Closing a Chapter
Savvy Saturdays - 8/1/20
Hello friends,
Greetings from Austin!
I’ve moved out of my apartment that I’ve stayed in for 4 years, and I’m feeling all the emotions (as well as the soreness *aches) of a move-out.😢 Here are a couple of pictures of the apartment before it was vacated.
And here’s a couple of pictures of the hecticness as we started to pack up throughout the week.
Since I’ve never moved out before, I was unprepared by the number of goods we had to pack up, and even with the work we did throughout the week, my roommate and I had to pull an all-nighter to get everything prepared for move out day.😪
In fact, I remember distinctly at 4 or 5 AM that day the desperation, helplessness, and defeat I felt as I started to throw away anything that didn’t bring any joy to my life (which was basically everything) and vowing to myself that I would never move out unprepared ever again.
Let’s just say that night was a lot of reflection and I hope I never live to see the sunrise and sunset without 8 hours of rest in between.😫
All-nighter aside, in preparation for move out, I accidentally bought the biggest truck from UHaul.🚚
Since our storage unit is a 10x15, I planned to order a 15-foot long truck from UHaul (a vehicle used for 1 bedroom homes or 2 bedroom apts).
But because of procrastination, they ran out of 15-foot trucks. And the smallest truck I could buy that could fit all of our stuff was a 26-foot truck, a vehicle typically used to move out of 3 to 4 bedroom homes.😳
As absurd as it was to order that big of a truck, it ended up being the right move. Rather than having to think how to Tetris® our stuff into the truck and utilize space efficiently, we could place things only up to waist high, making it wayyyyy easier to move-out.
Feel free to check out a timelapse of the truck being filled out below:
Of course, the only bad thing about a long truck is driving it, and though one of my friends who helped me move was an expert at driving horizontally challenged vehicles, he allowed me the wonderful opportunity to drive the long boy.
(me driving below, face mask filtered with socialdistancing.works)
I thought I did a pretty good job driving the lengthy vehicle!
And my compadres who helped me move would agree.
But all those pats on the back became null the moment I broke the entrance to our storage unit.😲
Let me remind you, I had pulled an all-nighter and was exhausted.😔
And what happened was I had turned too soon while entering the storage parking lot, causing the side of my truck to push into the gate.
This ended up adding pressure to the gate, pulling taut the chains that moved the gate. And since the truck was probably putting about a ton’s worth of weight onto those chains, it caused the chains to snap apart.
It’s a pretty big feelsbad when the gate is wide open, and everyone who’s storing stuff enters in without having to enter a passcode. 🤦
(But fortunately, I had bought some insurance with UHaul, so everything should be covered *fingers crossed 😬)
Once everything was packed into the storage unit, (and the insurance was communicated) it was time to say goodbye to my apartment, and I felt a lot of nostalgia and sadness as we walked through our now-empty apartment one last time.
*cue sentimental boy reflection
In general, having to close any chapter in life is hard.
And for me, leaving OT 48 (my apartment) symbolized leaving my college years of independence and “first time of growing up”, spontaneity, and adventure behind.
But with the end of one chapter is always the start of another.
I’m looking forward to taking what I have learned from the past 4 years into the new apartment and season! (and even learn even more amidst COVID vibes…)
So farewell OT 48. Thanks for being my home, and for all the memories.
Imma dab on the haters for ya (cause I have none, I think… 🤔), and keep moving forward to the next chapter.📖
Thanks for checking in with this update! I’m still feeling sleep-deprived from the moveout, but it was nice to get rest.
(I must admit though, it’s getting harder and harder to recover from late nights… I had to take my first Advil for my headache this morning)
Currently, our church is doing several weeks of prayer and fasting, so if y’all have any prayer requests, I’d love to pray for you!🙏
Anyways, stay safe, keep it savvy, and I’ll see y’all in the next update 😊
Weekly Collections
Faith
“The problem is that we have gotten things so out of proportion that we can’t really even imagine what the New Testament church was like, I think.
The little simple spinoffs out here at the edge of Christianity, we’ve made them the cherished treasure of the middle, and we’ve elevated them to the point where we say, “Well, if things don’t go better for us, then what’s the use of being a Christian?” And therefore, it becomes almost impossible for us to imagine what happened in this text — what it was like to be a Christian when there was no Christian America, no ethos built up over three hundred years of Puritan Protestant work ethic.”
—How Can I Be Free from Materialism?
Entrepreneurship
Did you ever wonder why Costco’s store brand, Kirkland Signature, was always amazing? Why the store brand seemed better than the company brands surrounding it?
This article shares a lot about how Costco leverages their distribution to maintain low cost, utilizes its business to force brands to create better products than their own, and explains why Costco brand is so resilient in comparison to other private label brands.
“According to Sinegal, there are three criteria for creating a Kirkland product.
First, it has to be as good (or better!) than the leading national brand. If Lipton has the best black tea, Kirkland has to be as good or better than Lipton.
Next, it has to be sold for a 15-20% discount. Notably, this is a discount at the Costco price — which is already low — not the price at another retailer.
And finally, the product has to be an important product for customers, something they want to buy. ”
—How Costco Convinces Brands to Cannibalize Themselves
Productivity
Here is a letter Richard P. Feynman, my favorite learner and teacher, wrote to his student. I think it will give a lot of insight in using time effectively to solve problems in any field, especially when thinking of making a name for yourself in that field.
Dear Koichi,
I was very happy to hear from you, and that you have such a position in the Research Laboratories.
Unfortunately your letter made me unhappy for you seem to be truly sad. It seems that the influence of your teacher has been to give you a false idea of what are worthwhile problems. The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. A problem is grand in science if it lies before us unsolved and we see some way for us to make some headway into it. I would advise you to take even simpler, or as you say, humbler, problems until you find some you can really solve easily, no matter how trivial. You will get the pleasure of success, and of helping your fellow man, even if it is only to answer a question in the mind of a colleague less able than you. You must not take away from yourself these pleasures because you have some erroneous idea of what is worthwhile.
…
No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself – it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of your naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s ideals are.”
Best of luck and happiness.
Sincerely,
Richard P. Feynman
—Do not remain nameless to yourself
Weekly Reflections
Mental Model
Reinforcing feedback loops are found whenever behaviors or events inside the loop reinforce one another. These loops amplify the effect of the process.
The effects of reinforcing feedback loops are exponential, not linear. They lead to exponential increases or decreases.
The compound interest is a very common example of a reinforcing feedback loop. The more money you have in a bank account, the more you earn on interest. That money is added to your balance and so you earn on interest even more later on. The cycle repeats.
Reinforcing feedback loop is a key tool for understanding systems because it's everywhere. It explains exponential changes.
—(untools: Tools for better thinking)
How to apply the mental model:
Take note of the habits you’re doing. Are there any reinforcing feedback loops, and do they have a positive or negative effect?
What habits can you add or remove in order to strengthen those reinforcing feedback loops?
Verse of the Week
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion”
—Psalm 84:5-7
Challenging Quote
"When you know better you do better"
—Maya Angelou
If you guys have found the newsletter to be helpful, I would love to hear from you on what’s been good, any suggestions for improvement, and anything else you’d like to see!
Please don’t be shy to let me know and thanks in advance!