Where do you put the tired?
Welcome to another Lazy Sunday.
Every week as I write this newsletter I am reminded of this quote from Hugh Laurie.
“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”
Here’s the “now”:
Grow
What is personal growth really?
I think as you get older and sculpt yourself, you realize it’s simple.
Personal growth is managing your emotional breakdowns.
The people I admire are great at listening to their emotions. They can take a step back and ask: Is this emotion useful?
Sometimes, emotions provide you with very useful information. They tell you to take a break, to be compassionate, to take time for self-care.
Other times emotional breakdowns are a sign that you are reaching outside your comfort zone. They are showing you that you are getting to the good stuff. That you’re growing.
I wear a phoenix necklace to remind myself of this. A phoenix is a bird that dies by burning up and then is reborn again from the ashes.
“You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?” - Friedrich Nietzsche
To become new, old parts of you must die. These are parts you don’t need anymore.
I logically know this. But I don’t always intuitively know.
So this quarantine period has been a great practice for me. It gives me many opportunities to figure out when I must soothe and when I must push harder.
And as I try to be ambitious in my typical way, I’m left with trying to figure out how to manage my emotional breakdowns. I know I’m growing and learning, but it’s painfully killing the old you.
Although often very rewarding and enjoyable, personal growth can also be difficult and tiring.
In the end, I am left with this great quote from Seth Godin
“In a long-distance race, everyone gets tired. The winner is the runner who figures out where to put the tired, figures out how to store it away until after the race is over.” - Seth Godin
That’s what I’m ultimately trying to figure out.
Where do I put the tired?
Wonder
A lot of best work is a kind of self-therapy. Maybe it sounds indulgent, but this video essay is one of my favorite things I’ve made.
Maybe it’s too introspective or philosophical. But it contains something that I return to over and over again. Maybe you can tell me what that “thing” is.
Create
This last Kendrick Lamar series was supposed to be about how to be an innovative artist.
And I realized I couldn’t really write about it! I’m still working on my fundamentals. I think this piece is going to be a work in progress as I begin to figure it out.
Here it is: How to be a really innovative artist
My favorite part from it
“Everybody is attracted to complexity. If you want to be innovative, find the contradictions within yourself. We all contain paradoxes. It’s the paradoxes that are the interesting stuff. It’s the paradoxes that make you, you.”
And as I learn more, I’ll write more.
Here’s a comic that I came across this week that made me smile.
I hope your next week is spectacular.
Talk to you soon,
Pranav