Time Capsule #178
On mindset.
Greetings,
A final newsletter for 2025.
Allez!
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your mind.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
✏️ Maslow
One of the great negatives of modern life is the perpetual state of discontent it can induce. A sure way to find the source of a man’s discontent is to ask him what he desires from life.
Only recently did I truly begin to believe that it is possible to get what I want out of life (if God wills it, of course). As a tangential comment: one of the best things you can do for a young man is to believe in him — because soon enough, he will begin to believe in himself, and when one believes in himself, the world begins to open up in marvellous and miraculous ways. In this quest I have arrived at two core axioms of life: 1) that you can have anything you want, but not everything; 2) subsequently, life is a game of choices. I do believe that I am at a crossroads where very important and influential choices will need to be made. Perhaps it is because I am approaching 30, and that feels to me to be an all important decade — where your main sources of leverage are with you (youth, energy, the beginnings of financial optionality); and it is also the traditional time where you choose how, where, and with whom you will spend your days.
Every year I do a “Yearly Review”, where I review how the year went in terms of my goals and values, and what I want to prioritize going forward. It is one of the most important practices I do every year because it is the compass that ensures I am actually moving in the direction that I want to move. I have noticed this year that my compass is changing direction. In previous years, the general theme of these reviews was, in short, the consistent and steady application of myself in pursuit of my “goals”, most of which were professional in nature. This year I notice they have taken a different flavour. It is not that I no longer have professional goals. I just now see the value and importance of being of service. To be of service is one of the most rewarding aspects of life and leadership, and I do think it likely gives deeper meaning to one’s life, especially when the recipients are people you are playing long-term games with (like children, family, and the next generation). I also highly value freedom: time freedom, and naturally, financial freedom. I like nice things as much as anyone else — perhaps more to be honest. But I now see that there is a very reasonable point where I would refuse more in exchange for the freedom to spend my time and energy how I like. There are many unwritten and implicit scripts in life, many of which I am living out almost verbatim. Some of these scripts I don’t think will serve me in the near future because they take away from this very freedom I desire. I want to live my life my way. I want to do the things I love and feel called to do. It is increasingly apparent to me that I can be headstrong in my convictions, and there is a price to pay for nonconformity. But I’d much rather pay that price than give up my passions, dreams, and the integrity of my mind. That being said, life is a multiplayer game, and one must always play his cards wisely.
I write this newsletter mostly for myself, and because I know it will help others who are also questioning the direction of their compass. You can have anything you want in life: the sooner you start pursuing it with an honest relentlessness, and of course integrity, the sooner you can start helping others do the same.
Festina lente
Make haste slowly
💡 Food for Thought
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Canto 1, Dante Alighieri
🔗 Sunday Best
Ilya Sutskever: U of T Honorary Degree Recipient (6 June 2025)
I will offer one bit of a useful state of mind, which, if one adopts it, makes everything much easier, which is to accept reality as it is and to try not to regret the past and try to improve the situation.
Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.
—Richard Feynman
Yours Truly,
AT