Top of the morning to ya <<First Name>>!
With some busy weekends, I decided not to write an article this week and instead, share with you an article that I quite enjoyed.
Below you will still find a long-read — this time about death, which is not a very Christmas-y subject, but I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless.
In addition, there's a great mood-tracker-slash-journaling-app-tip in this issue.
Happy Holidays!
One thing I find difficult about having kids is that your priorities change. I expect it means I'll have less time available for projects like this newsletter.
Indeed, in today's article, technology entrepreneur Paul Graham writes:
"I hate to say this, because being ambitious has always been a part of my identity, but having kids may make one less ambitious. It hurts to see that sentence written down."
Nonetheless, he shows that there's a lot more to having kids than just less ambition: efficiency and more importantly, happiness.
→ Read the article here
2. We Should Talk About Death
I hope you don't mind me covering this topic just before the holidays. But perhaps the holidays are the best time to write about death.
Truth is, we will all die. Some sooner than others, but we won't be able to escape it.
But there are a few ways of thinking we have about death that don't really help us. For one thing, we tend to avoid it. Whether it's our own death or that of our loved ones, we'd rather not talk about not living. It has become a taboo.
And because it's a taboo, anytime someone hears or even reads the word 'death', they experience negative feelings. After all, not being alive is really bad, right?
Second, we don't realise that death can be sudden. We think death is decades away, and live exactly according to that belief.
And yet you, me, and we all, could die tomorrow. And while the likelihood of that happening isn't very big, it's something that we don't seem to acknowledge at all.
But what would you do if you knew for certain you would die tomorrow? What would you do today?
It's an interesting thought experiment.
And in my life, I find that I'm always chasing the next best thing. "It's going to be so great when I get this job!", "Everything will be even better when we're married!", "Oh man, I can't wait until the weekend!", "I like my business now, but when it's really big, then I'll be actually happy!".
But clearly, living in the future and death aren't a great combination. If we're unlucky, death comes suddenly and will put a harsh end to all our plans and planned happiness.
So we should change the way we think about life and death. And in my view, there are two things we can do.
One, we can think about death. Write about it, discuss it, and treat it not as it's the end of the world, but rather as a life event that we cannot fully plan for. Something more neutral; something that while it may stem people sad at that time, is not something to be currently sad about. Not something negative per se, but rather a next stage in our lives. We don't necessarily need to celebrate death as certain cultures do (think Dia de Los Muertos), but let's try to make it a little bit more light-hearted. Let's break the taboo.
And two, we can try and live more in the present. Suppose that someone passed away recently, and people said the following about her: "We're very sad she passed, but she, she lived life to the fullest!".
Which feelings do you get? And what kind of person do you think about? Probably someone who lives in the present, who lives right now, and doesn't have her head in the future or the past.
So that's my advice to you for the holidays, the end of this year, but above all, right now. Enjoy the present moment — whether you're with family or doing a simple chore like the dishes or hanging up laundry.
And if the table falls silent during Christmas dinner, why not discuss death? ;-)
3. And then some — Daylio
After talking about habit tracking on the blog, I received a couple of tips from readers about other time and habit tracking apps. One of these is Daylio, which I want to share with you today.
Daylio is a mood tracker and micro diary for your phone. The great thing about Daylio is that it works really simple and costs very little time to do.
Once per day you simply fill in your mood (awful, bad, meh, good, rad) and click on the activities that you did that day. That's it.
Over time, the app will discover trends in how you feel, and what makes you feel better or worse. It could for instance point to a correlation between drinking alcohol and how you feel the next day.
Nifty huh? I've just downloaded the app, so I'll use it for some time and report back here in a few weeks.
With that said, I will have a short break, so I wish you very happy holidays and a great ending to the Year 2019!
See you in 2020!
Jochem
P.S.
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