Two questions to ask yourself at noon
Oh, hi friends!
I was thinking yesterday about two -ities.
Security and clarity.
They so often feed into one another, don’t they?
Clarity about your finances—where is your money going? how much do you need?—can lead to seeing a path of financial security. You can’t feel secure if you can’t see where you stand.
Emotional security—feeling steady instead of unmoored, listened to rather than ignored—can lead to a clear-eyed view of who you should be spending time with or where your priorities lie.
So the next time I feel out of sorts (so, perhaps, 3 p.m. today?), I’ll ask myself:
— Do I feel secure? Do I feel in control of my day, my time, my assignments, inbox?
— Are there unanswered questions I can resolve to get clarity? Who can I follow up with, what bills can I pay, what loops can I close?
Hopefully one of these beasts will feed the other. Or I’ll get chomped in the process. No matter. IT’S ALL PROGRESS.
“We all get to choose our life stories, and it’s the choices that define us, not our gifts.”
Jeff Bezos will own all our souls by 2025 (the Amazon CEO has already made $10 billion in 2018) but I like what he says here about leading a life you can be proud of. (~2 min video)
Learning Is Like Burning Calories for Your Brain
Author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean teaches a two-hour Skillshare class about writing creative nonfiction. *brain explodes* *weeping ensues* We are lucky to learn from her.
There's also thousands of classes over at Course Horse, where you can learn Photoshop in a day, or take a French Crash Course for Travelers, or figure out “life skills.” If you resolved to get better at something this year, there ya go.
Bonus Round: What Is Brass Ring Daily?
I curated this week’s recommended reads in the New York Times’ very helpful Smarter Living newsletter. (Subscribe here! You won’t regret it.)
So if that sent you here, welcome! I’ll be hitting your inbox at 7:30 a.m. EST every weekday. Topics include work and careers, writing and editing, job postings that are actually good, productivity, balance, money, Spotify songs, people I admire, and the occasional Porg.
This newsletter hit its one-year anniversary last week, and you can check out the archive if you're on the fence about whether this will bring value to your mornings. (No hard feelings if not! You do you!)
We don’t discuss the news (at all) and I don’t know how to embed GIFs, but I will occasionally reveal my own failures and lessons learned as a writer/editor/playwright/screenwriter/avid reader of self-development books. (More about me here.)
We’re all in this together. Hit reply anytime and tell me what you're excited about in 2018, or let me know if I can help with anything you're working on.
Now go have a great day!
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara