Welcome to Friday,
Here are five things I thought worth sharing this week.
Adam Grant interviews a CEO whose company has implemented a policy for … taking Sabbatical Weeks!
“Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?” Tyler Cowen makes that argument.
We have come to rely on technology to quantify our values; get that number of hours of sleep, hit this professional performance goal, smash this number in the gym, etc. Those numbers get internalized and become our goals, replacing the vague intentions initially motivating us. We “outsource our own aspirations to metrics set by external agents”, as Leslie writes. We choose the best schools simply because they top rankings, we choose to take a promotion because it’s “better” than our current position. The trouble with this is, over time, choosing “the best” metrics and our own individual sense of value and purpose can wind up worlds apart.
Arthur C. Brooks on satisfaction, “Satisfaction,” and how our brains are hardwired to want more, more, more.
Rhinos, crossword puzzles, and rare clothing; NPR rounds up the strangest auctions from the past year.
Currently reading: The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus by Joshua Kendall
Have a beautiful weekend and a very Merry Christmas.
Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash
Christmas Service, Thomas Lochlan Smith. 1867.
