Draft Four: Existential Qs and links

Scroll for a list of beach reads.

Almost 1.500 people received this letter by email. What a joy, what a gift. Thank you!

Since it’s been a sweltering summer and I’m sure many of you are on vacation or hoping to check-out, I thought I’d help. This edition will be less of a long essay (I know, what a relief!), and more of a combo: an anecdote about questions and struggles we share, then a long(er) list of recommendations of newsletters and books for the latter part of the summer.

On Saturday, I met a lovely group of 50 young people – ranging from 15 to their mid-30s – who want to make a dent in the world. They were part of Aspire’s summer schools, which I’ve come to speak at a few times before. They are future scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians, artists, all amazing in their own way – the kinds of young people you interact with and then wish you were more like that at their age (at least I do). Most were Romanian, many studying or working abroad, and they were joined by people from Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Lebanon, and others.

The topic of my talk was How to tell your own story, but before we got into some tips and tricks, I shared with the group how my life had changed since I last visited the program in 2022. Today it’s more like a construction site that is advancing slowly, with plenty of unknowns and existential questions.

Our bios in the program, I told them, don’t reflect our struggles. They are, for the most part, a list of accomplishments, peppered with names of institutions and degrees, projects, and awards. This is the context in which I shared a list with some of my recent questions/struggles:

• Has my career peaked?

• Will this apartment renovation ever end?

• Is there dating after 42?

• Should I leave the county?

• Is it time for a job or a new venture?

• Can I get my father to listen better?

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I asked them to do the same. I handed out post-its (something I enjoy doing) and asked for at least one professional or personal dilemma that is there right now, in the background, nagging at them.

I am sharing their answers below for a few simple reasons, which the participants themselves pointed out after we went through them: we are struggling with so much similar stuff, we avoid being vulnerable, we are worried about sharing, and we are always in the middle of a story facing one or more obstacles:

• Which direction should I go into with my career?

• Am I doing the right thing? Should I be doing more? Am I gonna regret my decisions later?

• Should I follow a career that would give me monetary satisfaction or something that won’t, but would keep me excited?

• Should I devote myself to creative, introspective work or be more practical?

• How will my relationships change after I live the country for university?

• In what ways can I show and act with more courage in my life?

• Will I be able to escape my bubble?

• Am I choosing the right path?

• Why am I working so hard for something I am not really sure of?

• What college major should I pick?

• Where will I end up in 5 years?

• Should I return to Romania or not?

• Am I good enough?

• Should we get back together?

• Will I stop stressing myself once I get to university?

• Where will I be in one year?

• What I am good at?

• How can I improve my relationships?

• Will I get Coldplay tickets?

• What do I want to do with my life?

• What is my purpose in life?

• How can I become more balanced?

• When do I know I made it in both my personal and professional life?

• Am I planning too dramatic a career change?

• Is finding the one a real possibility?

• Should I prioritize a more balanced life or use my youth to push through for my career?

• Should I be looking for a long-term partner or should I continue to focus on my career?

• How do I learn to love more?

• How to balance the desire for achievement with the desire for peace?

• How can I learn to say “no”?

• Is a gap year a waste of time?

• Why do people connect so hard these days?

• Who am I?

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What are your questions these days?

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Before moving on to recommendations, here’s one of my favorite quotes about the stories and what they are truly about. It comes from the writer Rebecca Solnit:

“Fairy tales are about trouble, about getting into and out of it, and trouble seems to be a necessary stage on the route to becoming. All the magic and glass mountains and pearls the size of houses and princesses beautiful as the day and talking birds and part-time serpents are distractions from the core of most of the stories, the struggle to survive against adversaries, to find your place in the world, and to come into your own.”

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And now, your extra-large serving of side dishes:

BETTER YOU. Let’s start with suggestions on how to answer the questions above. One set of newsletters I suggest you follow come from Bülent and Raluca of Sense & Change. They are always sharing wise ideas and strategic frameworks for both the organization, and the self. This is a great list of personal strategy tools, and if you want to get started on a personal strategy, here’s a one week sprint. (I’m trying it this coming week, join me!)

