Volume 3, Resources 25: A Bit of Permission and a Bit of Joy
This is a public issue of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice. Feel free to share it!
Hi friends! I don’t know about you but I’m feeling pretty burned out and basically running on fumes. My current intention is to not let perfect be the enemy of the good so the way I embodied this recently is in wrapping my wife’s gifts. Her birthday (today!), Xmas, and a personal milestone are all within ten days of each other. On Monday, I had a pile of gifts to wrap for her. The first kindness I showed myself was to put the majority of them into gift bags. The second kindness I’ve shown myself is that I decided to not try to determine which gift is for which day so it’ll be more like “pick three and those will be your gifts for this particular celebration.” It reminds me of when I was in my teens and my mother stopped wrapping my presents altogether. She just put them all in a very large box then let me open the unwrapped box and it wasn’t until now that I realized how brilliant that was.
Things can get overly complicated this time of year. Specifically I, me, myself, can make things overly complicated this time of year and it is incredibly unnecessary, especially if my sanity doesn’t remain intact. So please, if you are a person that also does this, give yourself permission to simplify where you can and allow goodness to be good enough.
Image description: My hand holding up a small, fake, rainbow-colored Christmas tree in front of a banner that says, “Joy is an act of resistance.”
All that being said, I’m keeping today’s newsletter short and it’s not really a resource but more something that has been bringing me a ridiculous amount of joy. There are two more Fridays and therefore, two more 2023 newsletters after today’s. One of them will be some reflection, goal-setting tips, and transparency about my own goals. The other will be a surprise!
The thing bringing me joy: Weird Christmas Playlist on Spotify
Writer and comedian Samantha Irby started curating the weird christmas playlist I don’t even know when and she has continued to add to it and it is almost 28 hours of the most random, weird, unhinged, and unintentionally hilarious Christmas/winter-themed songs. There is a mix of original songs and some absolutely wild covers of classic Christmas songs. I know that not all of you celebrate this holiday and I also know there are some people who don’t celebrate yet still listen to Christmas music so I’m just leaving this here in case it’s of interest and you’re tired of hearing about a child wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas.
That’s it for this week! You can shop any books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481. If you are a subscriber and would like for me to send you some happy mail, feel free to give me your address.
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That’s it for this week! You can shop many books I’ve mentioned in this newsletter at my affiliate shop, The Infophile’s Bookshop, and support independent bookstores. In fact, any Bookshop, Amazon, or Etsy links in this newsletter are affiliate links so if you shop through those, it helps support my work. Or you can leave me a tip on Ko-fi, Paypal, or Venmo.
If you want to send me some snail mail, you can find me at P.O. Box 21481, Oakland, CA 94620-1481.
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