Open Loops #133

👋 Welcome to the 133rd issue of Open Loops, a weekly newsletter about clarity, growth, and building a life that feels like yours.

My name is Reza and each week, I sift through 100+ books, articles, podcasts, and (way too many) tweets to bring you the best in this newsletter.

You are not behind.

You’re just early in the chapter where it still hurts.

The part that builds character.
The part no one posts about.

It's not hard, it's just new.

Keep showing up.
Keep building the thing you said you would.

Momentum compounds quietly.
Progress hides in boredom.

One day it clicks.
And you’ll wonder why you ever doubted.

I am not telling you to make the world better. I’m just telling you to live in it.

Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it.
To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.

Productivity is a trap

The more efficient you become, the faster the conveyor belt of demands moves. Inbox zero, tighter calendars, better systems - they do not buy you peace. You just feel busier on a higher level.

You will never “get everything done”

There will always be more emails, more ideas, more opportunities than you can handle. Once you accept that, the game changes from “do it all” to “choose what to neglect.”

Being bad at time is usually being bad at limits.

You are not a machine. You are a finite human who has to disappoint people, let projects die, and walk away from some perfectly good paths. That is not failure. That is how a real life gets built.

Most of our self–doubt comes from comparing our messy inner world to everyone else’s polished exterior.

You know your whole chaotic inner life.
You only see everyone else’s edit.

So if you sometimes worry you’re a fraud, that isn’t proof you’re fake.
It’s proof you’re honest enough to notice the gap.

A good life doesn’t ask you to be good at everything.

It asks you to find the small circle where you have unusual leverage, and to be peacefully average at most of the rest.

It’s like walking around with a metal detector over your own life, waiting for those little “beeps” of intensity.

Most people do the obvious thing. They don't want to look weird or different—but winning is weird and different. You're definitionally different because you stand apart from everyone else as the ultimate winner.

People by nature take the path of least resistance. If it's working, they'll keep going. Doing hard things means you're going on an untraveled path. It's risky.