Anti-efficiency

• Another excellent post from Billy Oppenheimer on ditching the obsession with efficiency. 

From German artist Christoph Niemann:

I really try and savor the inefficiency. I can be efficient with my work day and technology and everything, but one thing you must not – and cannot – be efficient with is creating. Once you start thinking about what works faster or better, you start ruling out mistakes, and that’s really awful. So I really try to be as inefficient as possible.

From humanities professor and author Alan Jacobs:

The whole attitude seems to be: Let me get through this thing I don’t especially enjoy so I can do another thing just like it, which I won’t enjoy either … I say: If you’re trying to get through your work as quickly as you can, then maybe you should see if you can find a different line of work. And if you’re trying to get through your leisure-time reading and watching and listening as quickly as you can, then you definitely do not understand the meaning of leisure and should do a thorough rethink.

Breath

• I have posted about James Nestor’s book Breath. The paperback version just came out, with significant updates. Nestor appeared on the Rich Roll podcast recently. And I also refer people to Tim Ferriss’s podcast episode. It is crazy how little emphasis medicine places on breathing, unless it is deranged enough to land a patient in the clinic/hospital. 

The Excellence Audit

• Michael Easter posted about priorities. He advises to “go all in” on things that matter, and “subtract” those that don’t. Like that story about Warren Buffet where he asks the person to write their top 25 life goals in order of importance. Circle the top 5. The remaining 20 represent your “avoid at all costs” list. Similar to the idea/book Essentialism from Greg McKeown.

1) Go all in

Question 1: If I could only pursue one thing with real depth over the next 30 to 90 days, what would it be, and why would it justify that level of care?

Question 2: Would this still matter to me if no one ever noticed?

Question 3: Does working on this make me feel more alive as I’m doing it?

Question 4: Would success in this goal/area shape who I become, not just what I get?

Question 5: Am I willing to let this take priority over other “important” things for awhile?

2) Subtract the rest

1. What is the single biggest drain on my ability to give this area my all?

2. What am I spending significant resources on (time, energy, money) that produces little or no return?

3. What in my physical environment could I remove to make this easier by default?

4. What’s one clear rule I could set that would solve multiple problems at once?

5. What could I stop for 30 days as an experiment?

Ready to Drink

• Have tried many different kinds of ready to drink protein. But my go-to remains Core Power. Has the cleanest ingredients, no added oils, basically just ultra-filtered milk that you can keep a room temp until you want to drink it. 

• Vanilla is our favorite flavor, but chocolate is solid. They also offer an “Elite” version with 42g of protein – probably not worth the increased price. 

Theo of Golden

• I read fiction mostly when friends or family ask me to. Thanks Brent for giving us this engaging novel that explores deep themes while being effortless to read. Not really a spoiler (other than it being one of my favorite passages later in the book), but I really loved this section from a letter that Theo wrote to another character: 

Speaking of portraits. I heard a lovely homily about “faces” this morning. The pastor offered the opinion that, when we are born, our first instinct – “far deeper than intention” – is to find a face. Our weak and blurry little eyes, wide open but not yet trained to see, search for something, someone, with which to bond. I am inclined to agree with him …

I have a close friend who is an eye doctor and a man of great depth. He holds firmly to the belief that the most important (and formative and effortless) thing a parent can do for a baby is to gaze into his or her face, to hold him or her close and engage the eyes.

Could anything be simpler? Is anything more profound?

Does anything more deeply change parent and child?

I wonder if, like newborn children, we go through our entire lives looking for a face, longing for a particular gaze that calms and fills us, that loves and welcomes us, that recognizes and runs to greet us …

It is an imponderable thought that the Giver of Faces, the face of heaven itself, the face for which every heart yearns, became a wee babe, misty eyed and help-less, looking Himself for the tender face of His mother on the night of the angels.

Quote

What are you so afraid of losing when nothing in this world belongs to you?

– Marcus Aurelius

If you want to turn into that, all you gotta do is nothing

– Doug McGuff, MD