Tag: Morgan Housel

161021 – Morning Pages

A rambling post talking about things I am thinking about this Saturday morning. A lot of it is work. Need to get it out of the way.

7:17. Home.

The screen time across devices has reached a pandemic level. I am spending more than 18 hours on the phone and the laptop. I need to control it. I am literally addicted to social networking websites and I am scrolling those feeds without thinking. I am not even registering what I am seeing. I am merely moving. I am constantly checking even when I am engaged in other things. Need to get away from that.

Yesterday was good. I met one of the people I care for. I spoke to two more that I care for. And I met the friend that I literally grew up with. Drove around the town (realized how much I love driving) with him and talked about what he could do (realized how much I love thinking about work). Or what we could do together. We went to Theo’s and ate. Realised how much I love good cafes and getting out of the house even though I dont like the food. The concept of someone serving you and you being able to sit and all that is nice. I love them. If you are in Noida and want to eat good continental food or baked things, you have to go eat at Theo’s. At Theo’s I even had Diet Coke but that’s ok. It’s from the next week that I plan to get into action. So that’s cool.

#epiphany just happened. Maybe I dont like spending time at home because I dont have things that bind me at home. You know, relationships. People. Etc. Or may be I dont have the kind of space that I want – physical or personal. Maybe this is why I love the idea of moving from one place to another. Maybe this is why I hate indoors? Need to think.

In other things, saw this tweet where Visa (love this guy’s work and thoughts) says that Morgan wrote 3000+ articles before he became the phenomenal writer of Psychology of Money. This has reaffirmed my view on quantity vs quality debate. I need to double down on the output and continue writing. I mean I want to make a life as a content creator. I have merely written like 3 pieces and I am hoping to be famous. How dare I? Need to write a 100 pieces to start with. And then a 1000. And then ask the question to God, the Universe or whatever about success and failure.

So that!

I guess this is it. Oh, must log that I couldn’t get sleep last night for some reason. I was up till 3ish. Need to fix this.

Here’s the journal.

  1. Emoticon: 🙂
    Right now I am ok. I have just woken up and I am little tired and groggy (was up till 3 AM). Need to get back to better sleep and a better state of mind. I think if I stop being on so many devices all the time, it would be better.
  2. Mindful Index (on a scale of 10): 0.
    Literally 0. Distracted all the time. Need to find a solution.
  3. Things that I am grateful for
    1. So many people put their faith in me. I am grateful that I have them around. It gives meaning to my life.
  4. Things that would make my today great
    1. Work. I have been stalling it this entire week. And this is the week after the trek. I should’ve done a lot to be honest. But I did not. I need to ship a lot of things. Must work hard today.
    2. Better food. I need to be mindful of what I eat. Today on, I will get onto OMAD. Haven’t done it in a while. Will be tough. Let’s see if I can manage.
  5. A daily affirmation
    I am a super hero and I can get things done at a snap of my fingers. I will show how cool I am and will get things done.
  6. Amazing things that happened yesterday? 
    1. Met Monu. Spoke to people from #teamSG.
    2. I drove a car after a while. I realised that I love it so so much that it’s not funny.
  7. What could have made yesterday better?
    1. If I could’ve avoided Diet Coke, I wouldn’t have broken the streak.
    2. I wish I found the time to get some work done. It’s just playing too much on my mind. And if it’s wrecking such havoc on how I think and I am living, I need to find a way out. It is not worth taking all this stress. #note2self.
    3. If I could have slept on time, it would have been nice.
  8. Quote for the day
    “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.” – Yogi Berra

PS: I could only write one thing that I am grateful for. I need to ensure that each day I force myself to think of three things.

PPS: I also need to avoid repetition. I wrote about a thing and then I am repeating it in the journal. I need to find a way to not waste words.

And here’s the streaks…

  • OMAD – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • NOFAP – 0
  • #noCoke – 0. Had one Diet Coke yesterday.
  • #noCoffee – 2
  • #aPicADay – 8. I am yet to post today’s. I plan to take a new one. So if I post today, I will make the streak 9. If I dont, I am back to 0.
  • Daily Journal – 9
  • Money spent – 6361. I am back to tracking it rigourously. Ergo.
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0
  • Daily Mail to #teamSG – 9
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • Minimaslism Counter – -3 +1.
  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 9

250321 – Morning Pages

A quick post about ambitions, expectations, hurt, bitterness and COVID.

