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Five Neat Things: Making Progress

  1. The most straightforward explanation I’ve read about what’s gone on with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

  2. Cait and Carrie’s podcast, straightforwardly titled “Honest Money Conversations“, is one of my favorites. One of their latest episodes on consuming mindfully reminded me that it's impossible to stay up to date on well, everything. I've tried to cut back the amount I was saving and reading online the past few weeks, which explains why this post is "late" (I told myself I would do a "neat things" post every week).

  3. On that note, The Very Important Longread Everyone is Talking About.

  4. This was part of the same Hurry Slowly podcast I mentioned last week, but I can’t stop thinking about Hofstadter’s Law:

    “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.”

    Which reminds me of habits. I finally have a meditation practice down, which I struggled with for all of 2017. The latest habit I’ve been trying to form has been to drink 20oz of water upon waking up. Part of it is remembering to put the bottle of water on my nightstand the night before. Part of it is making sure I don’t get stuck looking at my phone for the first 15 minutes of my day. But I’ve gotten progressively better at doing this. I have to remind myself that it always takes a while to make something stick, usually longer than you think.

  5. Last week I wrapped up David Chang’s new series on Netflix, “Ugly Delicious”. In one of the episodes, Dave chats with actress Gillian Jacobs about what it was like starting out in the restaurant and acting industries, respectively.

    GJ [on acting]: “…when you first start, its completely overwhelming, you’re fucking up all the time, you’re getting yelled at, and then at a certain point maybe you can go on autopilot…”

    DC [on being a chef]: “…you can, and thats where you get into trouble, if you’re not nervous or nauseous every day, then you’re going to regress.”

    Their conversation really stuck with me this past week, and can be applied to how it feels to start, or restart, anything you’re passionate about. More on the series here.