4 Jun - 10 Jun 2018
Slacking off at the weekend meant I didn’t do my usual weekly review on time. As I’ve mentioned before, it really throws my week out when that doesn’t happen, and it’s usually compounded by needing to get caught up on everything at work. As a result it tends to throw other activities out too so it feels like a bit of scramble to get back on track.
What didn’t help matters is waking up with a headache two days on the trot. Much of Wednesday was a real grind to do anything productive, and as usual it only started to go off after the end of the normal workday and then I was quite tired to be able to catch up meaningfully. Then, rather annoyingly, I woke up with it again the following morning. Fortunately, it didn’t last more than a couple of hours so Thursday wasn’t a total blow-out. I managed to shoehorn a shortened kettlebell workout in after getting home (late) from work before my scheduled book club call.
The Scout training I was booked on for the weekend got cancelled, which is a mixed blessing. It messes up my goal to get all my modules completed by the end of October unless it can get rescheduled. However, I’m slightly glad because it gave me a bit more time to get caught up with everything…
We made a last minute decision to find a nearby campsite and have an overnight trip to test out the new tent we’ve bought. Overall, it was pretty successful. The new tent is a bit more practical and easier to put up. The bedroom compartment is designed to keep out 90% of the light so it’s easier to stay asleep for longer in the mornings. I struggled to sleep well but the darkness definitely helped!
Reading progress
As I mentioned above, we had our inline-block book club call discussing Willpower doesn’t work and we decided on our next book, Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller.
Separately, I also finished Slaughterhouse 5. It was a nice, quick read and quite thought-provoking. At first, I couldn’t wrap my head around it but after the first few chapters and letting it sink in for a while I started to see a lot of interesting points he was making. I definitely think I need to re-read it again. But I do see why it’s considered an American classic.
A week in Stoicism
This week we’re asked to remind ourselves who are the people we’ve learned from and who you can look to as role models for the life you want to live.
”We like to say that we don’t get to choose our parents, that they were given by chance—yet we can truly choose whose children we’d like to be.” Seneca
This is an interesting Stoic notion from Seneca. I think this short quote sums up Stoicism. It succinctly shows you that you can make your own reasoned choice as to how you want to be. You can choose to be the “child” of whomever you look up to.
weeknotes