6:46 AM. I woke up a minute ago. Made my bed. Opened the window to the world outside and put on some music. I felt like listening to this one. And here I am typing this morning meditation.

Yeah, the morning pages need to be rechristened as morning meditations. That’s what these are. Thoughts from things that are clouding my head. For example, I slept last night thinking about how humbling the entire idea of life is. About how success is the only way you get to make great friends. About how the action (and not perfection) is what makes the world go round.

Something happened and I was fucked in the head last night. To a point, I thought I would quit things that trigger it. You know, social media. More than that, expectation from people. But then I don’t know if it was Louise Hay or Morgan Housel or Seneca or even Prof. SG that told me that all misery is in expectation. And once you stop expecting things, you are sort of free. So that happened.

The other thing that caught my eye is this tweet from PG. He postulates that people like me are “bitter and highly effective at realizing that bitterness.”

From Paul Graham. See this.

Now, I know that I am smart.
I also know that I am ambitious.
And I have yet to achieve anything, leave alone “very much”. If PG says such people are bitter, they ought to be. However, in my case, I am anything but bitter. Rather, this non-achievement makes me do more. Push more. Open more doors. May be, secretly I am. Maybe this bitterness is that part of my life that I don’t know that exists. You know, the ‘unknown self’ of Johari Window. So I need to think about it.

The other thing I am worried about is rising COVID cases in Mumbai. Now we officially have more cases than we ever had. More than when the pandemic was at its peak and we were banging bartans and lighting candles and chanting mantras and all that. Yesterday we had more than 5000 cases in Mumbai alone (out of 40000 odd that were tested). When you look at the number, it looks small, considering we have almost 2 crore people in the city. But when you juxtapose (I love this word) on people like me that are super-social (even if I am pseudosocial) that meet thousands of people, the risk gets real.

So that.

I think this is about it. There are more things that I’ve written on my echoChamber about the thing that I was fucked in the head about. Someday all of it will go in my biography. If I ever become someone whose story is worth telling the next generations. Lol. Everyone wants to be immortal.

Anyhow, that’s it for the short post. At some point in time I need to get back to writing till my heart’s full. May be when I actually start waking up at 5. Or when they start a Starbucks that opens at 5. Morning is the best damn time ever.

And here’s the streaks…

  • Morning Pages – 104
  • #aPicADay – 84
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • OMAD – 0 (ate 4 full meals – damn stress eating).
  • #noCoffee – 15
  • #noCoke – 15
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0. I still haven’t been able to wake up at 5.

240321 – Morning Pages

Quick post on things that are at the top of my head. And what I am doing about those.

8:26 AM. Starbucks. I dont have a lot of time today to write a long-drawn post. This will be a short post.

First things first. Yesterday, I got myself a financial planner.

No, I don’t have a lot of money to invest, barely any, come to think of it. But I realized I need some discipline. And thus the planner. In all of yesterday, I opened an MF account, activated my stockbroking account, made a spreadsheet to track money, and a few more things. Took me an hour but I did it. If you are reading this and do not belong to the Ambani-Adani clan, you must do this. No, I am yet to see any benefit but I know it would be useful next time we have a COVID kind of crisis.

To augment what she tells me, I think I will read more and more about practical finance. You know, things like Rich Dad, Poor Dad et al. Like I said earlier. I am reading Psychology of Money. Lemme talk about it a bit. The funny thing is that there is NOT one thing new that this book tells me. I know most things that MH has written. Really. I don’t mean to be boastful. But I know. However, the thing is, despite knowing all that, I am poor. I am in debt. So there’s something wrong for sure. Maybe I just have the academic knowledge and I lack what it takes to translate ideas into action? May be combined with the financial advisor, I would see some change? I am hoping I will figure out soon. Maybe the importance I gave to the freedom of time needs to be coupled with knowledge and action about the importance of money? Lets see.

