Ikigai

“Ikigai is the Japanese word that means your reason for being. Do you wake up in the morning looking forward to your day?”

I got the book after listening to Héctor García in Guy’s Kawasaki podcast and I liked it, specially the stories about the people. The parts that stuck with me the most were when they talk about “Flow”, going slowly, not giving in to unnecessary urgency, and Takumi, finding meaning of live in mastery.

Project Hail Mary

“As Ryland Grace awakens from a coma, he doesn’t know who he is or where he is, but a mix of calculations, deductions, and slowly returning memories enlightens him: He’s a junior high school science teacher on a small space ship. His mission? Save Earth.”

I loved this book: the story and the characters, how the problems are solved using a scientific mindset, the curiosity, the thirst of knowledge.

It is hard to say more without spoilers. Just read it.

There is a lot of science in the book that was over my head. When I finished the book I searched a bit to see if there was some truth to it, and there is! This is a great post about it (WITH SPOILERS).

Prep

“Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.”

I didn’t like this book. The incessant thoughts of the main character exhausted me. I don’t even know why I finished it. The reviews are not bad, maybe if I had been a teenager in the US I would have liked it.

Make Time

“Make Time isn’t about productivity, or checking off more to-dos. Nor does it propose unrealistic solutions like throwing out your smartphone or swearing off social media. Making time isn’t about radically overhauling your lifestyle; it’s about making small shifts in your environment to liberate yourself from constant busyness and distraction.”

There is a lot in this book. Maybe too much?

What I kept from it is removing the distractions. In the world that we live today is a continuous process. You make some changes, it works for a while, the distractions slowly creep in, you need to make changes again. And a reminder to end my work days and not fall into the never ending work day. That’s why I like to exercise after work, it helps me disconnect and clear my mind.

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I fell of the wagon with the read-a-long for War & Peace, one chapter per day, I hope to catch up and continue in May.