Hey friend!
Coming to you live from Austin, Texas.
Here’s your weekly dose of Arman’s Antics — five things I’ve been pondering or exploring that will send you into the weekend with a think, chuckle, weep (or a nasty combination of the three).
Welcome to the fourteen new friends receiving this for the first time (417 total) — I don’t take your attention lightly.
Hopefully nobody is reading this, but if you are, please keep it to yourself.
Essay I wrote this week
What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
Don’t worry, it’s just you and me so you can be honest. If your answer was anything but “grab my phone”, you’re lying! That was me from age 12 to 29.
But I found a new mantra that I couldn’t keep to myself any longer:
Book I’m reading before bed
Fallen leaves by Will Durant.
He’s best known for his massive 11 volume set “The Story of Civilization” that I hope to read one day and his tiny 100 page book “The Lessons of History” that I’ve read twice.
But this book was discovered 32 years after he died — a collection of his personal thoughts where he discusses everything from art to religion, war, politics and education (the lighthearted stuff).
His wisdom is superb and his writing style is divine. The way he crafts a sentence makes me feel ashamed to call myself a writer.
Oh, and he wrote this in his nineties.
Podcast I enjoyed
Tim Ferriss shared the Dr. Mark Plotkin on coffee, the world’s favorite stimulant pod on his pod.
I find myself becoming more and more obsessed with caffeine the longer I refrain from it. I’m in the midst of a dry January where I don’t consume a single milligram of caffeine (19 days so far).
I just ordered a french press and nerded out on the history of this mind altering substance. Having no idea coffee has only been mainstream for a few hundred years.
I stupidly thought Adam and Eve drank this stuff.
What would you tomorrow want you today to do?
I heard this thought provoking question posed on a pod a few months back and it won’t leave my mind no matter how politely I ask it to.
You tomorrow knows exactly what you today needs to do.
You today wants the instant gratification of sleeping in, eating a dozen donuts, and skipping your workout.
But you tomorrow wants the lasting gratification of hopping out of bed early, drinking a kale smoothie, and throwing around heavy weights.
Random thought
I wonder if a tiger would pay twice as much for free range humans?
That’s it for the 69th edition of Arman’s Antics.
I hope you didn’t make it this far, but if you did, please refrain from liking, commenting, or sharing below. Now back to your regularly scheduled nonstop scrolling.
A fabulous Friday to you and yours!
Cheers,
Arman
Reply to this and introduce yourself
"What would you tomorrow want you today to do?" I had to read this a few times to get what it was saying, but once it clicked, it had the same enormous impact. It immediately shifts my perspective.
If you miss coffee, maybe you can try matcha? It has less caffeine but it's handled more stably by the body. You get steady energy throughout the day. The lattes are delicious!