Erika Popliceanu (aka Plan Clar) is a really cool change strategist; she often hosts meetings and workshops that are a great starting point to getting your ideas in order.

One thing we all need are templates for saying “no”.

Adam Grant on how your email is not my emergency. I agree with premise, not with all of the points, but it’s a good reminder, especially if you do email at nights (I don’t).

Want to get more done? Try doing one thing at a time (Oh, no!).

MORE NEWSLETTERS. You’re likely oversubscribed, but here’s a few more that might bring value into your life.

Maker Mind is a lovely newsletter about creativity and getting stuff done. Here’s a recent piece by its author, Anne-Laure Le Cunff, on fear of failure and how you can tackle it with curiosity.

My former colleagues Andreea Giuclea and Georgiana Ilie both do something unique (in Romanian). Jo helps thousands plan meals, save money and actually be more mindful of their habits, and Andreea looks at sports through a lens of empathy and inclusion. She was recently in Japan for the World Swimming Championships and has worked up the courage to start a paid tier – I’m a proud supporter because I want to read from the Olympics next year, so join me.

Raw Signal is a provocative newsletter about leadership and working better.

Want to keep up with European news? Give The European Correspondent sends a newsletter a day, each dedicated to a specific region. Saturday is The Balkans if you want a sample.

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS. Here’s a selection of fiction and nonfiction that I’ve enjoyed in the past couple of years. Hope it helps.

Burnout remains one of the best books I’ve read on this modern malady. The authors aim for wellness, which they define as “a state of action”. Namely, “the freedom to move through the innate cycles and oscillations of being human – from effort to rest and back, from connection to autonomy and back, from adventure to homecoming and back.”

The World and All that It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon is a page-turner of a novel that spans the globe and the whole of the last century; it’s a reminder of how, as people, we live on as stories. Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads kicks off a family saga with a thorny question: What does it mean to be good? And can you really be good and selfless at the same time?

Two books about writing that I adored. On Writing and Failure is an essay-length volume on how most writing is failure, over, and over, and over again. But we still do it. The other, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, is a mind-blowing dissection of short stories done by George Saunders, who looks under their hood to explain how the engine works.

Smart Brevity is a sneaky book. It knows we don’t want to waste time (reading) and that would like things fast and clear, so the authors provide a template they’ve successfully deployed at Axios, but that all of us can use.

This pair of books are in all my storytelling workshops, because I like to remind the audience that storytelling is a tool, a neutral one. It’s powerful, and it’s up to us how we use it: to connect and build, as Jonathan Gottschall argues in The Storytelling Animal, or to manipulate and tear societies apart as the same author says in The Story Paradox.

Here’s another pair of books – a sci-fi series by Arkady Martine that is a great allegory for our modern ills (migration, othering, warring empires, rebuilding our ecosystems). Start with A Memory Called Empire and follow it with A Desolation Called Peace.

AN ECLECTIC PLAYLIST. This letter goes out right before a Sunday I’ve been awaiting for weeks – I’m hosting a couple of dozen twenty-somethings (who write, shoot video, draw, photograph, code etc.) to sketch a few media products of the future. I’ll tell you all about it next week. Before our meeting I’ve asked each to send in a song: what came out is arguably my most eclectic Spotify playlist.

PS: I also sent a list of recommendations in April. If there’s nothing above, maybe you’ll find something among those Easter eggs.

PS2: Here’s a chance to support an artist I respect to finish an important movie. We gathered the last issues of the last DoR from stores, and decided the best way to put them to use would be to give them as thank you gifts to 100 people who donate at least 100 lei (20 euros) for transgender activist and film director Patrick Brăila (pictured on the cover) to finish a documentary about his life that he’s been working on for the last few years. Sign up here to get involved!

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