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- Nic goes to Alaska (surprise included)
Nic goes to Alaska (surprise included)
plus craving simplicity and how your life has already been designed
Greg
August 09, 2024
Welcome to Curious G — a weekly email about personal growth and lifestyle design.
Let’s get curious 👇
Lifestyle Design: Nic goes to Alaska
Weekly Write-up: Craving simplicity
What I’m learning: The cost of apathy
Lifestyle Design
We’re trying something new this week! Please enjoy my conversation with Nic about his recent trip to Alaska. We discuss the beauty of nature, expectations, how to get the most out of your travels, and some cool things on Nic’s mind these days. You can listen on Spotify here.
In addition to guest posts, I’m going to be experimenting with these podcast-style interviews! Thanks to Nic for his willingness to be my first guest. We had some audio issues, so it is a bit choppy at parts — I apologize for that — I’ll get better over time!
Feedback would be appreciated! Even just a quick click on the poll below:
Weekly Write-up
I recently caught up with my sister. Our conversation turned to a shared desire for simplicity.
Society trains us to want complex things: large friend groups, high-paying jobs, multiple houses, big cities, etc. We set these as targets without questioning why, then climb the ladder to attain them.
As we climb, we expect things to get easier, but the opposite is usually true. Lifestyle creep makes saving difficult, life events strain hearts and wallets, and responsibilities build.
When challenges arise, we double down. Or maybe we pursue our targets in new ways: a career change, a new city, or a bigger apartment.
But these aren't the answers.
We turn to possessions and entertainment, believing that if we work hard for our money, we should enjoy spending it. And so, we continue on the hamster wheel, grasping at society's suggestions.
We all crave simplicity, but we've convinced ourselves that life can't be simple. Achieving simplicity ironically requires a conscious choice and significant effort to ignore what we've been conditioned to pursue.
Hold on a second, what does simplicity even look like? And how do I change my life to be more simple?
Here’s funny example:
What a career arc.
While extreme, I find myself drawn to such a change — throwing away my career to adopt the simple farm life.
I’ll add that to the list of future lifestyle experiments.
Content Recommendation
“The point of life is to live, and living isn’t a spectator sport.
Living means taking risks, pursuing your interests, embarrassing yourself, attempting difficult things, setting ambitious goals, trying, failing, and trying again. Living means pushing your mind and body to their limits, just to see what you’re capable of. Living means fighting back against the inertial forces that draw all of us toward the apathetic life. Living means being the protagonist of your own story, not a passenger whose outcomes are at the mercy of their environment.”
Jack Raines is one of my favorite young writers. I have referenced him once or twice before. In his most recent piece, he discusses the dangers of apathy, and how we owe it to ourselves to be intentional with our time.
