In an old interview, actor Michael Caine shared a fantastic story about acting advice he received early in his career:

Life is 100% on you. The beauty of that, though, is that we get to decide how to interpret everything around us — the difficulties, the random events, the moods of other people. Every moment, we have a choice in how we respond, how we present ourselves, and how we label our circumstances. Because if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed, it’s that things will go wrong.

Ryan Holiday wrote an entire book on this exact philosophy — The Obstacle is the Way — which I highly recommend. “In every situation, life is asking us a question, and our actions are the answer.”

Michael Caine took that advice to heart — if someone messes up their line on an important take, he doesn’t slouch his shoulders and wait for the director to yell, ‘CUT!’ Instead, he can look back to that scene in the doorway and remember that every single difficulty he faces is just an opportunity in disguise.

Which begs the question: Are you ‘using the difficulty?’ Or just complaining about it?

h/t Sahil Bloom

First off, a warning: this book is not about yoga. I went in expecting downward dogs and meditation hacks. Instead, I got levitating saints, cosmic visions, and a guy who casually drops how he had tea with Jesus Christ. My bad…

What you actually get is Paramahansa Yogananda’s life story—his childhood in India, his gurus, the bizarre miracles he witnessed, and his eventual move to California, where he became the West’s resident mystic.

The beauty of this book is that it’s like a gentle on-ramp into Indian philosophy. The author doesn’t shove it down your throat; he walks you along “the path,” leaving plenty of room for you to stop and wonder what you’ve been doing with your life.

His big project is stitching East and West together—drawing Vedic parallels to the Bible, putting Christ and Krishna in the same sentence, and basically arguing that all religions are pointing to the same source. It’s either profound or marketing genius, depending on your level of skepticism.

And the ending is wild. Yogananda claims Christ himself shows up, whispers some top-secret wisdom into his ear, and then he refuses to tell us what was said. Like, “ Yeah, I know the meaning of life…but nah, you wouldn’t get it.”

Bottom line: read this book. Even if you don’t buy into the mysticism, it’s worth it for the imagination alone. You’ll either walk away disturbed, inspired, or both. Personally, I finished it with the weirdest mix of skepticism and serenity—like, “That was nuts…but maybe he’s onto something.”

Why More and More People Are Tuning the News Out: ‘Now I don’t have that anxiety’ [The Guardian]

Wait, you’re telling me that constantly consuming news spikes anxiety, depression, and stress???

The other day, the Apple AirPlay in my car wasn’t working, so I had to listen to FM Radio for the first time in years. As I scrolled through the stations broadcasting news alerts, you would have thought I was living through the apocalypse. “Another stabbing on the subway,” “Kidnapping in Westchester,” “Air traffic protests,” “Inflation at an all-time high,” “Bomb strikes in Gaza.” Meanwhile, it was a beautiful day outside. Birds were chirping, the sun was shining, and the breeze coming through my windows was majestic. If I had been listening to my Spotify playlist, I would have been blissfully unaware of all the problems around me.

As Duncan Trussel said, “Some poor, phoneless fool is probably sitting next to a waterfall somewhere totally unaware of how angry and scared he’s supposed to be.”

In 2006, a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond. His reply was sublime:

“Practice any art… not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”

Meditation is weird. Yet, as easy as it is to dismiss, it’s a common habit for an overwhelming majority of the world’s most successful people. So clearly, there’s something to it. In my early twenties, I established a daily meditation practice. But as the responsibilities of fatherhood bore on me, it was one of the first habits that fell off.

Whether you’re an on/off practitioner or dipping your toe for the first time, there’s no doubt that meditating is uncomfortable. How do I even start? Am I supposed to be doing/thinking/saying something? At first, that was how I thought. I always suggest starting with an app like Calm or Headspace, or even a YouTube video. But the more comfortable you get with it, the more you start to develop your own stripped-down method for whatever it is you’re looking for.

Luckily, Substack writer Hormeze put together a list of 25 Unconventional Meditation Prompts. I know these might sound kooky (and it’s hard to tell which, if not all, are just satirical). But sometimes, “kooky” is exactly what you need to turn your monkey mind off for a minute or two. Here are some of my favorite prompts:

Recently, some Redditors shared their best real-life “cheat codes.” Here are the top-voted pieces of advice that stuck with me (some paraphrased):

If you want to learn about the corruption of our healthcare system, look no further than Brigham Buhler. I’ve listened to all four times he’s been on Joe’s podcast, and each time I leave more informed, and absolutely BAFFLED at the twisted landscape of big pharma, insurance, and our medical community. Do yourself a favor and listen to at least the first hour to have your brain red pilled.

Keith and Kyle sit down to discuss the benefits of running and the pros and cons of the current biggest brand names in the sport, the Epstein controversy, the origins of Lacrosse as told in the fascinating book The American Game and why it's in everyone’s best interest to do as they do in Copenhagen and smoke some weed, drink some alcohol and go for a bike ride.

📚 Books discussed in this episode:

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Thanks for reading!