Category: Everything else

Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” was one of the more practical and useful happiness/life advice books I’ve read in a while. A few reflections:

(1) Mark’s liberal use of profanity to make his point made me chuckle at various points. It is thus fitting that the biggest lesson I took away from the book was a point he made early on in the book (paraphrased) – We all walk around giving too many f*cks. We let far too many things bother us – none of this is going to matter when we look back years from now. Leading a good life is about learning to give a f*ck about the few things that matter.

I’ve thought about this a lot over the past weeks since reading the book. Even today, I faced an incident that I might have reacted to. But “don’t give too many f*cks about random things” came right to mind. I smiled and moved on.

(2) “Often, the only difference between a problem being perceived as painful or powerful is whether we feel we chose it. With great responsibility comes great power.”

With great responsibility comes great power is a wonderful flip of the famous Spiderman quote “with great power comes great responsibility.”

(3) “Wanting positive experience is a negative experience. Accepting negative experience is a positive experience.”

As I reflected on a sub-par first half of this year during my mid-year break, I realized that I’d let far too many things get to me. I’d lost perspective and equanimity over an uncharacteristically long stretch. So, Mark’s wisdom came at a time when I was just working out how to take action on that realization.

It is short and impactful – a book I’ll be recommending.

I went to our neighborhood “Sports Basement” the other day with our bikes. I wanted to check if they needed a tune up.

These tune ups can be expensive services in most bike shops and it had been a while since our last one. So I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The guy at the bike section checked all four and said they’re all in good shape. No tune up necessary.

He could just as easily have done something on the margin and charged us. I would have been none the wiser.

But, by deferring that bit of business in the short term, he immediately won my trust. I won’t be going anywhere but sports basement for any future tune ups.

Many stores write up values and mission statements. I’m sure Sports Basement has something about customer service or trust. Like every other competitor.

But values are only values when they cost you money. They only make it down from the wall to the office floor when we’re willing to trade-off short-term gain.

“The main theme of human history is that we become steadily more specialized in what we produce, and steadily more diversified in what we consume: we move away from precarious self-sufficiency to safer mutual interdependence.” | Matt Ridley in How Innovation Works

I’ve often pondered about the gradual increase in the amount of specialization in our society. I think of it every time I marvel at a complex gadget or some amazing piece of infrastructure.

I thought this note on specialization and the move from “precarious self-sufficiency to safer mutual interdependence” was well put.

It resonated.

A good personal finance hygiene habit is to do a recurring check on all recurring payments/subscriptions.

Thanks to the recurring nature of these payments, there are often optimization opportunities that add up to significant savings over the long run.

And, every once a while, these checks help us evaluate if we’re still getting the value we signed up for. No point optimizing something that shouldn’t be part of the mix in the first place.

A biker recently vandalized my left rearview mirror recently and sped away. I’d initially thought it was a case of hit and run. But, no, the video showed him drive close and punch the mirror before he sped away.

The video also confirmed he’d turned his plates around so he couldn’t be identified. He knew what he was doing.

This brings some unnecessary hassle with it. The covering and a few of the wires are gone and will need to be fixed.

But I came away feeling lucky. The mirror didn’t break – so I’m still able to drive the car while I schedule a fix.

It could have been worse.

This is also when my very useful bigger accident superstition kicks in to reframe this random incident as a gift that prevented something worse from happening.

A good reminder that we don’t usually control what happens to us… but we can control how we respond. And, sometimes, a bit of reframing goes a long way to ensure we’re responding from wholeness vs. our wounds.

As we march toward a world where energy is both abundant and sustainable, we’re still in the early days of identifying win-win methods of deployment. One such method is “Agri-PV.” Here’s the problem statement – land is typically used exclusively for crops or for solar panels.

However, it is possible to merge the two with solar panel shaded agriculture. It can provide temperature regulation and optimize water usage while providing electricity for the farmer.

This, of course, works differently based on the type of crop. So, the type of Agri-PV system depends on how much shade/sunlight the crop needs.

As you can see from this study in Central Europe, it works better for berries and fruits (which yield more with more shade) while also providing the additional benefits of solar power.

I think of these kinds of systems every time I drive past the California central valley. When I look at the uncovered canals bathed in sunlight, I think of the amount of water that is lost in the system to evaporation. Covering these canals with solar PVs (a.k.a. “Project Nexus“) would reduce the water loss for farmers while providing electricity for the same communities at scale.

Agri-PV and Project Nexus are great examples of the experimentation needed as we make this energy transition. I’m excited for all that lies ahead.

“Wanting positive experience is a negative experience. Accepting negative experience is a positive experience.”

I thought this was well put.

H/T: Mark Manson

“The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. I’m not sure it’ll ever be able to figure itself out. Everything else maybe, from the atom to the universe, everything except itself.” – from the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956 film

This made me chuckle. It is why self-awareness is hard.

Often, the only difference between a problem being perceived as painful or powerful is whether we feel we chose it.

With great responsibility comes great power.

H/T – Mark Manson

We can’t want the reward without also wanting the struggle.