Returning to Why
Many of us, at some point in our lives, have reason to pause, take stock, and ask ourselves why we’re doing what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it the way we doing it.
This can lead to sudden pivots, educational missteps, valuable recalibrations, and fundamental changes in the way we perceive ourselves.
There are externally catalyzed milestones that can trigger such moments—quarter- and mid-life crises come to mind—but it’s possible to instigate such thinking intentionally, as well.
Doing so can be particularly valuable when our circumstances, global and personal, are changing rapidly.
In early 2020, over the course of just a few months, work, school, and social norms have all changed to varying degrees as a result of variables beyond our control.
Do those changes mean we should make new plans when it comes to our education? Should we stick with the same habits and social arrangements we’ve always had?
Should we attempt reinforce our existing professional trajectories based on these new, altered variables? Are our intended career paths even still feasible? Still desirable? Or have other paths, optimized for other priorities, opened up?
The world around us has changed, in some cases subtly, in some cases dramatically.
Some of these changes will be temporary, others will be permanent. Some shifts have already introduced a new resting state, while others merely gesture at multi-tined forks in the road, each path leading to potential new normals that won’t arrive for many years, at the earliest.
If we don’t allow ourselves to change, or at least consider doing so, as well, we may find ourselves prepared and preparing for a reality, for a future, that no longer exists.
Any change of this kind, unasked for and unanticipated, can be difficult. And that’s true whether it’s the result of a global pandemic, a whiz-bang new technology, or a change in relationship status.
Change is hard, and mourning the loss of our planned-for futures is a weighty component of that difficulty.
Being adaptable to new circumstances, though, is prudent in both the natural world and within human society.
Consciously checking in with our expectations and assumptions when the ground has shifted makes it less likely that we’ll make decisions and plans based on outdated information, no-longer-relevant suppositions, and weakened conjectural foundations.
Semi-regular check-ins with ourselves about why we’re doing what we’re doing, and how we’re doing those things, are a good habitual investment of time and energy, no matter our personal circumstances and the shape of the world around us.
But why-related assessments are even more valuable during periods of rapid and dramatic change.
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Jersey City, New Jersey, USA.
Updates
This week on Brain Lenses I published an essay about Mental Models, and a podcast episode about Path Dependence. Paid supporters also received an essay about Status Quo Bias and an episode on the Nirvana Fallacy.
This week’s episode of Let’s Know Things is about Police Violence (not a pleasant topic, but I get into some of the infrastructural incentives that can lead to such things, in a way that hopefully adds more useful context to the conversation).
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I’ve been tinkering around with voice apps, and have released the first version of a (free) Alexa app that some of you may find useful.
It’s called “Take a Few,” as in “take a few minutes,” and if you have an Alexa device in an English-speaking market, you should be able to say “Alexa, enable Take a Few” to get it on your device.
The concept is super-simple: for 2-3 minutes, it plays one of several natural soundscapes, then asks if you want to “take a few more” minutes of the same.
I use it for quick meditation breaks throughout the day, but the idea is to make it easy and frictionless to casually carve out bits of time for breathing exercises, reflection, or just relaxed non-work periods, whenever a few minutes are available.
I will note that I have fairly mixed feelings about these voice assistants, in general, but I am hopeful that they may someday evolve into something more than they are now: that they could turn into tools that augment our capabilities and align with our intentions, rather than tools meant to increase consumption and enable more consumer-tracking (which is pretty much what they are, today). By building things that support the former, I hope to water-down the effects of the latter.
That said, my next step is to build a Google Assistant version, and a web-based version of this app for folks who may find it useful but who aren’t into the voice assistant thing.
Community
Stop by the forum if you’re keen to respond to the weekly prompt, or just want to share/chat/lurk: NeverNotCurious.com/forum
This week’s prompt is to share a favorite podcast, newsletter, blog, YouTube production, or other publication/show.
Interesting & Useful
Some neat things:
Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada.
Outro
It’s been heartening to see some evidence of change emerging as a result of the many actions folks have been taking these past few weeks (and, of course, due to the efforts of people from previous generations, who set the stage for such things, and gave us all shoulders to stand on).
It’s mostly tiny, green shoots at this point, but that’s how full-grown change tends to look, in the early days.
Keep in mind, too—even as the news shifts to other issues and politicians treat pandemic-related data as more of a potential source of leverage than the serious matter that it is—that there’s still a global pandemic going on around us, and though it won’t be possible for everyone to be as careful as we’ve been, and as we might like, due to forces beyond our control, it’s a very good idea to not succumb to the very appealing notion that things are back to pre-pandemic normal.
Here in the US and in many other countries around the world, infection numbers are rising all over the place, and we have good reason to believe that those numbers are only capturing an incomplete portion of infections, due to limitations in our testing capabilities. So remember to behave prudently for yourself and for those around you, whatever that might mean for your specific circumstances.
How’s your week going? How’ve you been spending you time?
Expecting any near-future changes to your routine? Looking forward to anything in particular?
Also: do you know anything about Peoria, IL? I’m looking into it as a potential next home-base, if you’re keen to share your knowledge/insights/opinions!
I respond to every email I get, so feel free to send me a message and tell me what’s been up, what’s been on your mind, or if you’re just keen to say hello/share something interesting/vent to a stranger from the internet :)
Keep in mind, too, that no matter how you’re feeling right now, your feelings are legitimate, you’re not alone, and this too shall pass.
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