Learning Journal
Effortless by Gregg McKeown
I liked Essentialism a lot, and this book points out a lot of great ways to make the essential effortless.
From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by Arthur C. Brooks
- Addiction to relentless achievement is ultimately bound to yield disappointment.
- Our skills will decline as we age, although our ability to connect the dots (wisdom) increases.
- In the second half of life, we can grow by shifting our focus from career success to cultivating bonds with family & friends, mentoring others, spiritual development, accepting weaknesses and limitations, and appreciating what we have.
- Work that we do should focus on enjoying what we are doing now, instead of focusing on getting to some destination.
While I’ve been focusing on these things for a while, this book helped me to see a roadmap of the future. I’m still on the upward career climb, but I see that it will eventually end. When that happens, I’d like to have the pieces in place to have a fulfilling life. I really enjoy my current career, but I’ll want to mentor others and to cultivate the relationships that really bring joy. The biggest lesson I took away is to focus more on my relationships, my friendships, and teaching others.
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
This book was a great follow up to The Future Is Faster Than You Think. It follows the life of Jennifer Doudna's life. I was surprised that she grew up in Hilo! She grew up as a haole girl, feeling like an outsider. I can relate to that experience, growing up as a haole boy on Maui, I too often felt like I was an outsider. But those experiences also had positive impacts on our lives. Doudna focused on RNA and eventually on the CRISPR system of gene editing. They found that bacteria had been using snips of DNA to store info on the viruses that attack them. CRISPR makes it possible to selectively snip and alter bits of DNA. There is so much potential in gene editing, including the possibility of ending diseases. It could eventually give us the ability to develop designer babies, which raises ethical issues. When COVID-19 broke out, Doudna and other scientists came together to develop testing and vaccines using CRISPR. I’m excited to see where this science goes next.
The Future Is Faster Than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler
This book totally blew my mind! It talks about the converging technological developments that are shaping our world. During the next 10 years, we are likely to experience more technological growth than we have in the past 100 years. This highspeed growth is likely to continue into the future as developments in one area impact developments in other new technologies. The book focuses on: AI, robotics, virtual reality, digital biology, IOT, 3D printing, blockchain, and global gigabit networks. They describe the impact these technologies will have on various areas of our lives: transportation, retail, advertising, education, health, entertainment, food, and finance. I thought I knew a good deal about emerging technologies, but there were many new developments that I hadn’t explored. Gene editing, hyperloops, floating cities, AI personal assistants, blockchain memory in our clothes, and developments in human longevity to name a few. As a digital marketer and web developer, I was shocked to read that it may only be another 10 years before my field is completely gone. If AI assistants do our shopping, businesses won’t need to market in the current sense. AI will use our preferences to find what we most want, without being swayed by a great ad. Of course, I’m still waiting for the self-driving cars I was promised 8 years ago. So the future of AI assistants and robots doing all of our jobs (except for gigs in the metaverse?) may be farther off than the authors assume. We may not know when things will change, but it’s a safe bet that they are already changing very fast, and this will continue. I’m looking forward to what the future brings.
Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki
I decided to read this book after completing Hello, Habits by the same author. The author describes his journey to minimalism and all that he learned along the way. It had an inspiring effect on me, and it prompted me to tackle my closets and shelves. I adopted a fairly minimalist lifestyle in the past, but have slowly accumulated things. The author’s journey helped me to reevaluate my possessions, and make several trips to the goodwill. I’m still in the process of reducing my things, and I hope to have this done in the next month or two. The book is written in a simple style that I really enjoyed. It’s a list of tips, many that I didn’t need in my own life. But I took the overall message of freedom through simplicity to heart, and I’m inspired to continue this practice.
Hello, Habits: A Minimalist's Guide to a Better by Fumio Sasaki
This book describes the cultivation of positive habits in the author’s life. He started waking up early, meditating, doing yoga, going to sleep early, and stopped drinking. I enjoyed his daily routine, which in addition to the previous sentence, includes going to the library, working, going to the gym, and watching movies. My lifestyle includes many of the same things but I spend my day at a company and don’t have time to go to the gym in the afternoon. His freelancer lifestyle is inspiring, although I like my daily routine too. My assumption was that he was doing this because of his success as an author, but he goes on to say that he earns very little money. He isn’t rich, and doesn’t need to be. Earning an income is important to us all, and I appreciated his honest approach to telling his story. He seems to be living a good life, and enjoying his work. There were parts of the book I skimmed through, but I appreciated the message of cultivating positive habits in our lives. I was inspired to download a habit tracking app on my phone, and it reminds me to track my habits everyday.