things i…
thought about:1
everyday exposure therapy
It seems to me that the biggest barrier I encounter between who I am now and who I want to be is fear - fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of embarrassment… and this manifests not just in big identity shifts but also in my day-to-day behaviors.
One of my closest friends grew up with severe OCD, and he often talks about how exposure therapy was a pivotal factor in his recovery (he’s now applying for a PhD in clinical psychology to study just this). The way I see it, fear, especially of intangibles like failure or embarrassment, are constructed by our brain’s assumptions about the worst case scenarios, and these assumptions can be paralyzing when they feel like they surely must be true. Exposure therapy interrupts this mental pathway by proving to you that, maybe, it isn’t true. When you do the scary thing and the worst case scenario doesn’t happen, you slowly build evidence and trust that the thing is not as scary as you once thought.
If it works for more severe cases like OCD or phobias, why shouldn’t it work for everyday inhibitions? I strive to be the most courageously authentic version of myself, which starts with untangling the fears that shroud that discovery and actualization. I take it upon myself now to lean into what scares me, because when you prove to yourself that good things can come out of doing the more challenging thing, fear can transform into excitement.
Imagine all you could be if you lived your life fearlessly?
prioritizing message over medium
I was troubled lately by my urge to invest more time in my personal blog over video content creation - it felt like my familiar fear of “giving up”. But I remembered that the purpose of this all was to practice creativity, no matter the form. So I’m choosing to prioritize the project/message over the medium, and allow the means to take shape in a way that feels natural for what I’m trying to make. Sometimes that’s through written word and sometimes that’s through video. Anything goes so long as my ideas become known.
other thoughts:
- This might be my bigger topic for next week’s retro (or a nugget2) but I’ve been reflecting more on what it means to “love yourself” after having a deep conversation with a close friend of mine. My working theory right now is that self-love has become misconstrued into self-aggrandizing, when true self-love feels more like self-respect and self-trust. More thoughts to come on this…
- No more dinner catch-ups3. Dinner catch-ups feel wholly ineffective at building deeper connections with people I care about. We usually spend over half the time taking turns yapping at each other instead of having the collaborative and constructive back-and-forths that actually make me feel connected with someone. Then even when or if we get to those conversations, we’ve already reached the bottom of our bowls and it’s time to say goodbye. I’d much rather set aside multiple hours for a hangout to be truly present with my friends, even if that means I’d only be able to do that once or twice a week. I’d take that quality time over 5 middling dinner catch-ups any week.
- I need to pull myself together when it comes to horror (or anything even remotely unnerving). How embarrassing that I had to ask my team to do the less scary room at the escape room social this week. I’m a fucking adult. Get it together.
did:
org offsite in LA!
If you’d asked me if I was close with my team a few weeks ago, I probably would have shrugged and said something like “we’re a distributed team, I don’t get to see them much”. But after just one week, I’d say I’m at least 3x closer to my team.
I have more thoughts on why I think this week was successful in the context of supercharging relationship-building, but the overall sentiment is that I do truly believe that the most effective way to get a group of people closer is simply to through sheer raw exposure. The more time spent with someone, more comfortable you naturally get.
It’s unfortunate that remote work makes this virtually impossible. I’m still able to effectively get my work done just through Slack communication, but I simply was not able to get as close to my team members over the last 6 months as I did over just the past 4 days.
re-did my personal website
I was falling down a never-ending rabbit-hole of trying to figure out how I wanted to design my website before I decided I just needed to make something to link to this blog, so here it is! Shoutout Claude for literally carrying both the ideation and execution LOL.
attempted making greek yogurt bagels
Here are my notes:
- Wayyy too wet and sticky - I followed the recipe exactly, added almost 1/4 cup of extra flour, and still ended up with a sticky dough and gummy crumb. Apparently this is a common issue.
- Make the hole bigger than you think - the bagels expanded more than expected so my bagel shape quickly turned into a dinner roll shape.
- The flavor is slightly odd but ¯\(ツ)/¯ - The dough had a distinct flour flavor, which I think is because it was still slightly underbaked, but ultimately, after toasting, smothering in cream cheese, and covering in assorted toppings, the flavor was no longer distinguishable anyways.
I definitely want to try to master this recipe. If I can get it to work, then I could definitely see myself making this often as a great high-protein carb option. I’ll keep y’all updated if I find a successful method.
tried pistachio milk for the first time
Is it just me or do I keep seeing pistachio pop up everywhere nowadays? One such place was from my friend (mymellowmenu - check her out!) who’s repeatedly raved about Tache’s Pistachio Milk. I got to try it this week and it’s so good?? The pistachio flavor is super nutty and present, and there’s a very mild and balanced sweetness that goes amazingly in lattes. It’s also surprisingly creamy despite being only 80 calories a cup. Really, the only thing stopping me from drinking it regularly is the low protein content (nothing compares to my love Fat Free Fairlife Milk, which you also need to try because 13g of protein for 80 calories is insane). But otherwise, this has definitely skyrocketed up as my favorite alternative milk option.
started compiling a list of catchphrases to live by
I realized I often find myself returning back to a couple catchphrases that concisely define how I try to live my life. I’ll try to add them to this list as I discover them, and elaborate more on each in future posts.
consumed:
- I’m still reading Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein. Progress slowed substantially due to the offsite, but I’m planning to get back on the grind.
Footnotes
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Starting with things I thought about first this week because I personally find it much more interesting to hear what someone thought about than what they did, but feel free tell me if you disagree. ↩
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I’m still trying to figure out the balance between including my thought nuggets here in my retros or in a dedicated nuggets page. I like the free form here, but it would make organization way easier to have a separate page. Any suggestions are welcome and encouraged. ↩
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A content creator I really like also made a video about the same idea. ↩