MY TOP 3 READS FOR JUNE

It is mid-July, and I should have released this post sooner, but my schedule has been pretty tight. Combining being a pharmacist with freelancing and having to deal with life can be really draining. But it’s better late than never, right? 🌚

So, guys, I want to make this a monthly series where I share some of my best reads for the month. It could be books or articles, or maybe a movie that changed how I see life. I hope you enjoy it🥰🥰 (P.S forgive my use of constant emojis, I just learned it was a feature in google docs, and I am going a little crazy with it.)

Here are my top three articles for June.

1. The Einstein Principle: Accomplish More By Doing Less by Cal Newport

Yeah, yeah, we don’t want another productivity hack. I get it. But Cal Newport offers valuable advice in this 2007 article. Well, If you are wondering why I am reading an article that old, it actually resurfaced when I was reading a newsletter by Ali Abdaal that linked to an older productivity article, so I began digging around.

Now, this article was focused on how Einstein dedicated himself, hours, and life to a single idea that became his life work. I guess we are all familiar with the popular theory of relativity.

According to sources ( Well, the writer’s sources😂), Einstein spent three years (1912–1915) obsessing with the idea of formalizing general relativity. In fact, it was said his marriage became strained, and his hair turned white from the stress.

Of course, our generation wants soft lives. No one would want to spend years obsessing about a single idea so much that their hair turns gray ( I definitely do not🙃). However, the problem with our generation is that we focus on too many tasks at once and end up achieving almost none. We are so caught up in being busy or at least thought to be “busy” that we spend all our lives working, but when we look back, we actually haven’t had much done.

According to Cal, “We are most productive when we focus on a very small number of projects on which we can devote a large amount of attention.”

If you are anything like me, you have your to-do list and calendar stuffed with so many projects, with every one of them seemingly important. You might want to argue that you don’t have the luxury of focusing on smaller projects. Well, I think so many things might be important, but they do not demand the same urgency. To make progress, we have to decipher what, when, and why a project should be prioritized over another.

Here is what Cal advised us to do.

Divide your projects into three columns: professional, extracurricular, and personal. Fill these columns with MAJOR projects that you are currently working on.

Once you have all these listed, it is time to go on a productivity purge. ( P.S, I had a thought about The purge: Anarchy when I first saw this😅 )

Okay, this is how the productivity purge works. First, select the one or two important projects in each column that seem like they would yield the biggest ROI (return on investment )on your time. Next, you identify the projects from these lists that do not need you to work on it right away and cross them off. Finally, for the select few, you dedicate a week or two or maybe more to finalizing these tasks. During this time, resist the urge to take on any new project. Cal suggests you go at least one month without starting any new project and instead just focus with an “Einsteinian intensity” on the project selected.

Phew, that was long. I promise to get straight to the point next time☹️)

2. The Survival Instinct of Money by Lawrence Yeo

Three years ago, I was always scared to talk or think about money. It totally stressed me out. Maybe you can relate to this fear if you are or have been broke. The idea of not knowing where your next funds will come from can send you into a panic attack.

According to Lawrence, “money evokes fear because it triggers our sense of survival.”

But here is the funny thing, this fear doesn’t go away when you have more money. Instead, It gets worse. Take me, for example. I am 10x better than where I used to be in my finances 3 years ago. If I am being honest, all my life — but the fear of money still paralyzes me. It is even worse now that I have acclimatized to a certain freedom money brings.

Every day, I wake up, and I go over different possibilities. What if I don’t get more clients as I used to? What happens If I begin to suck as a writer and no one is willing to pay me? What would I do if I earned lower than I currently do?

Man, I can’t begin to tell you how awful it feels. The worst part is the more you climb in your earnings, the more the last earnings now seem insufficient.

Reading Lawrence’s article made me feel not alone. According to Lawrence, even if our basic necessities are covered, having enough money doesn’t alleviate the fear money brings for two reasons

• Our attachment to preservation
• Our tendency to use growth as a proxy for survival

Lawrence believes that when it comes to money, the narrative that drives us is “preserving what we already have.” In fact, “The more money you have, the more you have to preserve. And the more you have to preserve, the more fear that surrounds its potential loss”.

At this point, You may be thinking, aren’t we better off without money if we have to put so much pressure on ourselves the more we have it? The truth is, may be or maybe not. The answer is relative. Maybe you would say being contented may save us from such fear. Yes, it may. But, there is a lot more to it. I, for example, have tasted a bit of the freedom money brings. Asking me to give up this new life will be too much. But here is what I took away from Lawrence’s article: I needed to reframe my sense of survival to a more objective viewpoint. For example, I had a client that stressed me out, and the rest of the job cost $400. A year ago, I would not leave such an amount on the table. However, understanding that not taking this money won’t leave me broke or penniless made it easier to move on. For me, the feeling of Peace was worth more than the money I could make from the job.

Here is some advice from Lawrence “if you regularly decouple psychological angst from the reality of biological safety, then that will go a long way in managing the survival instinct of money.”

For me identifying that having $400 less in hand doesn’t mean I was going bankrupt helped me make a better decision. So take time to reflect on your decisions even when the fear of missing out on making more money seems to cripple you.

3. Love has no gain or Loss By Lawrence Yeo.

Sue me, but I love Lawrence, and you should too.

Okay, I don’t know why this made it to my top list. I should have gone with the article from the accidental medical writer, but this article made me pause and reflect.

It was about the concept of love and dependency. If we are honest, we would admit that sometimes we confuse the two to be one and the same. I remember telling one guy that he didn’t make me happy anymore, like it was his duty to do that. I don’t know so much about love, likeness, and romantic relationships except in books and movies ( yeah, that’s a little weird, I know). Having limited knowledge, I tie my feelings to how another person makes me feel.

I mean, I thought that’s the whole concept of love: having someone who is there for you and makes life a little better. But Lawrence had to burst my bubble. According to Lawrence, this kind of thought is rooted in selfishness. It is effectively saying, “Hey, I need you for the burst of happiness you bring to my life, and it’s that need that makes you important.”

“True love is cultivated through equanimity. When it is not contingent upon outcomes or expectations of anyone’s needs being satisfied.” — Lawrence

Well, I still don’t know how I feel about this, but I am still thinking about it. My whole life, things have had to be transactional and beneficial. Making love to be just a form of connection where there is no gain or loss and my partner is just enough seems very foreign to me. Maybe I still have a lot to learn about the nuances of love and relationships.

Hmmph, here we are. Hope you enjoyed my June reads. I hope to share more diverse articles in July.

P. S here is what I am currently pondering.

I have been studying the book of Ecclesiastes, and this verse caught my attention:

“Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies — so the living should take this to heart”.

(Ecclesiastes 7:2)

I have been thinking more about death lately. Not because I want to die soon but because I want to be conscious of living and how I spend my time before my inevitable end.

Do you think about death? Does it fill you with anxiety, or does it fuel your wanting to live life to the fullest? After all, life, they say, is as inevitable as death.

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