Happy Sunday Friend!

Welcome back to another musing! I’m glad you’re here. Here are your Sunday Musings, a quick dose of what I’m exploring and thinking about. If you find it useful, please feel free to forward this along to friends!

Happy Veterans Day (belated)

My grandfather served in WWII. He trained in Ireland, sailed to the Algiers, then crossed the Med and travelled up the West Coast of Italy; where he wrote in his journal “Today marks the fall of Italy”.

The Military is a large portion of my life and I’ve been afforded the ability to travel and meet some really great (and some less great) people all over the world. It remains my honor to serve today.

Thank You to all my fellow Veterans out there!

Quote I’m Musing

What is the thing/decision/choice/ that I’m going to wish I did or made? When I reflect on times in my life that I’m not particularly proud or sometimes even ashamed of there are some commonalities, but one in particular.

Rationalization

It’s too difficult for now; I don’t have the time to do it right; Noone will know; It’s going to cause problems; everyone else is doing it or getting away with it; Noone else is doing it. The list goes on as long as humanity I bet.

The thing is, I always knew what I should do. I knew what the right thing was. I had an idea of the person I wanted to be was, and what that person would do. Simple, right? In comes the rationalizations. And even when I got away with it… The rationalization and the choice never aged well. Which leads me to the Quote I’m Musing this week.

“If you achieve something good with hard work, the labour passes away, but the good remains. If you do something shameful for the sake of pleasure, the pleasure passes, but the shame remains.”

-Gaius Musonius Rufus

A new way to approach a problem, or decision, is to gain some distance to get a little perspective. Think about the decision in the future, a year from now, 10 years from now.

Those rationalizations aren’t going to stand up to reflection.

So, when posed with a problem, I think of myself in the future. Either when I’m reflecting on my decisions (like this weekend), or when I’m forced to do the right thing and I’ll wish I had done the right thing originally; how about I just do that thing now rather than save it for future me.

My Favorite Things this Week

Article - This is a fun, informative, and exciting article from Daniel at Unsupervised Learning. He’s a huge fan of AI and pushing the limit. In this he details how to use Siri and ChatGPT to get something akin to SAM from Her or TARS from Interstellar on your iOS or Android device!
New Skill - I’ve found myself doom scrolling for no particular reason when I’m waiting around for this or that. To fix that, I’ve decided to learn a skill. Lockpicking, because why not. Covert Instruments has a bundle with a repinnable practice lock and an entry-level pick set. It’s been great fun so far!

Shoot Me Your Feedback!

Which musing is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.

Have a wonderful week, I’ll see you Sunday.
-e