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Here’s one to keep in your pocket for the right moment.

Create a list of everything that’s stressing you out.

Look at them and label them as ‘real’ or ‘imagined’.

How much time could you get back by spending less time on the imagined?

I can’t think of a single time—in my own experience, or in the experience of others—where staying calm has led to a worse outcome.

On the other hand, frustration, anger, and hostility almost always make things worse.

Note: This post is part of a weekly series called ‘Seneca Sundays’. Each week, I reflect on one of Seneca’s ‘Moral Letters to Lucilius’, and summarise the most practical and useful principles to share with you.

This letter is about influence. Seneca says all experience rubs off on us in some way—people, events, jobs. So it’s our duty to put ourselves in a place, and surround ourselves with people, who are going to make us better.

1. Everything influences us

“I never bring back home the same character that I took abroad with me. The calm within me is disturbed; some of the foes that I have beaten return again… the friend who lives in luxury can soften us, the rich neighbour can make us jealous, the slanderous companion can rub some of their rust off on us.”

We may not like to admit it, but everything influences us.

Once we’re aware of this inevitable influence, we can make changes to increase the good, and minimise the bad.

2. Better. Mutual. Teach.

Spend time with people who make you better.

Make sure it’s mutual—ensuring your actions can inspire them too.

And then teach others, because that’s how we solidify our learning.

3. Don’t worry if your learning is private, or if your audience is small

Seneca ends the letter by encouraging Lucilius that his study is not a wasted effort.

“The following was nobly spoken by one someone or other, for it is doubtful who the author was; they asked him what was the object of all this study applied to an art that would reach but very few. He replied: ‘I am content with few, content with one, content with none at all.’”

That’s what the New York Times said about human flight in 1903.

And they didn’t choose 1 million years as a sarcastic hyperbole.

They meant it.

Two months later, the Wright Brothers were airborne.

It made me chuckle and think of a Nassim Taleb saying: if journalists can really predict the future, why aren’t they all rich?

‘His’ and ‘Her’ fans.

My friend, Russell, shared this great blog post the other day in his weekly newsletter.

It’s all about using the human voice, not the corporate voice.

Have you ever found yourself looking at bunch of corporate jargon that’s either 1) really hard to understand, or 2) just doesn’t make sense in the first place?

A lot of people feel the pressure to sound intelligent, or to write and say things in “the right way”—whatever that means.

But it’s much more important to be clear, and to be understood.

That’s the goal of writing.

That’s the goal of the human voice.

“If there’s a fire you’re trying to douse, you can’t put it out from inside the house,” is my favourite lyric from the musical Hamilton.

It jumped out at me when I was going through a particularly tough patch at work a few years ago.

In hindsight, I was working on problems that weren’t that important—at least not important enough to lose my mental health over. But I got into a habit of thinking “a few more hours” will solve the problem.

“A few more hours” turned into “a few more weeks,” and I came dangerously close to burning out and needing to take extended time off work.

In the thick of it, we can press on.

But sometimes we just need a break.

A moment to pause, rest, and get out of the house.

My joints ache.

My head feels heavy.

I’ve got a high temperature.

But it’s the vaccine doing its job.

I’ve never been so happy whilst feeling unwell.

The sun is fierce. The back of my neck is searing in that I-forgot-the-sunblock kind of way. I arrived at 07:30 this morning for the 9am walk-ins. I’m 15th in line for the Moderna Vaccine.

By 08:30, there are hundreds of people in line, and the queue is round multiple blocks.

The line is long because there are only a few vaccination sites in London that offer Moderna. AstraZeneca and Pfizer are much easier to come by.

I’m grateful for friends who told me about this walk in centre being open today, and for the tip to arrive early. Thanks, Naomi and Andrew! If it wasn’t for them, I’d need to drive 1.5 hours to another clinic later in the week.

And I’m grateful that after 18 months of this pandemic, I’m on the cusp of getting my 2nd dose.

See you on the other side!

Note: This post is part of a weekly series called ‘Seneca Sundays’. Each week, I reflect on one of Seneca’s ‘Moral Letters to Lucilius’, and summarise the most practical and useful principles to share with you.

