Duality of change
Moving forward with a new leadership, time or money, Google Cal trick, letting the future in
Hi friend,
Leading up to the inauguration last week, there were a few reports of another insurrection being planned. Thankfully, everything proceeded like normal. Biden and Harris were sworn in, Lady Gaga killed the national anthem, Bernie Sanders became a meme, and Amanda Gorman inspired millions.
Personally, I’m extremely relieved to have the Trump administration come to a close. After four years of bipartisan bickering and numbing myself to the news, I’m ready for an improvement.
In just a week in office, Biden has signed legislations impacting LGBTQ+ citizens, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s hope this new administration keeps this up.
This weekend, hosted a Clubhouse talk with my friend, Dalia Kinsey, on how we have become desensitized to injustices within our country during Trump’s administration. Class divides have deepened, racial tensions raised, and COVID-19 health precautions politicized. Even after two impeachments, the Republican party is still supporting Donald Trump.
Why?
Trump had never delivered on his promises including the Mexico-US border, a reformed health care plan, and delivering COVID-19 vaccines. Education and healthcare are still inaccessible to most working-class families, and the unemployment rate is at an all-time high. Many Republicans remain loyal to Trump regardless of his administration’s lackluster performance. One can say that it’s quite similar to cult-like followings of American sports fanaticism.
Except, a four-year term is not a half-time buzzer. Politics is the underlying fabric of our society.
Every citizen, animal, object, and theory (ex: money) are impacted by the country’s legislation. The sole purpose of the rules we construct, which we call “laws”, govern the way we interact with one another. Ultimately, it should foster collaboration and harmony so that we can all live longer and more prosperous lives.
Unfortunately, we are at this point where alliances with these political parties seem to be more important than the purpose of why they were erected in the first place.
Was the cost of bipartisan loyalty worth its price?
They say history repeats itself.
I recently read a book that said instead, “History doesn’t repeat itself. Man does.”
One of my favorite books by Robert Greene (Laws of Human Nature) illustrates the cyclical nature of revolutions that happen every four generations. Each generation becoming drunker in power, status, and money until it hits a breaking point. A characteristic nature of the fourth generation is illustrated by strong activism, which I see in our gen Z population. Based on Greene’s estimates, our next revolution and upheaval will be led by the children of gen Z.
We may be headed towards a place where these two parties may come crashing down, and in the wake of chaos, a new beginning. Or perhaps we can learn from our mistakes and ratify our governing laws to limit corruption and redistribute proper wealth and adequate healthcare to all of its citizens.
What I’m up to
For Clubhousers: Sunday, Jan 31 - Living Queer & Melanated: Practicing self-love and banishing criticism (add me @wakuu and I’ll ping you in)
For queer POC: Tuesday, Feb 9 - leveling up your design career
For queer Asians: Sunday, Feb 21 - Yellow Glitter Sparkes, Gaysian support group
Hosted an extremely successful full-day digital retreat and excited to extend this out to an in-person queer Asian mindfulness retreat once this quarantine situation ends. At this point, planning on 2022 at the earliest.
For Asians: Sunday, Feb 28 - Asian American Healing Space
Time or Money?
A fascinating article published on A Life of Productivity on winning back time by either saving it or buying it back:
Tactics to save time are about tackling time traps head-on. Imagine pinging phone alerts and how they disrupt our moments of leisure. That technology pitfall shreds our valuable time into a thousand distracted fragments, which Ashley calls “time confetti.”
Tactics to buy back time reframe the value we associate with time and happiness. Because money is a metric we all understand, Ashley conceptualized “Happiness Dollars” which attaches a concrete value to the happiness benefits that come from making time-first decisions… By delegating your work, you’re left with more time to spend with family or to volunteer in your community. Focusing on time is not a selfish act.
Google Calendar trick
I had no idea, but if you hit “g” while on Google Calendar, you can type the date you want to jump to. No more scrolling through months! I’ve noticed:
Omitting the year jumps you to the date of the current year (“1/12” opens up 1/12/21)
Typing just a number jumps you to the date of the selected month (“12” opens up December 2021)
The future to come
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
As always, thanks for reading!
P.S. If you enjoyed this, share or sign up here: mindfulmoments.substack.com
Anything else? You can always hit "reply" to email me directly. 💌
Have a beautiful day!
Metta (loving-kindness),
Steven
Yellow Glitter Podcast | IG | YT | FB | TW | StevenWakabayashi.com