Languishing, Passion Projects and Presentations
Three recent essays that I found interesting:
What’s the word that one can possibly use to describe what most of us are feeling in 2021? The appropriate word, according to Adam Grant, is languishing. Languishing is ‘the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don't have symptoms of mental illness, but you're not the picture of mental health either. You're not functioning at full capacity’, Grant writes. How to overcome this feeling? Well, surprisingly for me at least, was when Grant suggested that it could be by getting into the state of Flow. Flow — a state that has been described in various ways by other thinkers, such as Cal Newport — essentially means getting in a state in which you are totally absorbed ‘in a meaningful challenge or a momentary bond, where your sense of time, place and self melts away’. One can do so by finding a good challenge, setting aside enough time to work on it uninterrupted, and celebrating small wins.
Kevin Roose writes in this essay that many millennial workers across America (I would say globally), especially the Type As, are letting go of their cushy, safe jobs in this Covid-marked year and starting their own ventures. But why? ‘Their bank accounts, fattened by a year of stay-at-home savings and soaring asset prices, have increased their risk appetites,’ hypothesizes Roose. In addition, staying at home has allowed us all a different lens to look at our work-lives. For instance, many of us don’t fancy going back to office five days a week — remote working seems more like a necessity that’ll stay. At the same time, less travelling has allowed us to dabble in our passions, which has nudged some of us to experiment with them full time (Roose refers to these as ‘risky passion projects’). For instance, from my personal experience I have seen many a friends of mine become full time online coaches in range of topics related to communication, cooking, and habits. Their participants — thanks to Zoom — can be anywhere from Honolulu to Timbuktu. While companies are offering various perks to keep the employees, the number of people experimenting with passion projects will only go up. A trend to keep an eye on.
Sabina Nawaz gives an excellent primer on how to ace key presentations and talks in this essay. While some of her ideas may seem extreme — including memorising the whole presentation, starting rehearsal six to eight weeks before the day — the tips are still worth a read. But why to memorise the whole thing? ‘Learning your script cold allows you to move from one point to the next without thinking about it. When you’re not worrying about what comes next, you’re able to be fully present with your audience and adjust to their reactions,’ Nawaz writes. I am not sure I can or will follow all her suggestions, however, the one I am taking away from this piece is about working on transitions in the talk, and making them as fluid as possible. ‘Transitions can be especially tricky, so note any troublesome segues and practice them repeatedly before proceeding,’ she suggests.
A quote that I came across recently:
Human mood and well-being are heavily influenced by simple things: exercise, good sleep, light, being in nature. It’s cheap to experiment with these things.
