Greetings everyone,
Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday!
This week’s newsletter at a glance:
The Freedom Equation
6 Side Hustles for Students
How to Develop Research Questions
Enjoy!
You do not just suddenly leap into heaven, but you enter it with humility. The worst of all sins is when we are overwhelmed by our pride and our own opinion about everything.
—St. Macarius of Optina
✏️ The Rat Race
I think I finally get it.
Whenever I talk to people I look up to, particularly those I admire from a lifestyle or professional standpoint, they all say the same thing: don’t optimize for money — focus on doing good work and enjoying what you have. The money will come.
About 10 years after entering the workforce, I have done many of the things I wished to do in my younger years, and am moving towards the ideal lifestyle I want. I have developed skills that [I feel] make me marketable in the job marketplace, and I am privileged to have options and variety in my work. Sometimes, I even have to turn down opportunities. This is worth celebrating.
However, in my recent pursuit of Benjamins, I have taken on extra work, given up most of my weekends and social life, and pretty much dedicated my existence to the grind. In essence, I have traded my time for money, in hopes that I would gain the freedom that money affords me.
Then came the realization. Freedom doesn’t equal money. Freedom = Money x Time. So despite having the financial means to buy things I desired, I now have little time to enjoy them. The office set-up I so excitedly built, and that younger Alex would have killed for, decked out with a gaming PC, ultrawide monitor, and wireless peripherals, is used for work, and work only. I haven’t opened Steam in probably a year. In the small hours of free time that I do get, I use them to sleep or maintain the relationships in my life, which I seemingly struggle to designate time to. Waking up this morning, all I wanted to do was sleep, watch Premier League, and scroll through YouTube to get inspiration for my channel. But no, I had things to do.
Footnote: I will admit that there are other variables outside of work that have led to this: I am very strict with my exercise regimen and have other passion projects like this newsletter which require significant time. But for the most part, this is a work-driven phenomenon.
What I really wanted this whole time wasn’t money. It was freedom. Freedom to do what I want, when I want. To enjoy a comfortable life. To have the financial breathing room to be able to make career and life choices that make me happier, even if they mean less compensation. Money enables some of this, but not everything. And its pursuit can actually lead to you having less freedom.
I realize now that you can spend your life building your ideal life (and your bank account) and have no time to enjoy it. I also realize there is no winning this game. As soon as you set and meet a financial goal, the goalposts move. You can always have more savings. A bigger house. A nicer car. A newer phone. You can’t escape the rat race of materialism: it won’t bring you what you truly want.
So going back to what my mentors say: don’t worry about money. Learn to enjoy what you have, and do good work. Build skills and expertise that make you attractive and marketable. Do work you love. Love the life you have — every part of it, limitations and all. And in due time, the money will come, and the freedom will too.
Miserere mei, Deus
Be merciful to me, O God
💡 Food for Thought
The best place to combat sin is in the realm of thought and consideration — before it manifests.
🔗 Sunday Best
6 Side Hustle Ideas for Students in 2023
By Ali Abdaal
Check out timestamp 20:45 for a name drop!
Posing the research question: not so simple
Citation: Thabane, Lehana et al. “Posing the research question: not so simple.” Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie vol. 56,1 (2009): 71-9.
The success of any research process relies, in part, on how well investigators are able to translate a clinical problem into a research question-a task that is not so simple for novice investigators. The PICOT approach requires that the framing of the research question specify the target Population, the Intervention of interest, the Comparator intervention, key Outcomes, and the Time frame over which the outcomes are assessed. This paper describes the use of the PICOT structure in framing research questions and examines PICOT criteria as applied to the anesthesia literature. We also provide a roadmap for applying the PICOT format in identifying and framing clear research questions.
Subjective semantic surprise resulting from divided attention biases evaluations of an idea’s creativity
Citation: Calic, G., Shamy, N.E., Kinley, I. et al. Subjective semantic surprise resulting from divided attention biases evaluations of an idea’s creativity. Sci Rep 10, 2144 (2020).
The evaluation of an idea’s creativity constitutes an important step in successfully responding to an unexpected problem with a new solution. Yet, distractions compete for cognitive resources with the evaluation process and may change how individuals evaluate ideas. In this paper, we investigate whether attentional demands from these distractions bias creativity evaluations.
The good writer follows the same path as the bad writer, only he follows that path somewhat further. He who listens to his inner voice instead of the cries and clamor of the market, he who has the courage to teach to others what his heart has taught him, will always be original.
—Ludwig Börne
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See you next week.
Alex