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Slow Down

This was definitely a slower week, did not have much to do for work and was able to get into reading and consuming some different sources of information that I had been putting off for a while which was nice. 

Personal Updates

So far I have had 5 full days of my challenge which includes daily pushups, pull-ups, band clamshells, calf raises, and meditation. It has been going well so far and I have yet to miss a day. It is different to get into the mindset that I will not miss any days and just to drop on the ground and do pushups or go outside and do pullups, or set aside time during the day to meditate, but I chose these five actions because they should each benefit me in something that I feel I am weak in. I am excited to see the progress that I will make after doing it for the remainder of the month and seeing whether or not I want to continue doing it for the summer.

Lifts have been going decently well. I got some new pre-workout this week that I found through some sale on Instagram and I think I will use it for my main lifts for the remainder of the summer. I feel that caffeine is not harmful and working out in the morning has enough challenges on its own that if I can alleviate some of the tiredness without negative side effects why wouldn't I. I will update next week on how that is playing out but I do not anticipate it going poorly.

Other random updates are that I have been working out earlier in the mornings the past two weeks, around 7:30 vs. previously working out at 9 or 9:30. I also have worked less at my hedge fund job this year due to the business cycles of the companies we follow. I have an additional potential opportunity for a wealth management internship that I am hoping materializes this week. Finally, I found out that I will have housing this summer on campus which will be great for workouts and will be a nice transition into the school year hopefully.

Books/Other

This week I got through Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport which I enjoyed in the sense that it fully explored in detail a lot of the things that I have heard regarding social media and its effects on our brains and society. It has sort of made me reevaluate how I go about using social media and thinking what the value I get out of it truly is. I do not think that I can abandon it completely for a period of time as the author suggests to see what I miss the most, but I think I can try to carefully remove some of the components that either do not bring me joy or actively upset me.

I also like to passively or actively listen to these books or podcasts because occasionally there is a phrase or thought that really speaks to me for one reason or another. This typically causes me to listen to it again, write it down, or bring it up in conversation with someone in real life so that I can work through the complex feelings and emotions that it brought about. 

That has definitely been the case in the book which I plan on finishing tonight, Homo Deus, by Harari, who also wrote Sapiens which I read last year. I really enjoyed Sapiens but I think that I am enjoying this one more. It definitely makes me excited to read his other popular book 21 lessons for the 21st Century. I really enjoy the way that the author picks apart and dives into these different concepts and while I do not always agree with every premise, I think that I am learning to think critically and question things more deeply than I have before which is always helpful.

Gratitude

For this week's gratitude post I have decided on free time. It is something that I think I sort of took for granted and continue to take for granted when I am not actively thinking about it. I have the privilege right now of having a lot of free time given that my only obligations during the day are working out and working part-time. I would like to think that I have done a good job with my time during this gap year given all of the books I have gone through and how much I have learned, but I know better than anyone just how much time I have been wasting on my phone or watching stupid TV. 

I think it is definitely a privilege to have been able to waste so much time and I am grateful that I have had that privilege. It definitely helps to have the time to step back and think about how I am spending my time and energy because my time is really the most limited resource I have which I am only starting to realize. As someone who is pretty frugal with money, I realize that I am really not frugal with my time sometimes spending half of my day just looking at a screen and not doing anything that is truly productive or beneficial.

I think that it is good this week to take some time and step back and really slow down my life. By spending free time away from screens, going outside, on a walk, reading a book, exercising, I feel that life really slows down. I feel like there are so many hours in a day and be actively avoiding using my phone as much as I have been I discover that there is a lot more that I can be doing in my day to day life, I have just been confusing my priorities and got caught in a cycle of addictive apps and behaviors. It will definitely be a long journey, but this week I am going to try to keep my screen time below 3 hours a day roughly. To some people that may sound super easy, but I have been consistently more than that week after week probably for months now which I am sure is not healthy and is not good for me long term.
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