A Weekly Reflection

Contemplating my personal philosophy and digital minimalism

Dec 19, 2022

Hi friends,

I hope you've had a good week and even if it was truly terrible, I hope that we can find the glimmers of hope through the gloom. This week, I thought it would be fun to do Patricia Mou’s personal weekly review right here. I came across Patricia’s work via Twitter a few months ago and have since enjoyed and found value in her newsletters and insights spanning creativity, philosophy and mental health.

Here are the review prompts if you’d like to follow along:

Past week

Energy

What did I do this week?

Things that gave me energy:

Chatting with
Curly Gruene Cahall
for the first time about creativity, workflows and digital tools.
This week’s Workspace Wednesday video on digital minimalism and performing a technology evaluation in Tana
- Thinking about my personal philosophy and values
Thinking about and trialing my personal finance planner (originally built in Notion) to work in Coda.

What took away my energy:

Socialising - I’m your textbook introvert. Over the years, I’ve learnt the events that I can tolerate and those that I should avoid. I enjoy meeting up and talking with friends but even this can drain my energy if meet-ups are scheduled close together. This week, my closest friend and I had a wonderful breakfast followed by some Christmas gift shopping. That evening, I also saw a movie with another close friend. I enjoyed every moment with them, however, I was absolutely drained by the time I got home. Of course, this isn’t to say that I’m not going to hang out with my friends but it will likely be better to plan things a few days apart.

Breakfast at Bisou and the most abundant ZZ plant that I’ve seen.

Spiritual Development

Note: I don’t know what Patricia means when she uses the word “spiritual”. This word holds varied meanings to different people. As I don’t consider myself religious or spiritual, I’m going to interpret these questions through the lens of my own personal philosophy and general self-development.

How have I grown emotionally and spiritually?

I’m learning more and more to let go. This includes letting go of the expectations that I place on others as well as unrealistic expectations that I place on myself. This week, I was also able to notice and articulate an emotional response and coping mechanism that has come up for years when I’m faced with not being in control of specific interpersonal interactions. When I’m faced with this particular trigger, my first response is to shut down, becoming quiet and reclusive. I then distract myself in order to avoid my feelings. Instead, I’m going to try doing some introspection — looking within, being honest with myself and journaling to better articulate the interaction and how I feel.

Big things I’m contemplating and questioning:

A quick search in Tana for all nodes tagged #question.

What are the things I say I value but don't act as if I value, and what would my life feel like on the inside if I actually acted as if I valued those things?

This is a fitting question as I would have thought about my values over the past week. The big ones standing out to me for this question are freedom and growth. Freedom because there’s so much that I want to do before this body goes cold yet I hold back due to insecurities and repeatedly falling into the illusory thought pattern of “I have time.” Growth because right now, I feel comfortable and it’s really hard to grow under conditions of comfort. In many cases, the human mind sees no reason to go beyond the confines of security.

In what ways am I lying to myself?

Ah, this is a tough one because it cuts right to the crux of any mental facades. Well, I touched on one thing before. I think that I have time in my life to do the things that matter most to me but in reality, this is a lie. I’ve no idea how much time I have left.

This is a good question to ask with different life areas in mind. How am I lying to myself when it comes to career/work, relationships, health or finances?