Mighty Hok Chronicles | Summer 2024
A report on life featuring recent news, reflections, and other odds and ends
A report on life featuring recent news, reflections, and other odds and ends
From We Can Do Hard Things: How to Turn a Mistake into Magic with Suleika Jaouad
I listened to the audiobook memoir, Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad. She writes in a raw and beautiful way about navigating life through her cancer journey. I pulled out this excerpt from a podcast interview where she talks about relinquishing control. It's in our nature to want to stay in control and yet we continually find that many things cannot be controlled. There is a certain quality to Suleika’s voice and how she articulates her thoughts that I admire.
The exerpt: "You know, I am a deeply fearful person, a deeply anxious person. I have always been. My first instinct is to control, to do my due diligence, to manage risk. And I think what living with an illness for a lot of my adult life has done is it's forced me to surrender because there is no control when you're in that situation. You have no control over the mysterious happenings in your body. You have no control over your schedule. I think we've had to reschedule this podcast two times because I wasn't well enough to do it the first two times, which I was totally horrified by because I've been looking forward to this so much. But also I’ve just had to accept that that’s how it is, that I can make plans, but that if I cling to those plans too much, if I’m too rigid, it’s a recipe for endless discouragement and defeat. And I think that’s true for most of us. Things do not go according to plan. But instead of clinging to that, of trying to control it, of trying to muscle through no matter what, which I’ve tried to do, and I know it makes me miserable, I’ve had to get limber and flexible."
(Jenga photo by Valery Fedotov on Unsplash)
From Hidden Brain: Befriending Your Inner Voice
I listened to this podcast episode during one of my first runs in Tokyo. It was hot and humid and I didn't like it. I was also struggling to adjust to my new life and its implications. I was having trouble sleeping, overthinking and worrying. Thoughts and feelings kept surfacing that I knew were not helpful. This episode provided some research and helpful tips in dealing with that inner voice. The one that resonated most with me was to talk to myself like I would to a friend. I tend to be much more harsh towards myself than I would be to others. I am naturally able to be compassionate with others but find it hard to be self-compassionate.
From Mini-personalities: Why Carl Jung believed your “complexes” lead their own inner lives and Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up by James Hollis (thanks Mary!)
The concept of splinter personalities comes from Carl Jung and describes how we have these different parts within ourselves that emerge from past conflicts (that we are probably not even aware of). These parts, or personalities, or complexes are unconsious so it's not something we actively access. The problem is that as adults we can find ourselves dealing with repeated feelings that we cannot understand from within, like uncontrolled feelings of anger or jealousy or other deep-seated fears. The thinking here is that unless we bring these parts to consiousness, they will sit silently inside and act out. What I find helpful here is to have a mental model to help me make sense of moments where I may spiral and catastrophize certain things.
(Concrete faces photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash)
Here are random lines that I was inspired by even though I don't remember where some of them came from.
+ Slowness as fundamental to quality
+ Viewing the novel projects as bonus not entitlement
+ Early success is a terrible teacher (Chris Hadfield)
+ Learn other subjects, other companies, other trades, other industries. It will make you richer in the years to come (Esther Perel)
+ The design process is not a fixed set of steps, but tools you use in your work to communicate ideas (My previous colleague Fausto)