Honorable Mentions
At the risk of making things sound Official™ (Narrator Voice: “they’re not”), this is the second entry of the newsletter behind Distillations. You can find the first entry, “Belated Introductions,” here.
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I trudged through “Slowing Down the Web“ for most of June. Not so much because of the essay’s content, but rather the personal happenings that overcast my writing. The emotional range of the events was incredibly—and unfortunately—wide. My grandmother passed away, I’m no longer seeing the woman I was dating for the past three months, our iOS team shipped a major update, and I’m trialing a lateral career move.
I mentioned in “Belated Introductions“ that “decoupling myself from my work has always been important.” After this month, I’m not sure ‘decoupling’ is the right word. There will always be an interplay between my identity and work. A healthier relationship might be that of a foreground and background.
Relatedly, Shiva and I made a slight modification—that ended up being not so slight—to our weekly checkins. We removed the “Honorable Mentions” section. It was a corner where we placed those I’ll-be-okay moments (unrelated to his short films and my writing). I honestly miss it. On one hand, its absence allowed our checkins to be focused and linear. “Goals for the week: X and Y. What got done? X and most of Y.” On the other hand, that focused linearity removed, well, everything else. Was Y unfinished because I was lazy…or was my energy directed towards fostering a potential relationship? Taking out Honorable Mentions stripped the very context that backdrops our work.
So, I’m welcoming them back—here’s a glimpse into my 26th week of 2018:
- My strength coach transitioned us to an endurance phase for the next few weeks. Friday night, and four workouts later, I crash landed into my bed—earning my fatigue.
- Led a (thankfully rare) post-mortem at work. Took a leap in shaping the culture I want to foster and titled the calendar invite as a “Learning Review.” The nuanced language change didn’t go unnoticed.
- The support system I have in the form of Shiva, Upma, Vinay, Kate, Jason, Joe, Ash, Anish, and Kunal.
- My upcoming talk got announced and there’s a waitlist (!!!)—eep.
- Tuesday morning’s book club with Joe at Café Grumpy. The backyard is wonderful.
- Noticing a tangible camaraderie forming on Peloton’s iOS team.
- Vinay and I took a 6am Tread class. A hilarious, yet memorable morning.
- An originally empty weekend that got filled—both in time and warmth, quite literally, it’s 96° right now—with coffee, Citi Bike rides, more coffee, an outdoor dinner, a housewarming party, and a Sunday morning spent writing this note.
I hope you jot down some honorable mentions from this past week.
See you next month. Be well.
Jas