No. 557 — December 31, 2023 — Read on FS.blog — Free Version

Welcome to the final edition of Brain Food for 2023.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year!

I'm grateful to be on this journey with you and look forward to learning together in 2024.

FS

This is the time of year I reflect on 2023 before thinking about 2024. It's easy to think about setting goals, but if you don't know what's getting in the way, here are the questions I'm asking myself this year.

— Annual Reflections

Insight(s)

1.

The story we tell ourselves is the most powerful one in the world. Eventually, we start believing it, even when it's not true. While a positive story by itself won't guarantee a good outcome, a negative one will certainly prevent it from happening.

“If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.”

— Horace Mann

2.

Occasionally, this backfires, but it helps you move fast without much stress.

“I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble.”

— Rudyard Kipling

3.

“When you’re young, you believe that there will be many people with whom you’ll connect with deeply. Later in life, you come to realize that it only happens a few times. A few moments, frozen in genuine beauty, where you look at someone and you know, from a place deep within yourself, that they are going to mean something to you, that they are rare.

When it comes to this kind of connection, it’s important to understand that energy cannot be created or destroyed — that is a scientific fact. If the depth is there, it cannot be denied, cannot slip through your fingers, cannot be something you successfully run away from due to fear of exposure or battle wounds. You can try to dismiss it, can try to stay protected and hidden from the warmth, but your hiding spot is never watertight — it always catches up to you.

And if it’s not meant to fit within the soul of you, if it’s simply not your love to hold, no amount of bargaining with your heart will anchor it. That is the beauty of discovering the things that stay, the things that fall into place. In a world of billions, in a world where we are all seeking connection but avoiding eye contact, there are remarkable points of impact where you manage to crash yourself into someone who ends up breaking through the exterior. Someone who makes contact with your heart, who grows roots within it. Together, you beat the odds.

If you have found human beings like this, I hope you protect them. I hope you risk your heart for what you feel. I hope you believe that you are worthy of something full, and pointed and real. I hope you never settle for less, because certain people are truly just rare, beautiful drops of borrowed light that find their way to you. You don't feel alien with them. The otherness never arrives. There isn't a version of yourself you have to shed in order to feel connected to them. They see you clearly. You are held there. You are chosen there. Love becomes a safe place to rest your head. A place without artifice, or armour. There are no hiding spots. Everything is unguarded, and unvarnished, and there is freedom in that kind of openness, in that kind of vulnerability.

I promise it’s worth fighting for.”

— Bianca Sparacino

Tiny Thought(s)

1.

No one has all the answers at the beginning. Trust yourself and take the first step.

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2.

The more time it takes to explain a course of action, the less likely it is to be a good one.

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3.

When things go wrong, it's almost always because of distraction.

Chasing what's sexy comes at the expense of doing what's boring.

Consistently doing the boring stuff builds success.

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Thanks for reading,

— Shane
Author of Clear Thinking

P.S. Beautiful and incredible.

P.P.S. Is anyone else reading Atomic Habits again?