Weeknotes #10/19

2 minutes reading time

04 Mar - 10 Mar 2019

Best thing I’ve read

A rather random seeming choice this week, but I came across this article, Vegetables Don’t Exist, which I found fascinating. It talks about our use of the word vegetable and how it’s come about through the ages. An illuminating read about the origins of many of our food-related words.

Books I’m reading

Our delayed book club call on Wednesday was a fun discussion, and I think that most of us found we’d enjoyed A thousand miles in a million years far more than expected. Since we were yet to choose a book for March I’ve making progress on 7 Habits for Highly Effective Families and The Rescue. I’ve ended up finishing the Rescue early Sunday morning because I couldn’t get back to sleep so I got up and finished it before heading back to bed.

The main character, Ryan Decker, in The Rescue reminded me of Jack Reacher so now I’ve started The Midnight Line, which I picked up in a secondhand bookshop on holiday a few weeks ago.

Our book club book this month is Mastery by George Leonard, which arrived on Saturday so I’m looking forward to starting that next week too.

What did I learn this week?

I put to use a good strategy to stop ruminating on things that are on your mind - I spent about 30 minutes writing down everything I could think of on the issue, almost as if it were an email answering questions or laying out my thoughts. When I was done, I immediately felt more calm, and was able to get to sleep without my brain slipping back to it and try and work on the problem instead of getting to sleep.

A week in Stoicism

Give yourself a gift, the present moment Marcus Aurelius

It’s too easy to drift back to idyllic memories or be too busy thinking about what might come, forgetting that the present is here right now, and we’re giving short shrift to those around us instead of embracing precious time with them.

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