Fellow traveler,
I’m glad to share this week’s edition of The Joy List with you. It includes some of the best links and lessons we’ve encountered over the course of the week.
I hope you find it worthwhile. I was reminded last week that attention is the most basic form of love. For your attention, thank you.
With lots of love and joy,
Damola
Worth checking out
> Attention exercise for the week
“Go for a walk. Pay attention to your feet: How far apart are your steps? Do you feel yourself sway when you walk? What part of your body leads? Now, look at people walking around you; watch their gait, and try to emulate it — take shorter steps, sway more, etc. Pay attention to how your body responds. How does it feel?”
This is one of the exercises Nick Seaver gives his students who takes his course on “How to pay attention.”
> Is it time to quit? [Video]
I’m becoming a fan of charts and decision trees again. It helps you clarify decisions and consequences. It makes things look simple, but not simpler. This framework, credited to Steven Bartell is one you can go to when thinking of whether to quit or not.
While this isn’t decison tree exhaustive, Seth Godin’s book, The Dip, can be helpful.
> Why books don't work - sometimes
It sometimes is my defaut to recommend books, to refer people to books when trying to explain a concept. But in the last year, this approach hasn’t been fruitful with someone close to me, making me confront one truth I should have a long time ago: sometimes, books don’t work. Here is why.
What do we do about this?: “We don’t necessarily have to make books work. We can make new forms instead. This doesn’t have to mean abandoning narrative prose; it doesn’t even necessarily mean abandoning paper—rather, we can free our thinking by abandoning our preconceptions of what a book is. Maybe once we’ve done all this, we’ll have arrived at something which does indeed look much like a book. We’ll have found a gentle path around the back of that intimidating slope. Or maybe we’ll end up in different terrain altogether.”
> Pay attention to how you feel when you've crossed your moral code
“Feeling guilty is neither necessary nor sufficient for acting morally. If anything, feeling bad about oneself may hinder moral behaviour by inhibiting empathic responses towards others. If one has done something morally wrong, it is better to focus on the suffering of the possible victims, feel regret for having acted badly, try and repair the damage done, change whatever can be changed, and calmly accept the things that, for the time being, cannot be changed.
It is important to lead as ethical a life as we can, but it is equally important to do this with joy, and with a clear conscience, knowing that we are doing the best we can, even if that means our behaviour may be unsatisfactory at times. We need to move away from the view of ethics that personifies morality as someone grumpy and snooty. Moral ideals need not be experienced as a weight upon our shoulders. Quite the contrary: ethics is a tool to help us lead happy lives in harmony with the environment, animals, and people around us.”
Finally, I am glad to see this reminder that attention is the most basic form of love.
From Joy, Inc.
> We are back with the 2nd season of #WithChude! And our first guest in this season is Onyeka Onwenu! [See the trailer here]
Onyeka is an actor, singer, journalist, author, mother, honoree, icon, Legend, beauty. She got into Government, came out and found the time to finish this book: ‘My Father’s Daughter’. Chude and her talked about everything: about her marriage, how has she managed all of the battles she has fought in her life, and what about that bad ass last chapter where she finally talks about the love of her life?!
All the exclusives that Onyeka has never spoken about anywhere else on Television in a 30 - 40 year career today on #WithChude. Watch the premiere on Channels Television by 1pm and get full episodes on watch.withchude.com.
> Know someone that needs help or needs someone to talk with? You can connect them with The Joy Hub. Have them call our national mental health helpline: 0700-THE-JOY-HUB (0700-843-569-482).
> Let us support the work you do by giving you access to host your meet-up and sessions at The Joy Hub. Interested? Let's talk :).
Worth thinking about
“The people who skip the hard questions are in the majority, but they are not in demand.” - Seth Godin