Letter #1 is a great introduction to Seneca’s Moral Letters. It’s short, easy to digest, and wholly concerned with the one thing we own: the little time we’re given.

1. Show me someone who truly values their time

I’m guilty of letting most days pass without thinking about their unique worth and role in the broader narrative of my life.

I forget that I’m “dying daily… and that whatever years have passed are already in death’s hands.”

We own nothing except the little time we’ve been given, and the energy we have to act during that time.

Although it feels cliche, Seneca’s instruction to Lucilius is still just as relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago: “hold every hour in your grasp… gather and save your time… set yourself free for your own sake.”

2. Much of time is lost unconsciously

We don’t deliberately waste our time.

However, we often lose time due to carelessness, procrastination, or by simply not valuing it appropriately.

For example, we’re often quick to put a price on material possessions, but we hardly hesitate when someone asks for some of our time. “And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay,” says Seneca.

3. Don’t wait til the bottom of the cask

“I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile.”

I once heard an analogy that we each have an 100-year-sized water tank. It’s a large, opaque tank, and we get to choose when, how much, and for what, we use the water inside.

The catch is the amount of water in our tank is unknown, and there’s no way of finding out how much we have left.

Some people use their water like it’ll never run out. Some people conserve their water to the point they forget to live.

Let’s not wait until the water has run out before we start to appreciate it.

I love Our World In Data. They’re a scientific, online publication that uses data to communicate large, global problems in easy to understand ways.

Isn’t this chart insane?

The pink line shows global population growth rate. The green area shows global population. For 200 years the population growth rate has been consistently positive, and the human population has increased every single year without fail.

The UN is predicting that by 2100, the global population rate will fall to 0.1%, and we’ll have hit a “terminal velocity” of sorts at almost 11 billion people on Earth. This will mean that in the space of 250 years, we will have seen a 10x increase in the size of the world’s population—up from only 600 million in 1700 (or less than half of India’s population today!).

We’re just shy of 8 billion humans on the planet today, so I find it hard to imagine 11 billion. Regardless, it’s fascinating to pause, look at the numbers, and to see where we’re headed.

The 21st Century is going to be like no other.

As I fast approach 2 years of daily writing, I’d love to get some feedback from you!

What type of posts do you enjoy most?

What type of posts make you scrunch your face and skip?

What keeps you reading?

What would make this blog better?

I love to hear your ideas, opinions, and suggestions as I’ll start folding them into upcoming posts.

Thank you for going on this journey with me!

When Warren Buffett’s long time business partner, Charlie Munger, ran a law firm in the 1960s, he used to say, “It’s the work on your desk… it’s the work on your desk. Do well with what you have, and more will follow.”

I love this.

A good plan is rarely made when we’re focused only on chasing the next big thing.

After all, the next big thing isn’t always the next best thing.

There are two rules—that when used properly and together—can have an immense positive impact on our work day, and our work-life balance.

1. Parkinson’s Law
2. The 80/20 Rule

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available.

Ever wondered why we finish that document or presentation at the last minute regardless of how long we had for the task?

The 80/20 rule states that 20% of the inputs determine 80% of the outputs.

What would happen if you only worked on the 20% of activities that caused 80% of the results?

What if we all operated like this?

I don’t look at my blog’s statistics very often, maybe once every few months.

But I got curious: what would happen if I just followed the data? What if I looked at the stats, and solely optimised to increase views and readership?

The answer: this blog would be a shrine to Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

‘Write like an Amazonian’ and ‘Type 1 and Type 2 Decisions’ have collectively had more than 25x the number of views than the 3rd most-viewed post.

I suspect this is primarily down to my posts lucking out on SEO; hitting a lot of the key words when people search for these terms.

All of this to say: if I was optimising this blog based on the data, it’s focus, sound, and feel would be very different.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to become an Amazon-focused blog. But it is a lesson in carefully selecting the inputs for our optimisation decisions.

Even if the data looks promising, it could be sending you, your writing, your service, or your product in a direction you never intended it to go.