if the thousands and thousands of hours that I have spent moving clay around, alone but for my thoughts, is the fertile ground that grew the ability to write this newsletter.
Anyway…here is what I was thinking about before I had that question pop into my mind.
When my dad died, there wasn’t any trace of struggle. He had always said that he was going to live to be 100. He had a zest for life, and was in fairly good health for most of his later years. But the last year and a half had been a drag… In and out of the hospital, a constant shortness of breath that he couldn’t shake… Coupled with repeated disappointments... “they say this next thing might fix the shortness of breath…” He was struggling and fighting it, and he had been for longer than I realized.
In the last hours of the last day, we were lucky enough to be able to talk with him, and once we were all clear that he was clear what “palliative care” meant, I asked him if he was scared. He calmly, and with no reluctance, said “no, I’m just curious.” There was a calm and patience with life in his face that wasn’t typical. There was zero struggle. Zero.
We have all seen a timelapse video of a seed struggling to break through the top of the soil. Some of us are lucky enough to have seen our kids force their way into the world.
From the very beginning… struggle.
And I don’t know about you, but I feel like every day is a struggle of one kind or another.
Most of the time it’s not a struggle I resist, it’s one I welcome. There is comfort in carrying a heavy load. I like to work. But it is struggle just the same.
The Stoics spend pages and pages berating us to stop adding all this useless context to situations. Should, shouldn’t, good, bad…
All life in the universe seems to be constantly struggling just to exist.
If we discover a stone tablet in the far reaches of the universe, sent from the creator and carved with the words: Life is Struggle, Struggle is Life, would that make even the messiest struggle more noble?
It seems to me that might be the only there there.
Have a great week!
Spencer
P.S. Send me a note if you have a question or a topic you want me to address.
P.P.S. If you read this whole email, here is your reward.
Dad Joke O' The Week
Did you know a kangaroo can jump higher than the Empire State Building?
Of course! Buildings can't jump!
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