September 2024
What Will You Be Remembered For?
When you take your final breath, someone who loves you will condense your lifetime—your hundreds of millions of breaths—into about 300 words, accompanied by an outdated photo.
This sobering thought sometimes stops me in my mental feedback loops and helps me zoom out. At the end of it all, we’re reduced to a handful of sentences in an obituary. This is what some call the first death. The second death, as the saying goes, is when your name is spoken for the last time, and for most of us, that will happen within a few generations.
From this perspective, the things we worry about become instantly trivial. The work project you’re stressing over, your golf score, even the endless activities planned for your kids—none of these will make it into your obituary. Our ancestors worried about the same things, and generations after us will too. Yet, what survives beyond our last breath isn't the details of our daily lives but the essence of how we lived.
David Brooks, in The Moral Bucket List, puts it another way:
“There are two sets of virtues: the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones spoken about at your funeral—whether you were kind, brave, honest, or faithful.”
Did you share love? Spread joy? Live with passion? Maybe most importantly, did you have the courage to be true to yourself, not live under the weight of others' expectations? Bronnie Ware, in The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, notes that this is one of the most common regrets of those on their deathbed.
We are but fleeting moments—a blip on the radar, a snowflake in the storm, a grain of sand on eternity’s shores. In this brief flash of existence, will you spend your time building résumés or creating a life story you're proud of that can be gently whispered one last time with a passing smile only a few generations from now?
Because in the end, it’s not what you do, but how you do it, that really matters.
Hey, I need your feedback
I’m trying some new things out. Over the last couple of years, I was making long and time-consuming monthly newsletters. Over the next few months, I’m going to pivot to more condensed ones with fewer explanations, opinions, and graphics/images.
It would mean a lot if you could fill out the survey at the end of this email to let me know what type you prefer: the old kind or the new one below.
Thanks all!
Brian
Stuff of the Month
Articles
The Growth Kit (Podcast)
Find the full list of episodes here. Follow The Growth Kit on Instagram. Subscribe to your favorite podcast player (Spotify, Apple). And please leave a review!
From the Archives
Best of the Month
Quote: "It is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed. It is the things we do not. I assure you I've done a lot of really stupid things, and none of them bother me. All the mistakes, and all the dopey things, and all the times I was embarrassed — they don't matter. What matters is that I can kind of look back and say: Pretty much any time I got the chance to do something cool I tried to grab for it — and that's where my solace comes from."
--Randy Pausch
Podcast: The (Underrated) Mental & Physical Benefits of Walking by FAREWELL
Book: Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior by Jonah Berger
Things I’ve Learned
Mind
New Hope for Dementia Prevention: The 2024 Lancet Report Highlights 14 Modifiable Risk Factors
The 2024 Lancet Commission report presents encouraging new evidence on dementia prevention, intervention, and care. As more people live longer, the rising prevalence of dementia underscores the need for effective prevention strategies. The report emphasizes that addressing 14 key risk factor can significantly reduce the risk of developing dementia.
Less education
Hearing loss
Hypertension
Smoking
Obesity
Depression
Physical inactivity
Diabetes
Excessive alcohol consumption
Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
Air pollution
Social isolation
Untreated vision loss
High LDL cholesterol
People are More Bored When They Fast Forward Through Videos Online
People often try to escape boredom by quickly jumping between or within videos, but this habit actually makes them feel even more bored. A series of studies found that while people think switching will help, it ends up reducing their satisfaction and attention, showing that real enjoyment comes from actually getting into the content instead of constantly swiping.
Common Misconceptions List
A list Wikipedia page on common misconceptions. Some of my favorites from a long list.
Mussels and clams that do not open when cooked can still be fully cooked and safe to eat.
Using mild soap on well-seasoned cast-iron cookware will not damage the seasoning. This is not because modern soaps are gentler than older soaps.
George Washington Carver was not the inventor of peanut butter. The first peanut butter related patent was filed by John Harvey Kellogg in 1895, and peanut butter was used by the Incans centuries prior to that.
It is permissible to end a sentence with a preposition. The supposed rule against it originated in an attempt to imitate Latin, but modern linguists agree that it is a natural and organic part of the English language.
It is not systemic bias that causes sole custody of children to be granted more often to women then men, rather it is because men infrequently contest or seek it.
No cases have been proven of strangers killing or permanently injuring children by intentionally hiding poisons or sharp objects such as razor blades in candy or apples during Halloween trick-or-treating and the belief has been "thoroughly debunked". However, in at least one case, adult family members have spread this story to cover up filicide.
Crime in the United States decreased between 1993 and 2022; the rate of violent crime per 100,000 people fell by almost 50%, and the rate of property crime fell by more than half. The number of gun homicides also decreased.
Body
How Long Should You Rest Between Sets?
Stronger by Science went deep on finding out exactly how much time is needed for optimal strength gains in the gym. Here is their conclusion:
“At this point, resting 1-2 minutes between sets seems to be a solid guideline for maximizing hypertrophy. Anything beyond that is mostly anecdotal or speculative. However, based on practical experience, you might benefit from slightly longer rests if you’re performing higher reps, training closer to failure, are using multi-joint exercises, are training your lower-body, and/or are a more advanced lifter.
Conversely, you can certainly opt for less than 60 seconds between sets and still achieve growth, though you might need more sets to achieve similar benefits.
Overall, great news for those of us who like being in-and-out of the gym!”
More Berries = More Life
A recent study has found that consuming berries and flavonoid-rich foods is associated with a significant reduction in all-cause mortality, with a 21% lower risk for berry consumers and up to a 51% lower risk for cranberry consumers. The study also found a 59% reduction in respiratory disease mortality among blueberry consumers compared to nonconsumers.
A List of 10 Cancer-Causing Foods from Mamavation
2. French Fries/Potato Chips
3. Microwave Popcorn
4. Processed Meats
5. Red Meat (Me: the processed kind; read about it here)
6. Farmed Salmon (eat this instead)
7. Refined Sugar/Soda
8. “Diet” Foods
9. Refined White Flour
10. GMOs/Glyphosate
Dad
Larger Family = Worse Cognitive Development
A 30-year study confirmed that larger family size correlates with lower cognitive scores for children, particularly later-born siblings who receive diminished parental attention as family resources become strained. Interestingly, while cognitive development suffers in larger families, behavioral outcomes tend to be better, challenging assumptions about the negative effects of being an only child.
How Your Kids Use Screens Matters
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 100 studies involving 176,742 participants found that specific contexts of screen use in early childhood—such as background television and program viewing—were associated with poorer cognitive (r = -0.16) and psychosocial outcomes (r = -0.11), while co-use with caregivers showed a positive association with cognitive development (r = 0.14). This says that both the content and context of screen use are crucial factors and that recommendations for screen time should consider not just the amount of screen use but also the type and quality of content.
Thank Your Mom for Your Intelligence
Maternal supportiveness in early childhood has a significant and lasting effect on a child's intelligence, with studies showing that it predicts IQ scores at ages 11 and 18, demonstrating a strong correlation (r = 0.59). Although the impact of maternal supportiveness diminishes over time, it still influences cognitive abilities, social skills, and mental health, lending itself to improved outcomes such as academic success and overall well-being well into adolescence.