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🪽 Finding Freedom in Defeat, Agency, and Uncertainty
Have you ever felt trapped because your ideal future seems out of reach?
You want to create, to be the best version of yourself. Yet, the present feels like a wall blocking your way.
Here’s the twist: You can pull your mind out of the fog of the future into the clarity of the present; and in doing so, start influencing what actually happens next.
At the end of 2024 I got caught in a loop of negative thoughts. The Meditations for Mortals book helped me disentangle my mind.
Here are the 3 lessons that broke the cycle:
Defeat = Liberation
The day when everything is going as we want is never coming.
We live as if we’re desperately preventing a plane from crashing. What we are yet to realize, is that the plane already crashed the day we were born:
You’re already stranded on the desert island, with nothing but old airplane food to subsist on, and no option but to make the best of life with your fellow survivors. Very well, then: here you are. Here we all are. Now … what might be some good things to do with your time? —Oliver Burkeman
A huge weight was lifted off my back when I stopped wanting life to match my plans. It allowed me to focus on the progress I can make in the present.
Agency ≠ Control
It is not about giving up on our dreams, it is about giving up the illusion we can control how they unfold.
It is about breaking the well-intentioned illusion that society has trapped us in:
- Study hard, because your future depends on grades.
- Get a job related to what you studied, otherwise it is a waste of time.
- Stay in the job you hate so you can get a house and family.
Even more daunting, every expectation comes with an expiration date. Miss a milestone by a certain age and you’re seen as a failure.
Life isn’t predictable. Control is an illusion. However, we all have agency. You can influence your life, change its direction. Only if you’re willing to pay the price of your decisions.
“Have to do it” means you’ve chosen not to pay the price of saying no. “Won’t do it” means you’re unwilling to pay the price of saying yes.
Whatever choice you make, so long as you make it in the spirit of facing the consequences, the result will be freedom in the only sense that finite humans ever get to enjoy it. Not freedom from limitation, which is something we unfortunately never get to experience, but freedom in limitation. Freedom to examine the trade-offs – because there will always be trade-offs – and then to opt for whichever trade-off you like. —Oliver Burkeman
Uncertainty = Possibility
Saying yes or no to a possibility doesn’t guarantee the outcome. All we can do is trust and adapt.
Overthinking kills the magic of uncertainty. The act of me writing this—and you reading it—comes from countless layers of uncertainty, stretching back to the moment two cells joined.
The main difference between those who accomplish great things anyway and those who don’t is that the former don’t mind not knowing. —Oliver Burkeman
The wall that once trapped me was built from the illusion of control. Since it crumbled, I’ve been free to do the best I can with what I have.
What if instead of being paralyzed by uncertainty, we could be mesmerized by it?
🎨 Indie life
We are at the second and last month of the Shipaton, a two-month hackathon for app developers! Last week I focused on adding basic create, edit/update, and delete (CRUD) features for the reminders on the app I am building.
If you are curious about how the data will flow through my app, check out last week's video.
Reflecting on one month in the Shipaton, I spotted a curious cycle: feeling tired > being slow > negative thoughts swarming my head. Noticing when I am feeling tired and taking action in the form of 30-min naps, and resting on Sundays helped a lot!
🌊 Internet bits
(Podcast Interview) How the head of Obsidian went from superfan to CEO: As an Obsidian user I am proud and happy to listen to their CEO focused on keeping the tool independent—100% supported by users, not investors. I am excited about Obsidian's future!
