Thank you to everyone who read and commented on last week’s essay about college debt forgiveness. I was hesitant to share those thoughts. I appreciate all of the thoughtful comments I received.
Photo of the Week
Gayle and I finally ticked an item off of our lists this weekend - we visited the Charles W. Brown Planetarium on Ball State’s campus on Friday evening and saw the show, “The Universe Overhead”. It was a live presentation by a doctoral student and was well attended. The show featured a lot of comparisons between the images taken by the Hubble Telescope and the new James Webb Space Telescope. How have you been a tourist your own home town lately?
September is the Other January
If you’ve been a reader here for very long, you know I’m a huge fan of Gretchen Rubin. I initially “met” Gretchen through her book, “The Happiness Project” which I picked up in the San Diego airport during a long, unexpected flight delay several years ago. I barely put the book down from start to finish. I’m also a regular listener to a her podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin which she cohosts with her sister Liz Craft. One of Gretchen’s regular sayings is “September is the Other January”.
I need a little January energy this September. I certainly don’t need freezing rain, wind, snow, and freezing temperatures. That is NOT the kind of energy I’m looking for. (Although, there is a renewal that occurs through the cold and darkness of January which is important for the earth.) I need the energy of a fresh new year - and the natural fresh start that I feel with it. The excited energy that comes when you turn the calendar over to a new year and see 365 days of possibility spread out before you.
I realized this week that the sense of newness I feel each January is also a bit of a faith renewal. Historically, this was one of the only times of the year - even including vacations if I wasn’t on a cruise - where work emails and calls and appointments completely stopped. It was a time when all my time was mostly my own again. And, while I have a lot more of that now, I am still in need of the renewal of faith in myself.
You see, I applied for a job a few weeks ago. I got a first interview and then I got a second interview. That second interview was supposed to be this past Friday afternoon. I say supposed to be because I did something I’ve never done before - I withdrew from consideration for the position.
It’s a good organization that is trying to do really good and important work. That said, it’s not my good and important work. It’s not the work I’m called to do and it’s not going to make the difference in the world that I’m called to make.
So, I handled it with as much respect and authenticity as I could and I received graciousness in response. It’s also a reminder to me that I need to keep renewing my faith in my new business. I need to keep moving forward with my work and helping people in the way that I think the world needs me to do.
How will you capture the energy of September as the other January this year?
Tools, Tips, & Tricks
Bluetooth Speakers in a Light Bulb
I’m a big advocate of smart home tools where they make sense. One of my new favorites is the bluetooth speaker in a light bulb. I’ve now purchased two of them - one for me and one as a gift - and they work really well. They bring reasonable sound - and in most cases the ability to change the color of the light - to an area that’s hard to get sound to otherwise like a bathroom, kitchen, or even an outdoor space. This is the one I have and it works very well with my iPad and my Android phone.
Defeat the Blank Page with Cupcakes
I start most writing projects, including this weekly newsletter, with either an outline or a template. I will sometimes spend some time on the layout of the document before I fill in the actual text of it - and when I do that, I use “Cupcake Ipsum”. The site generates paragraphs of text for you using words of average length and sentences of average structure so that you can easily fill in a template with text to use to fit images and other things around. When you use cupcake ipsum - all the worlds are laced with a little frosting. The template I use for this newsletter each week is filled with Cupcake Ipsum text and it makes me smile every time I look at it.
Readwise Helps You Remember What You Read
I’ve been a longtime reader of Readwise. The service takes highlights from books you read on Kindle, Apple Books, and other digital platforms as well as highlighted text you send the service via email and then it distributes that text back to you in a variety of ways. One of those is a daily email that I get with 10 quotes in it from books I’ve highlighted. Another way is that it sends all of the notes I take to an app like Notion, Evernote or Obsidian - which is where I then turn a lot of it into articles and tweets. Readwise is about to launch their new Reader platform as well so it’s a great time to subscribe to lock in current pricing. It’s one of my favorite services on the Internet to help me get more out of the books I read.
What I Published This Week
Ship30 Series - Planning Personal Learning
I fell off of my personal learning series a bit this week but did still add a couple of additional essays to it. You can access the Index here.
Lifebook Series (now the “Facts of Life” series)
I’ve been hard at work compiling my Facts of Life book. I am officially renaming this project because while someone called it a Lifebook once, I actually prefer the Facts of Life name. As a reminder, as a part of my annual goals, I’m preparing all of this documentation as a part of my goal for this year to have a good death at the end of a long and wonderful life. While that might seem a bit morbid to some, the project is already reaping big dividends and I’m looking forward to continuing to share that project. Here is more about that - Medium and Hive. This week we’re starting to pull together Education and Training Records. Check out the links to learn more and join me in this project.
Automating Your Workflow with Templates
While this is somewhat specific to the notetaking tool Obsidian, I think you can get something from the series even if you are just looking for thoughtful ways to automate with technology. The article turned into a series and you can read it starting here on Medium and as one big piece on Hive. This article series included three videos on YouTube as well.
Getting Ready for the Readwise Reader Public Beta - Add Email Addresses to your account
As I mentioned above in the tips, tricks, and tools section, I’m a lover of readwise. I’m getting some content ready before their new reader goes public. Until that happens, I’m releasing what I can that doesn’t include images of the Reader Beta. This is one of those articles.
What I’m Reading This Week
I’m continuing my reading and listening on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. This week, I finished, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy audio course by Steven C. Hayes. If you’re interested in ACT - I’d start with some other resources - I’ll be putting together a list in a few weeks of resources in order of what I would recommend.
I enjoy reading books on creativity and innovative thinking methods. Gamestorming is a good addition to the library of books I’ve read on this topic.
Diversion
I had another essay in mind for this week called “Getting Out of My Head”. It’s not ready for public consumption yet but it made me go back and re-watch this dance from 2010-ish’s So You Think You Can Dance.
Ways You Can Support Me
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I publish much of my writing on Medium. To read all of the content there, you need to have a subscription which gives you access to the entire library of Medium content. It’s a great place where I start nearly every day. If you want to subscribe, consider doing so through my referral link: https://iwannabemewhenigrowup.medium.com/membership
Subscribe to Readwise
Readwise is an incredible service that takes all of the highlights you take on Kindle, on various web sites, and in so many other places and stores and organizes them for you. It generates a daily (or more often/less often as you prefer) set of highlights for you to review so that you can better remember what you read. Readwise also syncs with all kinds of apps including Evernote, Notion, Obsidian, Roam Research, Log Seq and more. If you’d like an extended 60 day trial, use my link https://readwise.io/kara