Bad Coffee, Cheating, Robinhood & Seinfeld - Weekly Mix #159

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Bad Coffee, Cheating, Robinhood & Seinfeld

Happy Thursday !

I hope you're having a great week! Here are some things I've been consuming and thinking about:

Drink Bad Coffee

When I worked in New York, our office had terrible coffee.

I can still remember the burnt smell, and burnt taste, of the drip coffee from the industrial machine.

Most people hated it.

I drank it. I like drinking something hot while I work, and I like coffee, and the caffeine, and thankfully have never had to deal with any effects from drinking large quantities.

I also came to appreciate it for another reason.

Whenever I went out on the weekend, and got a great latte, or a perfect cortado, I'd stop and think "wow, this coffee is amazing–way better than the coffee at work."

If I drank perfect coffee all the time, it wouldn't be special.

I'm not the first to realize this.

The contrast effect is well-known. We see things differently when they're contrasted with something else.

Sartre said it like this: "Il est impossible d’apprécier la lumière sans connaître les ténèbres." (It is impossible to appreciate the light without knowing the darkness.)

Derek Sivers points it out in his Directives (which I've linked below), noting it is a good way to become unhappy: "Insist on only the finest. You will now be unhappy with anything but the finest."

50 Cent also put it succintly in his song Many Men:

"Sunny days wouldn't be special if it wasn't for rain

Joy wouldn't feel so good if it wasn't for pain"

Don't forget that for the good times, we need to know the bad.

Losing some of the good things in our lives–travel, time with our friends and family, our routines–should make us appreciate the things we do have.

Articles I'm Reading:

11 Practical Pieces of Advice I'd Give My Younger Self - Polina Marinova - I'm a paid subscriber to The Profile, which Polina writes. She's about my age, and I enjoyed this advice.

Cheating - Seth Godin - A reminder that cheating, and justification of cheating, "degrades the system", and we should stop it.

The Profound Heroism of Chadwick Boseman - The Atlantic - It is always tragic when someone so talented dies so young, but much can be learned from how Chadwick Boseman lived his final years (and how we didn't know until after).

The Inside Story Of Robinhood’s Billionaire Founders, Option Kid Cowboys And The Wall Street Sharks That Feed On Them - Forbes - Robinhood and day trading has been one of the hottest parts of the pandemic, but most don't know the revenue model, or incentives, of Robinhood itself. Turns out, not so great for the average trader.

Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree - Inc. - I think we'll see more and more programs like this, and fewer people who think college is necessary to achieve their career goals, particularly in areas like product management, design, programming, data, etc. (ie. "tech" careers).

Jerry Seinfeld: So You Think New York Is ‘Dead’ - The New York Tim - Jerry lays out the case for New York's survival of the pandemic. I tend to agree, and I think it extends to almost all cities with a strong cultural identity.

What I'm Listening To: Derek Sivers: Innovation Versus Imitation - The Knowledge Project #88

This podcast, and my discovery of Derek's "Directives", were probably the biggest source of my learning this week. Some examples of the directives:

Share strong opinions

Be expensive

Own as little as possible

Choose the plan with the most options

And many more, which are equally as useful.

Have a great week!

Graham

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