Last week the most clicked link on Stuff was about mastering the soft skill of Problem Solving, I hope you found that useful!
It was also great to welcome some of you to my 2023 Highs playlist, with something new and interesting to listen to every day.
This week I've been (unsurprisingly) enjoying the new and impressive Threads app from Meta, you can find me by clicking here. It seems to be a strong alternative to Twitter, and I'm excited to see how Threads develops.
Thanks for being here on our joint journey of curiosity, and the new subscribers, hey!
Till next Monday, enjoy...
👓 The Big Stuff - find joy, not dopamine...
I saw a lot of references this week to the dopamine hits that people were finding through a new social network, and I made a conscious effort to try not to get sucked into that cycle.
Instead, before I wrote this, I made a note of all the things that bought me joy this week. Live music in Dublin, lunch with my wife in the sun, an ice-cream, some excellent music, a photograph I took and a walk to a local pub for an evening drink were all much better than social network dopamine.
Writing this newsletter is a weekly source of joy, from creativity.
It turns out that there is science behind this, joy has a positive physiological effect that can boost your immune system and support longevity. Science also shows that embracing community and relationships keep us happy, healthy, and may help us live longer.
Tony Robbins suggests these 9 ways to find joy in everyday life, and here are 28 more ways. The excellent Career Contessa suggests ten ways to find joy at work. i particularly like the values exercise at #1.
For me, the simplest way to ensure I recognise joy is to take the time to notice it around me.
The simple act of making a list of what bought me joy, has generated more benefits than an extra like or follow on a social network.
🧠 The Other Stuff
- Values: The ever-impressive Mark Manson outlines the five 'best' personal traits for life.
- Habits: The practice of micro-habits might be an easier way to build improvements into your life. I really like the logic here. You can still use my free habit tracker as a way to measure how you're doing.
- Trust: The Edelman 2023 trust survey takes input from 32000 people globally, and works out who we trust in an increasingly polarised world.
🌞 The Little Stuff
- Books: The fifty best book covers of 2022. via AIGA.
- Cinema: EyeCandy is a useful explainer of those clever shots from movies.
- AI: Try Arlo, an alarm app that wakes you up with a celebrity voice.
- Finally: How about a little slidy puzzle? This will take you back!
Matt Rutherford
🎧 Aural Stuff
On the Stuff Speakers this week...
🎧 This weeks music treat is from Scottish based songwriter Neil Scott Pennycook, under the guise Meursault, and is the follow up to 2019 album, Crow Hill.
Self-titled Meursault, this is a delicate and heartfelt collection of songs, mainly based on piano, strings and guitar and focusing on the challenges of the creative endeavour. It's a short, 8 track album - but packs a huge journey inside.
I'm a huge Meursault fan, and I instantly loved this album - its highly recommended.
Side note - one of the best gigs I've ever been to: Meursault in St Johns Church, Bethnal Green, London.
Matt Rutherford
👂🏼 Stuff Someone Said
“Evil people do not believe they are evil, they believe everyone else is evil.”
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