6 Happy Things to Celebrate

Weekly Reminders to Stay Positive #9

Hi friends, welcome back to installment number 9 of this series. I have almost forgotten to publish this one as the past two weeks have been absolutely chaotic at work and in my personal life. All good things though - not a lot I can share publicly for now but I hope life has treated you well.

Little reminder, if you are in Austin, please go vote if you can for the general election on November 8.

painting generated from AI - Dall E 2

1. Great books & essays I have read:

Book: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (currently half way through the book, and have been underlining non-stop)

Essays:

• First drafts by Austin Kleon

Reminding the importance of shitty first drafts!! Something Anne Lamott wrote extensively about in Bird by Bird.

• What Running Taught Me about Life by Caroline Cala Donofrio

• The Great Creator Arbitrage Opportunity by Paul Millerd

• What You Can’t Say by Paul Graham (Can’t believe I’m today years old when I started reading his writing, shout out to Tung and Pranab for mentioning Paul, you both inspire me)

• 24 things i learned at 24 from the sentimental newsletter

lesson 6. i will always wish i would’ve started yesterday, and today will always be tomorrow’s yesterday.

lesson 9. there are already answers to most of the questions i have—all i have to do is look for them.

• In the middle of the journey by Terrell Johnson covering some intuitive thoughts on how we could listen to our bodies to determine how hard to train or push ourselves

• My Breakup with Booze by Jen Vermet. Even though I don’t drink much personally, I really like Jen’s sharing on her sobriety journey: her motivation behind not drinking anymore and the impact on her life. Would recommend if you are looking into cutting alcohol out of your life.

• certainty by Molly Mielke

  Call me crazy, but maybe it’s a good sign when things feel remarkably simple and wordlessly right. And when they do, it’s interesting to look around and notice how incredibly irrelevant speed is

  2. Running my first 10K

  

  running trail of my dreams

  I started running my last semester of college, which conveniently by this month marked my one year running. I can wax poetic about the learning and emotions I have undergone in my running journey, like Murakami or George Sheehan has written about, but I will spare you the detail and only share one thing now: patience.

  Whenever I start a new project, hobby or job, I want to see instant results, rewards, gratification, etc. I am drawn to those little kicks and running was nothing like instant gratification. Running sucked and hurt at least in the first 15-20 minutes of the experience. I huffed and puffed, my chest started to hurt and I was soon out of breath. This happened almost every time, even now when I’m running. It took me three months to get to a crawling pace to 12 min pace with my 5K and then many more months before I can get to 11:15 pace with my past 10K. I don’t like to compete with anyone but myself in this sport and that’s what I like most about it.

  If you are rolling your eyes, I am there with you. I have never loved running either. What I love though is seeing the outside world and getting better each day and running meet both of those objectives. Some days I make new progress and some days I regress and it feels like my whole body is failing me. That gladly however has taught me about patience.

  3. Making new friends in Austin

  I have said this before but I will say this again, people I meet in Austin have been one of the kindest and coolest people I have known period. Forever grateful for life that brought me to this city. I used to be afraid of talking about the beautiful things I have in life, scared of them breaking, losing, drifting away from me. But from the word of my beloved writer Sarah Wood:

I don’t want to let my fear prevent me from breathing something good all the way in. Believing it. I don’t want to be afraid to accept love. To feel it and share it.

4. New ATX businesses I discovered this past weekend:

Cuantos Tacos (shout out to Minjae for showing me)

OMG Squee (shout out to my coworker Jessica for showing me)

Vintage Book Store (shout out to ATX Meet up group for showing me)

5. I made my own Char Siu for the first time, which honestly deserves its own celebration - would highly recommend making your own marinade if you can. I have had at least six people asked me for the recipe so here it is.

6. My wonderfully hilarious and lovely cousin DA’s birthday was this past Saturday. She turns 22 this year so join me in sending her all good wishes.

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Leave me a comment on your happy things this week, I would love to know.

Also leave a comment with any topic suggestions for future essays, I am open.

Thank you for being here and see you on Friday.