When we were younger people who loved us often would say that we can be anything we wanted to be. The story we are told is that we are born infinitely flexible. Simultaneously we were given with images of prestige and were encouraged to be doctors, lawyers, or other fields. That we should find our weaknesses that prevent us from a certain image of success and “fix” ourselves.
This framing is not as helpful as another framing. That we do have some fundamental skills that come to us naturally and that we are better off utilizing those skills and finding others who have complementary strengths.
Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.
… Prestige is just fossilized inspiration. If you do anything well enough, you’ll make it prestigious. Plenty of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. Jazz comes to mind—though almost any established art form would do. So just do what you like, and let prestige take care of itself. -Paul Graham founder of Y-combinator accelerator
Thanks for reading! And remember send me your lists! If you want to start, write one. I dare you.
My ten ideas for the day: 1 Routinize my day:
idea: A consultancy where you follow someone for a week and identify all the areas where they are using too much brain power and create a set of habits for them so they can use their brains for more important work
First step: Routinize my own life.
2 Quantified feces
Idea: A toilet that measures my poops weight and compares it with weight changes in my body to tell me how efficient my digestive system is
First step: Research how current methods discover digestive efficiency.
3 Downgrade .me
Idea: Allow people who seek a simpler life to send in their smart phones and Ipads and in return we send them a dumb phone and a paper planner. Sell the smart phones to make some money.
First step: Google ads to see if people will click on ad
4 Topsy Turvy
Idea: Send all winter clothes south during the summer in the northern hemisphere and all the summer clothes to the north during the winter in the southern hemisphere
First step: find sister cities that are on opposite sides of the hemisphere
5 Grati-Food or Diet Donate
Idea: For people who want to lose weight and need incentive, allow them to pay for someone else’s lunch and not eat instead. So they get to do the routine, and get full on gratitude instead of gratifood.
First step: Do it myself, ask my friends if they’d want to do it.
6 Upgrayyed
Idea: Take people’s used electronics and let them trade it for things they really want. Laptop + expensive headphones + old TV they don’t use = what they want
First step: See what I don’t use.
7 What’s left?
Idea: Take people’s leftovers and turn them into compost.
First step: ask restaurants to send us their leftovers
8 Equalize
Idea: everyone gives 50% of their material wealth
First step: debate the idea with yourself
9 Transform Digital antiques
Idea: Take people’s records and tapes and digitize them in big stacks and sell them a high quality FLAC based audio player that contains all the quality. Sell the records to collectors. Make money on both
10 Online course on ideas
Idea: make an online class for people who want to build products and help them ideate.
First step: test the process with this email ;D!
Agreed. Here is a reference to a book on my to read list as well. Here is a youtube video about the author “Cal Newport” giving a talk about the issue.
Create a gamified educational platform where winning prompts children to solve a problem from the subject of their choice to promote the idea that solving problems is for winners and not a punishment for losing. First step: Write an article and share it .
Initiate a coding workshop in some of the most forgotten streets of Beirut in hopes of exposing young adults to learn coding. First step: find a government official willing to work with me on the issue.
Propose using garbage as a power source. First step: Research the procedure.
Create a video playlist tutoring Lebanese brevet/baccalaureate exam. First step: Find willing top students who have the material fresh in their mind.
Provide essential training for blue collar workers in an attempt to keep them safe. First step : Propose the idea to the government.
Create a gift roulette where everyone anonymously writes something they want "within reason". The sign-up conditions for a new member is to verify that they fulfilled someone else's gift wish. (The initial people to post gift wishes without committing to buying anything should be charities). First step: Find target audience.
Connect with computational biology startups in Lebanon so I could invite them to my university in hopes of adding value to my computer science student society. First step: Find who is willing to come.
Survey my society's interests so I could know how frequently should I invite people from each domain. I want to give them what they like but I also want to show them fields they don't know. First step: Create the survey
Start an agile project management subdivision in my society to teach students how to work in a practical environment.
First step: Ask professors for help
Try to invite professors from the English department to my society to share with us what they know about computational linguistics in order to show new students that their major is truly interdisciplinary First step: Send an email to English professors
