Week Fifty-seven! It has been an especially boring week for me. I’ve been doing perfectly fine on all my systems, no derailments or derailment-adjacent scares, and also nothing really feeling all too easy.
I’m mostly just taking time to do some reflecting–I have a blog post due soon that lines up with my annual birthday review, an idea I’ve borrowed from Buster Benson. I usually (attempt) to pick out a central theme to attempt to base my life around for that subsequent year, although I allow myself to get rather abstract with the idea.
This year, I have two central and contradicting ideas: 1) Apply Overwhelming Force, and 2) Embrace the Cozy.
As I’ve written before, I still feel as though there is so much more that I could be doing, so much more that I ought to be doing. But at the same time, I recognize how difficult and sometimes unbearable the last year has been, and figuring out how to incorporate more coziness in my life could be both important and fun.
Of course, this is largely due to COVID-19–I had thought just a few weeks prior to this that things were look up regarding the pandemic, however this is no longer the case. Canada is likely to exceed the U.S. infection rate in the coming days, and our vaccines per capita have been far lower. We are resuming lockdown as another third wave hits my local region.
Of course none of this has to do with Beeminder, so my apologies for being so off-topic. I will add though that having the daily habits of /meditation and /prayer have really helped me deal with my anxiety–and perhaps I need to figure out how to Beemind a method to help my energy levels so I can get more done throughout the day. 🤔
Katy Milkman, from that podcast, has a decent newsletter. The last one (If the Finish Line Is in Sight, Then So What? — Katy Milkman 2) had that Freakonomics interview in it, as well as some other things including a good discussion of the Goal Gradient Hypothesis. –@adamwolf
Thanks for the recommendation, I subscribed! (Also, @narthur mentioned Mailbrew in the discord server which is really cool as well.)