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On personal development, mindful productivity, creative lifestyle design, and figuring it out as you go
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Hey there, Brilliant!
We’ve spent the last two pandemic years adjusting our expectations. Expectations of what a workplace should look like, what weddings and funerals should look like, what maintaining friendships and socializing should look like. We’ve been patient and flexible, but there’s been one expectation that we haven’t quite let go of. The expectation, still present in the collective dialogue, that we will one day return to “normal.”
While I also long for the day I feel 100% comfortable in a raucous bar or crowded dance floor, I know my life has fundamentally shifted and isn’t going back. I’m managing my health and relationships differently. I’m thinking about my economic risks in different ways. I’ve never been one for 5-year plans, but I’ve had to go through a process of opening my mind even further to a future that I truly can’t envision. I choose to move forward with a consistent set values, and a sense of the talents I want to develop and offer. Then, I respond to the opportunities and environment before me.
With the globalization of our economy, the pervasiveness of institutional bureaucracies, the rapidness of technological advances that surpass the speed governance, and now, sadly, the threat of growing large-scale international conflict, our world is becoming ever more complex and difficult to navigate. An attitude to stay with familiar and comfortable leaves us unable to confront new challenges and learn from them.
It’s natural to crave stability, control, and order. I, for one, love my structures and keeping on top of my calendar. But I also try to remind myself not to make my plans so rigid that I collapse in the face of the unpredictable. And I try to leave my mind open to different paradigms that enable me to better imagine my place in our changing world.
To thrive within the chaos, we need to work individually and collectively to create new systems for building community, protecting our individual interests, mediating conflicts, and ensuring we have the resources we need to flourish. We can’t see that exact future today, but if we’re flexible, adaptive, and antifragile, we can move towards it.
Here’s to expecting the unexpected.
Spiritedly,
Ahsante
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My latest videos, for your viewing pleasure and daily leisure
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Becoming Antifragile
In my latest video, I talk about how I implement antifragility, the concept coined by author Nassim Taleb, which posits that to survive our increasingly complex and unpredictable world, we have to not only withstand volatility, but learn, grow, and improve because of it.
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My other recent videos include a breakdown of my 7 income streams as a creator, how I plan tasks and projects in Notion, and how I stopped hating myself.
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Music to keep your spirits up and let it all out
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Ear candy coming your way! Here's the playlist of what I've been jamming out to lately. Give it a listen while you peruse your inbox, and maybe shake a tail feather🕺
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Pieces of media and pop culture that I'm absolutely loving
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Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs
This viral video on NFTs might be one of the most impactful pieces of tech coverage you watch this year. It's a documentary-length video that gave me a new and nuanced understanding of why we should be wary of crypto as it stands today. Amazing work by another independent creator.
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The DOctors Want To Kill Me
Hasan Minhaj is my go-to guy for hilarious social commentary, and I was rolling on the floor laughing at during this video about him roasting DO doctors (in comparison to MDs) and the ensuing controversy. So so good.
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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
This study of how the powerful throughout history have created logics to subjugate other groups is, sadly, incredibly relevant.
As a Black American journalist, Wilkerson’s focus is on the racial caste system that exists in the United States to this day. Drawing parallels to Hitler’s Germany and to India’s caste system, she illustrates common underlying methods used in all 3 cases to justify stripping people of their human rights and keeping them in a disenfranchised underclass. This book brought into focus many feelings I’ve had and shifted the way I talk about race, class, and power.
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What's been keeping my productivity boosted
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- Alfred. This text expander comes in super handy. I use it quickly generate my contact information, links to my social handles and sites, checklists, the current date and time, and strings of characters that I use often but are cumbersome to type - like (New Video) . Alfred has other handy use cases for easily opening desktop apps, entering search queries, and initiating computer workflows. Alfred is just for Mac, try TextExpander as a more universal alternative.
- Gaming Glasses as extreme blue-light blocking glasses. Whenever I forget to wear these, I have a harder time falling asleep - especially as a night owl who often ends the day in front of my computer. I mentioned incorporating these in my sleep video and I find that wearing them for the last hour or so of my day is still an essential part of my evening routine.
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Live Spiritedly & Think Creatively
Catch ya next time :)
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PPS. Consider supporting me on Patreon to help me continue making dope work
Some links in this email may be affiliate links, through which I earn a percentage of any purchase made.
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