Sundays with ScootyDub - Intersecting changes, hidden happiness, & chase what you enjoy
the 41st Edition
Happy Sunday!
I dragged my desk across the carpet to face the blank wall to the west.
I pulled three cords and four cables from their sources to plug them all back the same way seven feet away.
The sun was shining through the window from the south on a Sunday, early afternoon.
I crawled out from under the desk, plugs plugged, and power restored. The room felt different already. It was the same room, same desk, same me - and yet, not quite.
Funny how something as trivial as shuffling some furniture around can feel so significant. It’s like a reset for your brain.
Somehow, switching from the window to the wall feels fresh, and the day-to-day turns into something different.
That's the thing about change. Small tweaks can turn into sizeable transformations.
So here's to new sightlines, fresh perspectives, and trivial rearrangements.
September Notables
🛋️ IKEA chair — I bought my first piece of superfluous furniture to start September. A chair for the bedroom. A place to read, write, sit and stare. And also a place to throw clothes. Superfluous - unnecessary/surplus. (I had to check to make sure it meant what I thought it meant)
🚶🏻♂️Elbow River walk — Inspired by Ross Edgley, a savage man who swam for 56hrs straight in the Yukon, I walked 20KM up and down the river. The feat took me 4 hours. No official records broken. But it was my longest walk this year. (Two links for Ross down below.)
⛸️ Friday night hockey — My lungs and legs felt fine and fresh for warmups. Sure, 11pm is past my bedtime, but I was excited to be back on the ice. Twenty minutes later, everything was burning. By the end of the second, I was barely surviving. When the game finished, my body was screaming, but boy, did I feel alive. (Nothing like shocking the system with intensive exercise after dark.)
3 Lessons Learned
I. Change intersects with conflict.
You know that feeling you get when your check engine comes on? A mix of “oh no” and "maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away?” But secretly we know the clock has started. The longer we avoid it, the worse it will get.
I’ve learned when you’re cruising down the path of change, you can’t avoid the conflict. Better to steer through it than around it. Because, as they say, the more you resist, the more it persists.
Whether you choose change or change chooses you, it comes with unexpected challenges.
II. Happiness hides within hardship & struggle, too.
Have you ever looked at a feelings wheel? It has six core emotions in the middle - happy, sad, mad, scared, powerful, peaceful. A layer out from that, each emotion expands into more specific emotions. Each conveniently coloured by category.
I've learned feelings don’t come one colour at a time. It's more like finger painting - messy, mixed, and unexpectedly beautiful.
Even in the hardest of times, you’ll find bits of bright, vibrant joy.
III. Chase the things you enjoy more than everything you don’t.
Most modern media is basically a magnet for disappointment and despair. We don’t want this. We don’t like that. Where are the joy magnets?
I've learned it’s better to fill your plate with passions, not complaints. What do you enjoy doing?
Do more of that. Life's too short to scroll through a feed full of "don't likes."
4 interesting things:
Ross Edgley
510km/56 hour non-stop swim in Yukon (YouTube)
on the Modern Wisdom podcast (YouTube)
Your hardships define you via Daily Stoic (YT short)
The most satisfying video of a guy biking on a moving train (YT short)
I'll leave you with a quote 🤔
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
— Suzy KassemUntil next time, remember to live and let go,
Scotty
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