Hello from a damp and rainy Toronto. But everyone is out and about. They want to enjoy themselves after our typical winter months and a bit of wet weather isn’t going to stop them.
Your goal during this time of transition is to not get distracted by the changing season. Warmer weather tries to impress a new routine on you, but you must hold firm with your vision to see your big idea through.
Here are three things i’ve been thinking about this week:
1. Don’t take anything personally. Every few days, someone does something to piss you off. Mark it in your calendar if you don’t believe me. They didn’t do it intentionally even if you think they did. That’s because we are part of a complex web of activity involving events that are both coming and going.
The corny Canadian classic rock song “Life is a Highway” rings true, because even when you’re sitting in the quiet kitchen by yourself, you can realize that everything is happening at lightning speed.
The flip of this in creative work is that we can’t take it personally when we sit down to play and nothing good comes out.
When we wear our sensitive person jacket, we tend to take everything personally. And then we get emotionally charged creating the perfect storm. Just don’t bother yourself with this way of being. Let all the garbage go.
2. Ask yourself which Sisyphus you’re working on at every moment. This refers to the myth involving pushing the giant rock up the hill. It dawned on me there are good Sisyphus’s like writing new music or moving a good project forward at work, and there are bad ones like caring what other people think or getting wrapped up in other people’s problems.
A good Sisyphus has a chance of being rolled up the hill and completed. A bad one will never work. The harder you push it, the more likely it will roll you over.
3. My good friend once told me that he thinks life is an escape room and you’re always working to solve the problem and unlock your way out. I think it’s nice to see how the different challenges in all of our life situations are connected and realize that there is a single truth that connects them. That single truth is the riddle that will unlock the escape room for you.
Music Recommendation: Psytrance
I was looking for something more upbeat to work to during a slow patch at the end of the week. Even though I have a bias against trance music, I gave the sub-genre of Psytrance a shot again and was impressed by how well it worked for getting stuff done.
Listen on YouTube
Found on this playlist called Minimal Psytrance.
Featured Bagel: Pura Vida
There is a small chain of healthy-ish food and coffee in the Miami region called Pura Vida. This bagel is clearly designed by a celebrity chef as it has a lot of toppings on it but the tastes work well with each other. At $14 USD plus a mandatory tip and state tax, this is an expensive, yet infinitely delicious bagel.
There are:
Soft boiled eggs
Melted mozzarella
Arugula
Avocado
Tomato
Red pepper flakes
Does this give you any ideas for your next bagel or sandwich?
Special announcement: I am working on a new project that is focused on helping artists and entrepreneurs get their most creative work done. You have been reading and hearing the breadcrumbs of it from me already in almost everything that I share. Unsurprisingly it’s under the umbrella of the words Most Creative.
You can read the first post here which gives some context as to why the project has to sit on its own away from my music and the Sunday Bagel. I will continue to update you as the project takes shape. Feel free to subscribe if it interests you.
Ok thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week…
Elliott
You might also like this site if you are looking for sound to work by: https://mynoise.net/ . 'nough said. I spent about three weeks obsessively exploring the site. He depends on us to not steal his noises without his express permission, so keep that in mind as you treat his amazing project like an adventure. Let me know what you think!