Hey 👋

After a particularly punishing lightning round of what’s stressing me out, anyways, I picked up “What You Do is Who You Are,” Ben Horowitz’s book on culture that I’ve been inching my way through for the last 3 months.

I got 2 pages into samurai culture and paused, grappling with the next section:

The Importance of Death

It isn’t something I’d given much extended thought to until recently. 4.5yo curiosity about beginnings and ends has made me wonder.

If you realize that the life that is here today is not certain on the morrow, then when you take your orders from your employer, and when you look in on your parents, you will have the sense that this may be the last time - so you cannot fully fail to become truly attentive to your employer and your parents. - the Bushido Shoshinshi

I immediately mostly regretted the texts I’d sent asking my mom to stop sending me coronavirus updates.

A quick search on the App Store and I downloaded Time Left to my phone. A 66% full circle stared back at me.

50 years, 10 days, 1 hour, 34 minutes.

I swiped left.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. - Steve Jobs

I turned off my Instagram notifications and smiled, reflecting on the lightning round.

Here are a few things I’ve enjoyed this week:

🙋🏽‍♀️ why Americans can’t quit Girl Scout cookies, The Lily, 8m

No, it’s really fierce. Have you ever seen a 5-year-old run her business, set up a digital online store, make an ask, upsell a customer, control her own inventory, count her own money, make change and manage a customer database?

via The Ann Friedman Weekly

🧠 the joke is on the valet, Ryan Kulp, 3m

After spending 2 hours doing my hair a couple weeks, I reminded myself that I am not a “doer of hair,” and this article reinforced my afro defining belief. Then I watched Parasite and re-read this article and felt my stomach churn. How can we balance individual purpose with genuine openness to and interest in others? Or is “the joke is on the valet” just the more direct, too close for comfort retelling of a Dale Carnegie truism?

+ the work you do, the person you are the New Yorker, 2m

A kind of counter balance.

❤️ manmade ponds, start again today, 1m

The joy of noticing an artificial water feature.

🚶🏽‍♀️learn to write a forwardable introduction email, startup hacks, 2m

Trying to get advice or a job from someone in your extended network? Use these best practices to write an email that will make life easy for whoever is connecting you.

I see you, I love you, let’s have an awesome Women’s History Month.