042 | ❌ Saying no, the wisdom of the Smiths and How to read more
Happy Tuesday,
Here’s week 3 of 3 things you need to know, 2 recommendations and a useful quote. Plus a bonus at the end!
💭 Three things you need to know:
❌ Saying no (without any guilt)
We are all overcommitted, and if you’re anything like me, you hate to let people down. But by saying yes to everything, we spread ourselves too thin. So it’s either: let someone down, or overcommit.
It doesn’t have to always feel like this. In Greg McKeown’s Essentialism, he reminds us that saying no to somebody isn’t personal.
When people ask us to do something, we can confuse the request with our relationship with them. Sometimes they seem so inter-connected, we forget that denying the request is not the same as denying the person.
If we say yes to people please, all we end up doing is letting our lives be managed for us.
Only once we separate the decision from the relationship can we make a clear decision and then separately find the courage and compassion to communicate it.
A firm, transparent ‘No’ will always be preferred to a half-arsed ‘Go on then’.
🗣 The wise words of Will Smith and co
Here are some quotes that convey a useful life lesson from Will Smith’s memoir, Will.
🔭 Never argue with a fool, because from a distance you can't tell who's who.
🪜 ”Jus’ remember, Lover Boy,” she said, “be nice to everybody you pass on your way up, coz you just might have to pass them again on your way down.” This was from his wise old Aunt Gigi.
🤐 Speak only when it improves on silence - “Mom-Mom is quiet and reserved; not because she's shy or intimidated, but because she "only speaks when it improves on silence." She loves words and always chooses them carefully-she speaks with an academic sophistication.”
👥 “Confucius had it right: It’s nearly impossible for the quality of your life to be higher than the quality of your friends.”
📚 How to read more books: The HLN Method
I’m currently reading 3 books at a time, which seems like a lot, but hear me out.
They are split into [Heavy] - [Light] - [Non-fiction], with one of them being an audiobook.
Heavy is the book that I read during the day, when I’m awake and attentive. On the tube, travelling, that sort of thing. At the moment it’s Essentialism. These are the books I try to learn from, take notes, highlight, come back to.
Light is the book I read before bed. This is always a page turner - an easy reading fiction to help me nod off. It’s always easy to pick back up, the plot is simple enough so I can always fall back into it, and it’s a great way to unwind. I’m currently reading *Anxious People.*
Non-fiction is basically anything else. Usually this is the audiobook, so it can’t be too heavy. It also shouldn’t be another fiction, because tracking two plots at the same time is for sociopaths. Ideally it’s a book I’m not trying to learn from, so:
Memoir
Comedy
Nature
Space
Currently it’s Will.
Why not read the same book all the time? Good question.
I don’t want to read a heavy self help book before bed because I won’t remember it, and I don’t think they work well as an audiobook. I like to have an audiobook on the go as it gives me a chance to ‘read’ on the go. So, this is a pretty good system so far.
✅ Two Recommendations:
📸 2021 Drone Photography Awards (link)
These speak for themselves.
💽 New Bonobo album - Fragments
Been a few months in the waiting for this one - with some interesting features from O’Flynn and Jordan Rakei.
💬 And finally, one quote
The truth, of course, is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.
— Fredrik Blackman, Anxious People
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