A few weeks ago I subscribed to yet another newsletter called The Imperfectionist. It’s written by Oliver Burkeman.
There have so far — since I subscribed — been just 3 emails sent, but it feels like each one is tailored to me. I know it sounds ridiculous — but I swear, each one answered one of the issues that I struggled with at the moment.
The first one, titled “How to make writing less hard” had 3 tips on writing. Even if you aren’t subscribed to the newsletter, you can view the email online.
The second one, “Are we there yet?”, starts with a story about Sam Harris, I am going to quote it here:
Sam Harris recalls being in the middle of a long session of moaning to a friend, about all the crap he was dealing with at the time, when she interrupted him. “Hold on,” she said (or words to this effect). “Are you still under the illusion that you’ll one day reach a point in your life where you no longer have any problems?”
It’s like it’s directed at me. I have always thought that once I am more disciplined and organized and finish some of my projects that drag on, I will have it finally all under control. It has only recently occurred to me that I will maybe never be in a state where I have everything figured out.
It reminded me of a tweet I once saw:
And the latest mail, sent yesterday, was about constantly having too many things to read, it’s called “Too many needles”.
The Imperfectionist is one of my favorite newsletters now. You can subscribe here if you want.