Lane Drugs

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”

-Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

I came across that poem while reading Oliver Burkman’s “Time Management for Mortals” which came as a recommendation from Ryan Holiday’s newsletters. I approach a lot of self-help and personal growth books with skepticism, often joking about how some of the dumbest people on the planet profit off of making rules of life, like “make your bed every morning” or “always do the dishes”. This is not a stoic or positive approach to learning, mental health or inviting a challenging opinion in to shape a world view.

Speaking of Ryan Holiday, his research assistant Billy Oppenheimer had recently mentioned that some advice he got from Holiday was to stop looking at the complete 9 innings and to just..start. I want to be a writer. I don’t necessarily enjoy the act of writing, in fact, I don’t even know most authors who do love the actual act of writing. But to become a writer, one has to write.

I am currently reading through Atomic Habits and one of the main early takeaways is to change your habits you have to change your identity. The author decided to publish something, anything, every Monday and Thursday. And in that we have a goal…which is what the book precisely says to not do…