Hi Substack,
It has been a while. My plan of writing more regularly completely failed last month, but that’s okay.
October is here, and I thought of writing something like “What do Gilmore Girls and SEO have in common?” or “What do Gilmore Girls and corporate employees have in common?”. Too forced though. As you can see, there are already some topics to talk about: Gilmore Girls and work.
Firstly, I recently finished Gilmore Girls, and although I loved the show, the ending was disappointing for me.
Perhaps it was too close to reality? Rory was the perfect student, a well-behaved young girl and still life wasn’t easy on her. It left me thinking about how often, no matter how much we try, there are simply external factors we have no control over. Life is not black and white, we’re all living in the grey areas.
By the way, who is your favorite character? Mine was definitely Emily.
Secondly, let’s dive into work.
I love working. I think since a very young age I’ve associated work with both creativity and independence. You exchange your time and effort for a paycheck that allows you to pay for your food, your house, your vacations, your latest ZARA clothes.
On the other hand, work is an obligation just like school. So why not try to thrive, and see how far you can go and have some fun along the way?
Two of my first memories of really ‘crushing it’ were: 1) we had to do this presentation for Portuguese class about a boring topic. I got something like “Tell us a bit about China” and I created this booklet in Word with images of the Terracotta Warriors and, the special section: ALL my classmates’ names translated in Chinese. While I kept talking, the booklet could pass around the classroom and everyone was curious about their turn. And 2) when we had to do a presentation for English class about a random topic. I got one which I thought it was super boring ‘rooftop water tanks’. What could I say about them? So, naturally, I created a PowerPoint presentation with none other than Spider-Man jumping all over them in New York City (remember when you could add those motion paths?).
However, please read this word with a big emphasis, However, if I could be on holiday forever, oh, I definitely would.
Maybe this is why I’ve always tried to make work a little more interesting than it needs to be. I love experimenting, challenging myself, and obviously surprise and see my colleagues’ reactions.
Work can become monotonous unless (another big emphasis) you make it fun. For the past few years, I’ve been finding ways to automate and optimize tasks and creating tools that decrease these boring tasks that take up a lot of time and don’t really challenge my brain. Many of those tasks simply disappeared and I like to think they secretly work for me now muahahah. I got my time back and created room for myself to learn and explore new things - one of the latest topics is Web Sustainability, if you know something about it, please do share it with me/us/everyone reading.
So how do we keep growing when we’ve become comfortable with what we already know? I used to think that big milestones were ‘the thing’. Achieve this and that before your 30s. Maybe titles matter. Maybe they don’t. More and more is always the goal, or perhaps not always, after all? Maybe I’ve been trying so hard to arrive somewhere without giving myself the time to enjoy the journey.
I’m still figuring this one out.
So what have I been doing?
Have you heard of Winter Arc? I hadn’t until last year.
Google says “The Winter Arc is a viral social media trend and self-improvement challenge where individuals use the final three months of the year (October through December) to enter a period of intense focus, discipline, and personal growth”.
Basically: start warming up before the January resolutions.
I used to press START at the beginning of each week, each month, each year, without realizing, the single most important thing is to just start.
With a post every other month, a drawing of the sea every Wednesday, or a collection of weekly joys every Friday. Disclaimer: now ‘What were your joys of the week’ instead of ‘wins of the week’ as ‘wins’ can be a bit toxic, like in toxic positivity - as noted by a dear friend and I agree with it.
So how does all of this come into place? This is my rush-of-finishing-the-post talking, as I finish the first season of Love is Blind UK in the background (who else besides me, a handful of colleagues at work, and a great portion of LinkedIn is hooked on this show?), and don’t feel like writing anymore for today.
Well, has someone pressed the speed-up button? Time is flying, the world keeps changing, there’s so much to do, watch, and listen to (oh I have to insert a music of Enya at the end of this post), and, somehow, we all need to slow down.
Take care of yourself, enjoy this cozy season, put some comfort series on, and breathe.
P.S: is the famous Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte worth it? I’m so curious to try it.
P.S: If you feel like leaving a comment, I love receiving feedback (good or constructive).