51 | ❤️ Liking others, vs trying to be liked + Learning to Love Reading

March 29, 2022

Hi all,

Happy days - it’s the end of March which means the clocks have changed and we can now actually step outside in the evenings and not be plunged into darkness. What a result!

April is just around the corner, the weather is on the up and summer is ahead of us. It’s a brilliant time of year.

Shall we?

💭 Two things you need to know:

❤️ Showing We Like Others vs Trying to be Liked

I’ve written before about comparing myself to others, and how it can affect one’s self-esteem - it’s fairly common.

This is less of an issue now, at 27, but it featured heavily when I was younger - especially while I was at university.

If only I’d have read the following advice at the time (from The School of Life: An Emotional Education):

We should stop worrying quite so much whether or not people like us, and make that far more interesting and socially useful move: concentrate on showing that we like them.

I think this is such a superb idea. It turns the egotistical, inward-focused desire to be liked on its head.

Do I like other people? Do I have the capacity to like others, and if not, why?

It really comes down to simple phrase - it might be a bit of a cliche, but it’s worth repeating.

If you can’t love yourself, how can you love somebody else?

If anything, it takes the pressure off. If you’re doing the right things, being a nice person and allowing yourself to be liked, you can do no wrong.

If you aren’t liked off the back of those actions, the person / people in question aren’t worth your time anyway.

📖 Learning to Love Reading

As you will know by now, I bloody love reading.

Reading is what powers the writing in this email I send every week, it entertains me, and it teaches my about the world.

I’ve (almost) always liked reading, to the point where it’s something that’s a natural part of my life.

However - I just wrote (almost). I haven’t always loved reading.

During university, studying English meant that reading was a requirement. When I say reading, though, I mean reading.

Books written in 1600 reading.

Now - there’s some absolute bangers written in the 1600s. Literary classics that have formed the backbone of British canon for several hundred years.

But, I just didn’t like them. So I stopped reading.

Like many things, it turns out reading is less fun when you have to do it.

So what’s the answer?

Read what you love until you love to read.

— Naval

While this sounds like a bit of a catch 22 - I don’t like reading, so how can I find something I love to read ?

But, there’s always something.

Reading is just a way of consuming information. Not liking reading is like saying you don’t like watching.

So, to read more, find something that you absolutely can not put down, and start from there.

Here are some of the best page turners that I can think of off the top of my head - the sort of book that you look forward to coming back to before going to sleep, the sort that stops you from going to sleep:

If you don’t like reading, give a few of these a go and they’ll change your mind.

Eventually, the reading habit will grow and grow, until you love reading. Simple!

✅ Two Recommendations:

A recent regular on this email - in this video Campbell Walker discusses the fact that creative work is now made for algorithms, rather than the for the viewer and the creator themselves. Such work has been renamed ‘content’ - a very post-2000 term for articles, videos, photos and such - and leads burnout and a divergence from what people are good at and what they enjoy. Smart guy.

📧 Unsubscribe from unwanted emails in your inbox

I’ve mentioned this before but it’s definitely worth repeating.

Once you’ve finished this email and replied to tell me how much you loved it, go back into your inbox and unsubscribe from 5 unwanted marketing emails.

Do this every day for a week.

Remember that an inbox with 1000+ emails doesn’t have to be like that forever. An inbox that’s under control is a great to-do list and store of information.

Plus, I truly believe that our digital spaces reflect the space in our minds. A cluttered inbox means a cluttered mind and a cluttered life.

And yes, I do see the irony of recommending to unsubscribe from ‘unwanted’ emails in your inbox... in an email that I have sent to your inbox…

💬 And finally, two quotes

Of course, the point is not to say no to all requests. The point is to say no to the non-essentials so we can say yes to the things that really matter. It is to say no – frequently and gracefully – to everything but what is truly vital.

— Greg McKeown, Essentialism

Maybe you’ve always been happy, but the world, social media and external comparisons have convinced you that you can’t possibly be.

— Steven Bartlett, Happy Sexy Millionaire

Thanks!

If you found this interesting and useful, feel free to subscribe. I send emails like this every Tuesday.

And as always, feel free to reply to these email if you found this useful!

In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and have a look at what I’m reading on Goodreads.

📸 BONUS: Photo of the Week