Be picky about what you stick to. Persevere in the things that matter, that bring you happiness, and that move you toward your goals. Quit everything else, to free up those resources so you can pursue your goals and stop sticking to things that slow you down. – Annie Duke, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away I recently read a book by Annie Duke, titled Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. It’s a fun read that teaches you how to make decisions about when to quit something. Often, we persist in a pursuit or activity for bad reasons that lead to bad outcomes. Some examples fro ..read more

I consider myself to be a fairly rational and analytical person. This mode of thinking is useful for making many decisions, but not all of them. This is the problem Russ Roberts tackles in his book, Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us. As an economist, Roberts’ default mode it to tackle problems with data and reason. Surely there is a right answer to the toughest problems you face, if only you could think hard enough or research enough information. But what he points out in the book is that there are a certain class of problems or decisions i.e. the important ones, for which ..read more

The medieval farmer simply had no reason to adopt such a bizarre idea in the first place. Workers got up with the sun and slept at dusk, the lengths of their days varying with the seasons. There was no need to think of time as something abstract and separate from life: you milked the cows when they needed milking and harvested the crops when it was harvest time, and anybody who tried to impose an external schedule on any of that—for example, by doing a month’s milking ia single day to get it out of the way, or by trying to make the harvest come sooner—would rightly have been considered a luna ..read more

I’m still reading Henri Nouwen’s account of his time at the monastery and he keeps sharing a bunch of insights that somehow seem super relevant to my life. Nearing the latter half of his stay at the monastery, he is trying to figure out what his life should look like after he leaves. How much time should he allocate to prayer, external commitments, writing, etc. While he has some ideas that he will test, he acknowledges that it will require some experimentation. It seems crucial that I make clear-cut, concrete decisions and stick to them for a prolonged period. Then I should evaluate the ..read more

“Togetherness is easy. It’s relaxing. It flows. It’s what happens when we all stop trying to control each other’s actions and simply let each other be.” – Michaeleen Doucleff, Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Humans. I recently read the fun book, Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Humans. The author, Michaeleen Doucleff, is an NPR reporter and parent to a toddler who spent time with several groups from different traditional cultures, including Mayan, Inuit ..read more

Since I became a dad, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how we can apply ancient wisdom to parenting. When I did my initial experiments, I was in my mid-20s and was not concerned at all with taking care of a tiny human. Recently I’ve been revisiting some of these wisdom traditions to see if there is any advice that would be useful as a father. Turns out, there is! I had the pleasure of joining Rich Bolus on his podcast, The Dad Mindset to share some of my thoughts on the topic so if you’re curious, I recommend listening to the episode. If you’re a parent his other guests also have tons of i ..read more

Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest who built a reputation as spiritual leader, teacher, and writer during his lifetime. During his time as a professor at Yale Divinity School in the 1970s, he spent seven months at a Trappist Monastery, The Abbey of the Genesee, in upstate New York living as a monk. He documented his time there in a diary, which was eventually published as the The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery. I haven’t finished reading it, but a few points jumped out at me: Even ordained Catholic priests who have committed themselves to God feel a need to retreat from ..read more

I attended my cousin’s wedding this weekend in Annapolis and the officiant made the point that while marriage is a noun, in practice it is a verb. “Marriaging” is a more accurate way to discuss the commitment my cousin and his wife were making. It is a lifelong action. This may seem obvious in the context of marriage but it’s true in many domains. Commitments require action to be true commitments. Someone who is committed to fitness but is a couch potato can say he that he wants to get abs all he wants but he is only fooling himself. The converse is also true. The actions you take on a regular ..read more