musings
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Pear is ripe
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1 min read
“When the pear is ripe, it will fall from the tree,” they say. What they don’t tell you is to catch and eat the pear right then and there. Success is a consequence of timing. Yet, maximizing the perfect moment seems to be a game of luck. All you can hope for is being in…
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Numb to continual uncertainty
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1 min read
Uncertainty begs for attention. Anxiety thrives off inaction. Born naked, we get sucked into the vortex of other people’s expectations. Instead, we must learn how to follow our intuition and embrace the unknown. “Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.” Tim Ferriss There’s nothing wrong with abstraction. The goal should be to resolve the tension…
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Turning problems into opportunities
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1 min read
Opportunities and problems go together, often masked as one of the same. It’s your perspective that determines how well you exploit this dialectic. It’s always easier to play the role of a pessimist. Bad thoughts are typically stickier than good ones. Optimism is harder to produce. However, when you look at your challenges with a…
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The power of choice
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1 min read
Choice rattles decision-making. People don’t like choice, they flinch. They’d rather someone else stear their lives for them. But given no choice, we’d lack all creativity. Templates help streamline choice. College is a template for starting a career. Doctors have no choice but to attend medical school if they want to sustain the profession. Some…
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Make culture, don’t just consume it
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1 min read
Consumption is a conduit to creativity. Reading and curation inspire us to reproduce our thoughts and ideas to others. The problem is, most people eat the news for entertainment’s sake. Scrolling through Facebook and Instagram are passive experiences, doing more to keep us in our seat rather than encouraging us to get out of it.…
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Doing more begets more productivity
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1 min read
Busy people get more done. Having multiple priorities creates a state of flow. Hesitation is a preventative form of worry. The chronic overthinker pays the toll of inertia and then frets about the lack of time to get things done. The most productive days are those in which we go immediately into action, en medias…
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More than just a pipe dream
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1 min read
Dreams come and go but leave the loftiest impressions. How is it that something can leave such a big imprint but rarely create a reality of the same intensity? Accruing likes are rarely a good barometer of progress. The only validation of advancement is the grade you give yourself behind closed doors. Imagination is one…
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Seeking ignorance amid uncertainty
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1 min read
Curiosity is a powerful tool. It makes us question our surroundings and compels us to ask why things work the way they do. It kicks the mind into exploration. But the addition of courage takes curiosity a step further; it tries to fill the void through hands-on experimentation. These small tests are fuel for failure in…
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Work x “Work”
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1 min read
There are two types of work: Work that you do for fun Work that pays the bills The first is sexy and fuels your creativity. These are typically side projects that you wish would one day turn into a long-term job that pays the bills. The second type of work is the one you do…
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The young/old dynamic
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1 min read
Younger people are generally more obsessed and driven. Older folks are generally more accepting of the status quo, albeit through jadedness rather than experience. The juniors depend on the adults to help guide them through operational jungles. The seniors lean on younger folks to remain naive and use their lofty dreams to gather raw material.…
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Create your own luck
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1 min read
Luck is magic. But magic tricks take preparation. There’s a lot of work into making it look easy. It’s no surprise that the best things happen to people that are ready to welcome and execute opportunities. If you’ve been lucky, you know immediately or not whether you deserve it. Even the meek recognize a moment…
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Back of the envelope…for starters ✍️✉️
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2 min read
It doesn’t matter where or how an idea emerges. What matters is that the concept exists somewhere on paper, a napkin, an envelope, a Tweet, or a blog post. We can’t begin to assess and dissect our thoughts unless we can see its basic framework and bones visually. I’m not writing it down to remember…