When you prepare a home cooked meal, chances are, you're following a recipe. It might be a family recipe that's been passed down the generations. Or it might be something you found quick and easy on YouTube or TikTok (like Dalgona Coffee).
Either way you're following a recipe. Which makes sense because you can't possibly come up with a brand new dish every single time you cook. It would take way too long and it's stressful.
I try to approach life in the same way.
For most areas of my life, I'm following a "recipe".
My sense of fashion is pretty standard. My wardrobe is full of monochrome and basic clothes. I'm not doing any experiments that are advancing fashion.
Same goes for my music taste. I have a few Spotify playlists and I occasionally check newly released albums, but I'm not handcrafting beautiful and up-to-date playlists that can fit any occasion.
Of course I'm not saying fashion and music don't deserve experimentation. I'm saying, personally, I've decided to experiment in other areas, at least for now.
Because the more recipes you follow in life, the more likely you can conduct experiments that matter.
What do you think? And what recipes do you follow? And where do you experiment?
Over & Under
Here, I bring up things that are over or undervalued (in my opinion of course).
Overvalued - Perfection
Recently, I’ve spent 30 consecutive days writing and publishing a 250 word Atomic Essay on Twitter. That would not have been possible if I was seeking perfection in every post. I would have spent hours carefully choosing the right word, only for people to read that word in half a second.
Point here is that perfection is overvalued, especially when first starting out. Only high quantity now can achieve high quality later.
Undervalued - Air Conditioning
How nice it is to have cold air magically cool a hot room in a tropical nation. Otherwise, we would all sweat ourselves to sleep.
Weekly Links
Behind the scenes - Whatever a CEO / company says in public has been carefully written, edited, and vetted. Memos don’t get the same treatment. They are rare and can offer a real look behind the scenes. So take a look.
Create Your Own Rituals - Top tennis players have familiar rituals they do before they serve, to help prime them and get them into the right frame of mind. Why can’t we do the same in our own lives? Before we start work and when we end the work day.
That’s all from Incandescent. See you next week!
- Guan Jie