Friday Fun Flier XX
I'm baaaaaaack!!!
Hello hello everyone! I’m back from my week off, feeling re-charged! My teaching year is over, and I am beyond excited to transition to my next phase of life as a writer.
It’s been a crazy year, so I’m planning a crazy trip to make up for it. In July, I’ll be moving to Costa Rica for a few months to study surfing, Spanish, and (if the pandemic allows for it) salsa. I’ve got this idea (based loosely on reading The Body Keeps The Score) of healing from this last year by learning tons of unfamiliar movements. Depending on how visas pan out, I’d like to learn to surf, dance, fight, and attend an acroyoga teacher training. I am beyond excited to get back into the world! You’ll be able to read about all adventures right here on The Well-Lived Life.
Without further ado, here is the 20th (I can’t believe it) Friday Fun Flier!
Quote of the week (this one shook me):
“Don’t start by asking: ‘what is my purpose, what is my passion?’ start by asking: ‘what are the problems that need to be solved? Which ones attract me?’ And take a step towards that. Take one step, and the work will teach you where you need to take the next step.”
-Jacqueline Novogratz (podcast episode that this quote came from included below)
A book that will get you thinking about your personal quests:
The Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau
Have you ever thought of yourself as a person on a personal quest? That’s what Guillebeau encourages us to do in this book, starting with stories of people who have lived their own quests, like:
Pheobe Snetsinger, who set out to see all the world’s birds after a diagnosis of terminal melanoma)
Adam Warner, who decided to complete every item on his wife’s “bucket list” after she died of cancer
And Chris Guillebeau himself, who made it his personal quest to visit every country in the world by age 35, and did it!
After he’s told these fantastic stories, Guillebeau encourages us to live out our own personal quests and includes a guide for creating and following through on your own quest (I’ve got a few in mind now).
The word “quest” is just so much more inviting and satisfying than the word “trip” or “challenge,” isn’t it? This book is worth checking out!
A book that will inspire your creativity and flip your perspective:
Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives by David Eagleman
This is one of the most creative books I’ve read in a long time. Eagleman creates forty short vignettes (the entire book is barely over 100 pages) that give us different perspectives on what the afterlife could be.
What if the afterlife is living every single moment of your life over, but grouped by category (meaning every minute you spent showering, all at once, followed by every minute walking, every minute sleeping, and every second you spent farting, all grouped into long blocks of time?
What if everyone gets into heaven? How do people react?
What if we’re just microbes that make up a small part of the immune system of the entire universe?
I guarantee that this book will give you the chills, and think about how to live a better life in your short time on earth.
Two wildly inspiring podcasts:
A Black Musician Takes on The KKK from A Slight Change of Plans
If you’ve been reading The Well-Lived Life for a while, you know how obsessed I am with Malcolm Gladwell’s podcasting network, Pushkin Industries. Every show I’ve listened to that they’ve created has been a slam dunk.
A Slight Change of Plans is Pushkin’s latest offering, hosted by Maya Shankar, who is a former Obama white house advisor and the current director of behavioral science at Google.
Her new podcast is focused on why and how people change their minds, and it is an absolute treat. The episode that I’ve linked to here features Darryl Davis, who gave the fabulous TED talk “Why I As A Black Man Attend KKK Rallies” a few years ago.
This episode is a deeper dive into his story. Davis has convinced more than 200 misguided people to leave white supremacist groups, and in this inaugural episode, he focuses on teaching us how to humanize the other, and help misguided people change their minds through active listening rather than shouting down. If you’ve got friends, relatives, or other people in your life who express distasteful views, this episode is for you!
A podcast to teach you how best to be of service to the world:
Jacqueline Novagratz on Tim Ferriss
“We’re taught that there are bad people and good people, monsters and angels. And yet the truth of the matter is that monsters and angels live in every single one of us. Monsters are our broken parts. They are our petty fears, our insecurities, the grievances that grow.”
Jacquelin Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen, an organization based around the idea of creating grassroots projects and investing in people around the world. Quoting from the podcast summary on Tim Ferris’s blog:
“As a pioneer of impact investing, Acumen and its investments have brought critical services like healthcare, education, and clean energy to hundreds of millions of low-income people.”
This episode is one of those that shake you and make you reassess the way you think about the world. Novogratz drops truth bomb after truth bomb, without ever making you feel like the world is f*cked or that we can’t save ourselves. The optimism and knowledge contained here will put a smile on your face. If you read/listen to nothing else from this FFF, PLEASE listen to this one.
And now, the positive news story of the week!
Because of the rising quality of life in many poorer U.S. states, and the easing of drug restrictions around the country, prison populations have been steadily declining (even in Texas, which has the highest incarceration rate in the country). Connecticut’s incarceration is down by half.
Since 2011, 22 states have closed/announced closures for 94 state prisons.
This great news for taxpayers also means that many developed buildings can now be used for things that are useful to society. Prisons around the country are being re-used for some amazing things, like:
Arthur Kill Correctional Facility (Staten Island) is now a movie studio.
Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary (Petros, Tennessee) is now a distillery.
Gainesville Correctional Institute is now a homeless shelter called GRACE Marketplace
A longer list of prison conversions can be found here, the full news story can be found here.
If you’d like to know more about prison closures/conversions, you can find more info at Sentencing Project.
That is amazing that you will be moving to Costa Rica in July. I hope you have a lovely time there.
So excited for you to move to Costa Rica and hear about your experiences!