Reframe Your Inbox (Is It May Day or Mayday? Edition)

Hey everyone. A big, big thank you to those who pre-ordered, post-ordered, tweeted, Instagrammed, shared, plugged, emailed, celebrated, and otherwise engaged with the launch of Reframe the Day on Tuesday. It means so much to me, and it supports the amazing work of Direct Relief.

If you haven’t been able to grab a copy yet, zero worries—all profits from future book sales will continue to support the coronavirus response efforts of Direct Relief. These days, we gotta seize the opportunities to do a little good wherever we can find them.

Here are three things for the week: 1) some book-related updates; 2) a collection of cool and interesting links for some Sunday afternoon browsing; and 3) some out-loud thinking about what’s next.

FIRST THING

I originally had this next sentence buried in a long paragraph of introductory text, but I’m going to get right to the point here: Would you consider reviewing Reframe the Day on Amazon? Even if you didn’t buy it on Amazon (support local bookstores!), you can review it there. Those reviews are so, so important for getting the word out about the book. It can be brief—even just a sentence or two. It could be something like this. It doesn’t even need to be composed of complete sentences. And it can, and should, be honest. If you don’t dig the book, you should definitely say that (although feel free to say it in an email to me rather than on the internet.) THANK YOU.

In other book news, last Tuesday an excerpt of Reframe the Day was featured on the Optimal Living Daily podcast. Check it out here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Later today (Sunday) at 10:30 am ET/3:30 pm UK, I’m joining bookstagrammer @books_behindthescenes for a short Instagram Live Q&A. Follow me on Insta for all the details.

SECOND THING(S)

A few interesting links that prove there’s still non-coronavirus content out there:

“There is a cult of work: We must produce, produce, produce, and if we are not producing we are bad. … We should take much more of a cue from the flora and fauna that surround us. Once you have the basics, it is enough just to bask in the sunshine and potter around. And if your ‘contributions’ dry up and you do crosswords all day, that’s okay too. You matter.” So writes Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs: Animals Are Pointless, And We Should Be Too. I don’t agree with everything Robinson says in the article, but the subtitle— “The value of life does not depend on ‘productivity’”—resonates with me for obvious reasons (see chapter five of Reframe the Day). Thanks to my friend Vish for sending this.

“We exist to unify, empower, and activate people who have done and experienced harm to practice radical love and forgiveness; and to use our resources to empower the least loved and least forgiven people in society. We are raising awareness and understanding of the full human experience of people who have been to prison, because we believe everyone is more than their record. We are building a community of people that are radically reimagining a system where justice and accountability includes investment in growth, transformation, and restoration, rather than simply punishment.” That’s the mission statement of the Michigan-based organization Forgive Everyone, which recently cross-posted an article I published on Medium a couple years ago. Founder Sky Rich and the team at Forgive Everyone are doing important and inspiring work. (Sky also recently published a great criminal justice reform and forgiveness book list.)

“Challenging the status quo is difficult—and often cold and lonely. We shouldn’t be surprised that the interests that pushed climate denialism for many years are now pushing the idea that there’s nothing we can do. That’s how powerful incumbents always react to the prospect of change.” That’s Rebecca Henderson, a Harvard professor who teaches the hugely popular course “Reimagining Capitalism” at Harvard Business School, in the prologue to her new book, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. Check out reviews in the FT and Fortune.

“Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It’s best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.” That’s from Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking. (I came across this line on the Writing Routines website, which itself linked to Brain Pickings. Ah, the internet.)

THIRD THING

You know that moment when you’ve been working on something for a long time, and then it happens, and then you’re not sure what to do with yourself the next day? It might be an event you’re organizing—a conference, maybe, or a wedding or a dinner party. It might be a final exam you’re taking or a presentation you’re making. It might just be a team project you’ve been supporting at work for the last few years. In politics, it might be a big committee hearing that you’ve been preparing for for months, or it might be an election. Anyone working on a campaign finds their life looking and feeling very different the day after election day, regardless of whether your candidate or cause won or lost.

Whatever the case, I’m fascinated by these moments that we strive toward for weeks, months, and years. All of a sudden, this thing that seemed like it would never be attained or achieved has been attained and achieved, and… no matter what the attainment or achievement is, getting to the other side of it leaves emptiness in its wake—a lingering sense of what do I do now? I haven’t hit that feeling yet with Reframe the Day, but I know it’s coming. Instead of running from it or trying to bury it under more busyness or whatever comes next, I hope I can let myself feel it. It’s a helpful reminder that when we make our happiness contingent on future accomplishments, we set ourselves up for a lifetime of endless striving and suffering—and we miss all the life happening in front of us right now.

Stay safe out there. As always, thanks for reading.

—Adam

PS—if you missed the new foreword to Reframe the Day, you can read it here.