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Is Life Futile?
A few weeks ago I was in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s a really nice town on the ocean with quaint red brick buildings and lots of trees. It’s also full of shops selling jokey witch knick-knacks, cashing in on the Salem witch trials. The witch trials were three hundred years ago, a mere instant in the…
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Thinking Ahead and Accepting Discomfort
Today was a long day. I had to have a difficult conversation unexpectedly, I had a long flight, a train ride, and when I arrived at my RV, I was locked out. By the time the locksmith got there, I had already tried squeezing through a tiny window in the RV, so I was covered…
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The Silver Lining in Taking Breaks from Work
A big reason that I work seven days a week is to keep momentum going. I know that any day I take off will set me back not only the productivity I would have gotten on that one day, but also the additional time it takes me to catch up mentally to where I left…
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How to Use Self Talk to Reinforce Good Habits
There’s that cliche, “If you think you can’t, you can’t,” or something like that. The idea is that if you decide that you’re not going to be able to do something, you’ll self-sabotage and be unable to do it even if you have the inherent skill or resources. That’s true, but it’s only the tip…
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Thank You
It’s funny how sometimes our biggest faults are invisible to us. When I first heard from a girlfriend that I didn’t express enough appreciation for her, I thought she was overly sensitive. When just about every girlfriend since her said the same thing, I realized it was indeed a fault. I’m single now, but there’s…
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When You Go Off the Rails, Only Go a Little
As imperfect humans constantly trying to stick new habits, we’re all familiar with the concept of falling off the rails. It happens to everyone, sometimes as a conscious decision, sometimes through neglect, and sometimes through defeat. You decide to run every day for a month, nail it for a week straight, and then you just…
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Twice, Then Stop
On our Japan trip this year, lots of people took turns sharing their skills with others. Sebastian gave an awesome talk on Sengoku Japan (AT Osaka Castle, no less), Nick Gray gave one of his signature tours at Tokyo National Museum, and Brian and Leo led a meditation session at the Kinezuka tea farm in…
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Have Less Acquaintances, More Friends
For the past year or so I’ve made an effort not to socialize. Sounds weird, but I figured that the only way I could really see just how much I could focus on SETT would be to cut out everything, even things that seemed somewhat important. If really good friends invited me to something that…
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Things Shouldn’t Always Work
Last night as I brushed my teeth, I had a great idea for a new logo for SETT– maybe I could contort the ends of the S in such that the negative space would create two speech bubbles, I thought. I had just shut my computer down for the night, so I had to wait…
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The Basics
A long time ago I read about how Michael Jordan practiced. Despite being creative on the court, almost all of his practice was the basics. Free throws, three pointers, dribbling. I figured that if it was good enough for MJ, it was good enough for me, and so I’ve always tried to focus on the…
