Happy Wednesday — I hope it’s a joyful one!
Here’s an insight, exercise, and anecdote to spark curiosity, consciousness, and change.
(Posting C.C.C. early as I have a ‘Live Free Friday’ Thread coming later this week.)
Curious
A concerning trend among high school students:
“In 2023, fourteen percent of students reported reading for fun almost every day. This percentage was 3 percentage points lower than 2020, and 13 percentage points lower than 2012. Overall, the percentage of 13-year-old students who reported reading for fun almost every day was lower in 2023 than in all previous assessment years.” - The Nation’s Report Card
I’ll be honest, at the age of 13 — I wasn’t reading for fun, so I don’t want to overstate my concern with this insight.
That said, at the age of 13, I was outside developing my brain in other ways that are crucial to the development of any human.
Playing with friends, freely exploring, and taking risks. Some risks I probably shouldn’t have taken but that’s the essence of developing as a human.
Live and learn.
If reading in isolation was down versus previous years, it wouldn’t be overly concerning — but it’s not.
According to The Atlantic, adolescents nowadays are reading less, spending less time with friends, playing less, staying indoors more, and taking fewer risks.
I can’t help but think about the knock-on impacts of these trends.
What will happen to their personal growth? Do these trends create stronger breeding grounds for AI to grow? How does this impact their professional opportunities? What do these trends mean for their future relationships? What does this do to their ability to handle inevitable setbacks and challenges of adult life?
Candidly, I don’t have the answers but what I’m taking away from this is that there is a call for us to challenge the status quo.
There’s a need for us to be role models for the younger people in our lives.
Read, play, take risks, get outside, prioritize community, and stay curious.
Conscious
Exercise for you to reflect on your beliefs:
What are your most strongly held beliefs?
What experiences or influences led to their development?
How do your beliefs impact your behaviours and choices?
How might your core beliefs have differed if you grew up in a different environment or circumstance?
Conditioning significantly moulds how we see the world. People, places, and experiences are core conditioning contributors.
You become a more curious and empathetic person knowing that your beliefs may have been entirely different based on where you grew up and who was in your life.
In a world where divide is the status quo, understanding is the challenger.
Change
An anecdote to highlight the importance of career sustainability:
“If you don’t enjoy the path you're on — why are you doing it?”
A few weeks back, I had a chat with Maria Vesanen, an Authentic Wholeness Coach and International Senior Consultant who role models this mindset.
Before becoming a coach — Maria was on a path that was leading to burnout.
Yes, she travelled frequently, dinned out in nice restaurants, and had a condo in the centre of Stockholm — but with it came a cost.
An overwhelming schedule, constant pressure to deliver, and felt like she was just getting by.
Externally, this lifestyle looked attractive but internally — it was taking its toll.
In this short clip — Maria shares how taking a step back allowed her to course correct.
If you’re regularly feeling drained from your work and don’t see a sustainable future in it — what step will you take to course correct?
Live Free,
Niall
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My wife and I talk a lot about how important it is for kids to be bored. We loved it when our teens would sit around complaining about being bored. Because eventually they’d go outside or find something to do. I guess what I am saying is that forced boredom is a good way to challenge the status quo.
“According to The Atlantic, adolescents nowadays are reading less, spending less time with friends, playing less, staying indoors more, and taking fewer risks…
There’s a need for us to be role models for the younger people in our lives.”
You just reminded me of something I read a long time ago, when I was studying early childhood education, about importance of children seeing you read and the knock on effect of that.
Also, I didn’t think about how important it is to come back and tell our kids what a fun time I had dancing, singing karaoke and eating good with my best friends from decades ago.
Thanks for reminding me of my influence.