LET’S BE FWENDS ISSUE #100:

THE SIX SPOKES OF LIFE

“Life is ike a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.” ~ Charles M. Schulz

Saying that today we’ll tackle anxiety would be a bit ambitious, but at least we’ll have a look at it and why trying to combat it head on probably will not work. In that vein, we have a look at the “Six Spokes” of life, see how cities of the future could look like (spoiler: no flying cars), dive into the wikipedia rabbit hole of natural nuclear reactors, and finally check out with an optical illusion that will make you question your ability to look right.

Don’t be Anti-Anxiety. Be Pro-Confidence

Work-induced anxiety is a thing. In my work, I deal with workplace issues, the question of psychological safety, roles and responsibilities, and expectation setting practically all the time. I’m not a counsellor or therapist, but if teams want to be successful, they need to deal with many of those topics (and have some basics taken care of). Nick Wignall points out that anxiety is hard to battle, because being anxious about anxiety is probably the worst thing you can do, yet anxiety is our number one defense against possible dangers. When people show signs of anxiety, I sometimes ask “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

For people who like to use evidence I always recommend Seth Godin’s idea of having a “catastrophe journal”:

Write down whatever you did wrong, and what consequences you expect. And then check your journal if your predictions became true, and the world did end.

So, if getting rid of anxiety is next to impossible, what does Nick suggest? Build confidence.

“Confidence is the belief that you can do or experience something important despite feeling afraid.”

This is not necessarily easy, but at least it’s doable.

Six-Spokes Theory

One thing that might make you more confident in your choices is balance in your life. Darious Foroux offers a nice bike-themed analogy: Your life is like a spoked bicycle wheel, with each spoke representing one important part of you. He identifies those six: Body, Mind, Love, Play, Money, Work - and I find them sufficient, but you might come up with your own.

When all of those spokes have the same nice tension, aren’t loose or too tight, your wheel works fine, and your bike goes fast. If one of them is too tight, or others are too loose, your wheel becomes unbalanced and wobbly.

The important thing here is: All of those spokes are equally important. There is no “I’ll take care of this spoke when that other spoke is done.”

To have a well-centered wheel, you need to take care of all of them.

And it’s about time bikes play a role here again.

Natural nuclear Fission Reactors

Ok, so, here’s a thing about me: Occasionally, I watch or read something that mentions something I think as an educated human living in the 21st century I should know, but don’t. And then I feel obliged to look it up, to at least get a basic understanding of said something. In this particular case, the thing I watched was Chernobyl (highly recommended. Even if you don’t care about the story, the costume and props department did top notch work!), and what was mentioned were nuclear reactors and how they work. Without going into too much detail, I was puzzled by the concept of moderation and the role of control rods, so I looked that up on Wikipedia. One rabbit hole later I now know that technically, humans didn’t invent nuclear fission reactors. Very special circumstances create environments, in which nuclear reactors naturally occur. And now you know, too. Ain’t sharing great?

Sponge Cities

I learned that one of the many problems cities create is that they drastically reduce the amount of water the ground on which they are built can absorb. There is not enough accessible earth to soak up the water from rain or river floods, and so the water gets channelled into tight canals (which makes matters worse), and dumped on the surrounding areas.

Doesn’t have to be the case. Instead of trying to fight the waters, “Sponge Cities” are built in such a way to absorb the water and store it for plants and trees, which in turn cool the cities down.

It’s a fascinating concept, and there are some trials already here in Vienna(link in german).

Blue Stripes are Parallel

Victoria Skye builds impossible objects and creates fine optical illusions.

Those blue stripes are parallel. Grab a ruler, or the edge of a piece of paper. I’ll wait.

That’s it from this edition of Let’s be Fwends. May all your spokes be well-tensioned and all your stripes be parallel. 🚲