038 | Choose your own weapon
You won't find the best tool in nature, you need to shape it yourself, whatever it is.
Hello friends,
There is a global tendency to upgrade. Upgrade everything, as soon as there are new options.
We do it for phones and electronic devices, buying the upgraded versions every few years.
We do it for skills, always chasing the new shiny skill, tool or technology.
And to some extent, we even do it for friends… slowly gravitation away from our original group of friends when we meet a new one.
We seek happiness and success in the outside world, always thinking that the new device or opportunity will open the doors of heaven for us. And, more than anything, like a cherry on the cake, the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) makes us imagine that if we don't upgrade we will inevitably become irrelevant and, as a consequence, forgotten.
🎮 Make any tool (or skill) your own
The world doesn’t stop and new tools, skills or ideas see the light every day, to the point where it even becomes overwhelming. In my field, with computer science and software engineering, I can’t even connect to Twitter in a given day without feeling like I’m desperately late on 1000 new languages, frameworks or technologies that I knew nothing of. So, I keep running and instead of perfectionning the few skills I have under my belt now, I chase new ones, I become a Jack of all Trades / master of none because I’m afraid to become irrelevant.
But, like in a game, every character or weapon/tool has its own set of advantages and drawbacks. It won’t matter if you have the latest or the biggest one if you don’t know how to use it… or worse: if you have no use for it. Instead, you should make sure that the one weapon you choose is the right one and that you know how to use it perfectly, in any circumstances.
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
— Bruce Lee
Don’t try to use or to know everything, but make sure that you master what you do use. Diversity is in Nature, and we are more than 7 billion people on Earth, each with different tastes, talents, ideas and personnality. The only way to bring your contribution is to be the best version of yourself, with your own set of skills.
🔧 Let your tools shape you
“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
— Marshall McLuhan
If you can shape your tools, skills and ideas, they shape you way more than you’d like or care to admit. They make you think and behave differently, they become a part of your identity and the way you see the world.
If you use them appropriately and take the necessary time to shape and sharpen them, any tool you use, any skill you learn will bring you more rewards than you could expect.
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
— Abraham Lincoln
So, please go out there tiger, and make this world your own.
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— What I loved this week
Here's what I've been loving this week:
📱 One app I'm loving: Microsoft Edge • Having been in the Apple ecosystem for some time now, I never thought my favourite browser would be one by Microsoft. Yet, I must admit that Microsoft Edge (in his mac and iOS version), is the best of both worlds between Chrome and Firefox. My previous favourite one was the foxy one 🦊.
📖 Book recommendation: I’m currently looking for new and interesting books to read if you have any recommendations! What are your best suggestions in fantasy, thriller, novel or science fiction ❓
🗣 Quote of the week: “She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.”
— Elizabet Edwards
— What you should read this week
No new posts lately as I slowly settle into my new school routine and try to figure out how to organize my time. But here are a couple of posts you should read this week!
⏰ How I use Notion to learn and to create more effectively
You might know already how much I use Notion on a daily basis to… pretty much do anything, from reading, to preparing these newsletters and posts, to organizing my classes and business projects. In this post I’m diving deeply on some parts of my system, using Notion.
📖 The Checklist manifesto • Can a simple chechlist save lives ?
Can something as simple as a checklist save lives? I highly recommend you to read "The Checklist Manifesto" by Adul Gawande. In this post you’ll find the key lessons I learn from this book.
See you next week 👋🏾