Hello friends,
Greetings from Austin!👋
If you didn’t know, last week was a storm for me, and I got stretched pretty thin. ⛈️
Fortunately, things have died down the past several days, and I’ve been able to reflect on the aftermath to understand what went wrong, and how to prevent myself from undergoing another storm.
Aside from poor planning and unexpected deadlines that arose, I found myself overwhelmed by the number of responsibilities that I had undertaken.😫
With little time to relieve unrelieved stress, I found myself challenged to turn to God.🙏
After being humbled by Him, I wanted to look at the things I was focused on, and wrestle + reorganize my priorities.
What I noticed was my mind had prioritized practicality over intentionality.
“Why do I do the things I do?” had become “How can I do this best?”🤔
Like a machine finding the most efficient way to approach solving a problem, I went into autopilot mode when doing tasks, aiming to complete rather than question the purpose behind why I did a task.🤖
Taking a step back, I noticed that I had lost that sense of awareness in my purpose and convictions.
Digging deeper, I recognized that my focus had become more on what was seen rather than what’s unseen.
Like the fight in faith, which requires a lot of trust in living for a God that is shown through physical means, I found myself wrestling to live for something, bigger than myself.
There are certain convictions and aspirations that cannot be attained in several years and requires patience and diligence that may go beyond a given lifetime.
For fruits that may never be seen.
As of now, I’m still personally wrestling through my purpose and convictions, and trying to pinpoint what has changed, and what direction I should go.🧐
But I believe this active step forward to become intentional in the midst of practicality is necessary, as it will set the foundation for whatever path forward I do pursue.
Let’s continue on this process, fighting that fight and running that race!🏃
Thanks for checking in on this update!
Some small updates that I personally want to celebrate in:
I’ve upgraded my bed to actually rest on top of the bed frame, instead of below.😬
(forgive the wrinkles 😅I promise it’s not always that ruffled)
I’ve also decorated the walls to be more aesthetic!
(Unfortunately, I’m not showing my floor as it’s a mess…)
I’m planning to place more pictures and sentimental notes on the corkboard and wall above my desk, as well as string lights potentially either around the map or across the room, so stay tuned for that!
Additionally, I’ve been staying up late almost every day working on my personal website. I’ve been trying to take feedback from some close friends and iterating to make it a website that I can be proud to show off my personality not only to friends and future employers (never know what this economic downturn brings) but any random passerby on the internet.
Here’s a sneak peek of my about page:
I’m still not completely comfortable with releasing the site to the public, as there are still a few kinks to hash out 😅but when I do, I’ll definitely let y’all know! 🙂
Anyways, here are several photos from the past week involving roommates, UT life 🤘🏻, and virtual zoom activities:
(roommates spending virtual Sunday morning together on the big screen ⛪)
(a couple of photos of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd during Golden Hour☀️)
(the winning t-shirt from Jackbox, which is such a mood💀)
(one of my friends introduced me to eating frozen green beans as a snack or supplement to a meal, and I’m addicted. 😳Such a great way to get fiber, fun to eat, and low in calories.👌)
(“socially distanced” debriefing from Campus Missions week with the small group😷)
Once again, thanks for catching me here. Please stay safe, keep it savvy, and I’ll see y’all in the next update 😊
Weekly Collections
Faith
“Boldness is not a personality trait, but a miracle of God’s Spirit.”
“The world is not suffering from too much boldness in the cause of truth. Rather, what’s missing is the beauty of brokenhearted boldness…
If it were our purpose here to speak of bold brokenheartedness (which it isn’t), we could linger over God’s wisdom in the way that the beauty of boldness is designed conversely to protect the beauty of brokenheartedness from being distorted into fear, self-pity, passivity, joylessness, hopelessness, cowardice, self-absorption, and fruitlessness.
But the point here is that God intends for the beauty of brokenheartedness to mingle with the beauty of boldness so that a new reality emerges even more beautiful than the sum of both — a new reality called brokenhearted boldness. It is one of God’s most beautiful works. And it is one of the most needed in our day.”
—Brokenhearted Boldness | Desiring God
Entrepreneurship
“If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like.
But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:
1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.
The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.
The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort.
I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.
It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.
What are your three?”
—Career Advice | The Dilbert Blog
Productivity
“B J Fogg is a Stanford professor who came up with a simple model of behavior that helps us understand why we take action or not take action at any given moment.
According to FBM, there are three things we need to do something:
Motivation
Ability
Trigger
The key is that we need to have all three at the same time in order to act.
Build up your motivation by reinforcing personal, meaningful reasons to do something.
Break down complex tasks into simple parts and plan them through time by creating a simple timeline.
And define a concrete trigger that will help you start your work.”
—How to stop procrastinating by using the Fogg Behavior Model | deprocrastination
Weekly Reflections
Mental Model
A low dose of something can have the opposite effect of a high dose.
A little bit of stress wakes you up, but a lot of stress is bad for you. Lifting weights for 30 minutes per day is good for you, but lifting weights for 6 hours per day will destroy your muscles.
Stress yourself, but not too much.
—(50 Ideas That Changed My Life | David Perell)
How to apply the mental model:
What are the areas in your life where less is more? Where more is less?
What can you reduce or increase in order to improve your life?
Verse of the Week
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, for we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”
—Romans 5:3-4
Challenging Quote
“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.”
—Sarah Ban Breathnach
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!