Talking of reading, I am also reading You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. This is again a self-help book and again, as I read this, I am nodding at every line and I think I know most of what she’s talking about. Lol.

Here’s a thing. I have oscillated on the two extremes about self-help books. There are times when I love them and recommend those to people. And there are times when I abhor them to a point that I scoff at people that I spot reading these books. I know, I shouldn’t do this but then that’s how I am.

The next I want to read is 48 Laws of Power. I had read it when I was a kid and I need to re-read it. This rereading was a project that I started with Anubhab. He’s read the entire thing but I did not even start. Need to action it. Once I finish either the money book or the life book.

After this, I think I will spend all of 2021 reading as many self-help books around money as I can lay my hands on. What books would you recommend? Repeat. Selfhelp. On money. You know, books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, etc. #help!

To be honest, the only good thing is that I am back to reading. Last few days weeks months years, I hadnt read anything serious. Except long-form pieces on blogs and websites. Its so good to hold a book and carry it around. Like a companion. In fact, last evening I walked around with just a book. Just like the old times when I was far younger and far more hopeful about life and world and all that.

So that.

I think this is it. Oh, I did make some progress on various projects – Syndicate, SoG Grant, the Aram Nagar documentary. On the documentary specifically, let’s see if we can shoot some this weekend. I think it’s time to make a page about it on the website! No?

And, here’s the streaks…

  • Morning Pages – 103
  • #aPicADay – 83
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 14 . Lot of tea though, which I am assuming is better. I have to order something at Starbucks.
  • #noCoke – 14
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0. I still haven’t been able to wake up at 5.

200321 – Morning Pages

A shortPost on how I spent yesterday and what I plan to do today.

8:52. I just woke up. I slept early but slept for long. Which is ok.

So the highlight has to be that I successfully did a 48-hour fast. It was surprisingly easy. To a point that I think I can do it often. In March, I’ve tried this multiple times and I have failed every time, except this one. In fact, I want to try and move to that 6 meals a week kind of diet where I eat once a day and then keep a 48-hour fast. Let’s see how it goes. The critical thing would be to not eat today till about 2 PM when I will have the meal of the day and then not eat anything till 2 tomorrow. Why 2? I saw an Instagram post by Dave Asprey where he says that’s apparently the human gut is designed to work the best at 2 PM. Let’s see how that affects me.

Ok. Moving to the next things.

For a change, I want to take a break and not do any actual work. Lol. Arti would be so so happy reading this!

I have a few options.

a, I can either spend the day reviewing various things / projects that I am working on and the next steps that I need to take on those. I typically do this once every month towards the end and for some reason, I feel like doing this today.

b, I can just sit and read. Since I need to take a break from actual work, I can do this. On reading, I am back to physical books. I recently bought two – Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Yourself and Morgal Housel’s Psychology of Money. Both are in the self-help category and I think that’s what I need right now. Let’s see if I can finish reading those today (at the speed at which I read, I think I can). Let’s see how this goes.

c, I can go for a super-long walk. You know a 20K-step walk and plugin to some podcast or something. In the past, I have wanted to walk all the way from Andheri to Siddhi Vinayak. I think I did manage it once (see next para). Though I can’t recall with surety. May be I will do it again today.

I don’t know which one would I choose. But I do know that I will go to Starbucks in a bit and get done with a work call that ends at 12. See I can never not work 😀

Wait.
Here’s a thing.
I just realized that I suck at remembering these teeny weeny things.
Which is ok. I just need to ensure that I note those things. For example, thanks to my Roam, I discovered that I walked on the 24th of Sep 2020. And I have also listed things that I thought of when I walked. Wow! I am impressed in myself ;P

Ok. Enough. The words are clearly not coming out. Time to take a break, shower, and go to Starbucks.

See you guys tomorrow.

And as I end this, here’s my streak list.

  • Morning Pages – 98
  • #aPicADay – 79
  • 10K steps a day – 0. Could only manage 7K
  • OMAD – 2
  • #noCoffee – 10
  • #noCoke – 10
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0