Oh, hi friends!
I had a lunch last week that stopped me in my tracks. Well, that cliche’s not accurate since we were sitting—but you could say it stopped my brain on the track it was barreling down.
My wise and brilliant friend Tari and I were eating meatball heroes—as one does on a Thursday—and she told me about advice she had received a few years ago.
Isn’t it easy to think about what you want?
A job that pays twice as much for half as much work…
A New York Times bestseller…
A brownstone in Brooklyn…
A perfect-for-you partner…
A Rolls Royce…
An EGOT…
You could run down this kind of list for hours.
You can want and want and maybe even plan a little and make some progress.
But the bigger question to ask is: What are you willing to do?
What are you willing to do?
And that’s where the compromise begins.
I like this framing because it’s not saying other people did it X way and so you also have to sacrifice X to get Y and Z. This puts it in terms that give you the options and agency.
And sometimes it’s OK to want something but also not be willing to make moves to achieve it. You’re not willing. That’s OK. You can still exist in a state of desire.
But when you want something—and you’re willing to do the things you need to do? That seems like a recipe for…something new.
So what do you want?
And what are you willing to do?
Whatcha architecting this week?
“The amount of love and care you put into a project is always apparent. Even if people are not conscious of it, they can sense when you have paid attention to every little detail.”
Isn’t this true? When you cut corners, you know. But so does everyone else. Thanks as always to Jocelyn K. Glei for cutting to the heart of creativity vs. efficiency. Here's one more quote I loved:
“Remarkable creative projects don’t come from efficiency. If anything, they come from inefficiency. From doggedly ignoring all the rules and saying I am going to devote an ungodly amount of time to this thing that no one else thinks is important but that I think is important.”
It’s Still Cold. It's Time to Read Good Books.
Oh, hi! It's a snow day here in New York and you know what sounds ideal? Curling up and reading until tomorrow. I've got four excellent recs for you that happen to be written by four talented friends!
The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz (who I met through our friend Alison Peters!) was just released last week (and Mila Kunis has already snapped up the TV rights!). A thriller set in the mid-2000s in Brooklyn, it's a page-turner and a nail biter in the best way.
How much do you really know someone? Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellin (who I met in my travel writing days!) tells her own story of a romance gone very wrong, and other tales of people who were, well, duped. Like cons? You'll like this.
Ever dreamed of retiring early and sailing around the world? Thought so. Well, after 20 years in the Army, Julie Bradley (who I met through this newsletter!) and her husband actually did it! Her captivating book Escape From the Ordinary chronicles traveling from the Galapagos Islands to Niue and dozens more countries. For the adventurous souls among us (that's you).
Finally, do you want a deep dive into women who revolutionized the entertainment industry? Renegade Women in Film and TV by Elizabeth Weitzman (who I met through this newsletter!) is not only gorgeous (those illustrations!) but informative and inspiring, full of interviews with people like Barbra Streisand and Rita Moreno. (And a great gift, too—I got it for my mom’s birthday last month.)
Happy reading, my friends.
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara