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- #100: You vs. you.
#100: You vs. you.
Shem Opolot
December 06, 2024
Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
Why should you subscribe?
I have over ten years of work experience in healthcare, program management, and data analytics on two continents. So, I know a little about helping you work smarter
I comb through tonnes of self-improvement content so you don’t have to, and I distill the content into bite-sized wisdom for you
I’ll occasionally make you laugh
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Hi! I'm Shem Opolot, and this is The Friday Fix, my weekly newsletter. If you've received it, you’re either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. If you fit into the latter (yes, I’m the kind of person who uses words like “latter”) camp and want to subscribe, then click on the shiny button below:
You can also skim the past posts here.
Otherwise, grab a seat 🪑.
Happy Friday 🎉 This is the 100th issue of The Friday Fix! That’s 100 consecutive Fridays! Can you tell I’ve been waiting for this for a long time?
I’d write this newsletter with the same zeal and intentionality if only 3 people read it, but I’m glad you and hundreds of others read it.
Thank you for your attention. I don’t take it for granted.
I’m turning the first 100 anecdotes from the Life section of the newsletter into a coffee table book; so for those of you who say you can’t believe this is free, now’s the time to get on bended knee. If you’re interested in buying the coffee table book please take a literal second to fill this out.
Speaking of reading this newsletter, some of you occasionally report not receiving the emails in your inboxes. I’m sorry about that. The bad news is—email deliverability is largely out of my control. The good news is—I publish every Friday, and if you don’t get the email in your inbox, you can always check the newsletter’s landing page. If you can’t find the latest post on the landing page, please call the police.
LIFE.
You vs. You.
I started writing The Friday Fix a decade ago.
I lived off-campus in Simon’s two-story home in the belly of the thick greenery that defied the encroachment of concrete, yoga studios, brunches, and Whole Foodses, in Durham, North Carolina.
Simon and I got on well, and we shared many deep conversations when our schedules allowed. He interrogated me about what Uganda was like, and I asked him what it was like being gay and black in the ‘70s in the South.
But when the time came, I didn’t leave Simon’s house voluntarily.
Simon, who tacitly urged me to grow up, asked me to leave his home after I left the space heater in my room on for the umpteenth time—a practice that drove his energy bill high enough to give a climate activist a hernia.
***
During Ohio’s abusive winter, the red-bricked New Albany Hospital stood out like scarlet blood in the snow, attracting elderly patients with good insurance seeking to extend their time on the golf course by a few more years with the help of titanium prosthetics.
It was Gladys’ job to ensure the eager patients understood the risks and benefits of the procedures. It was my job to observe Gladys. Watching Gladys work was like watching Michael Jordan in his prime.
One day, after witnessing Gladys paint her Sistine Chapel, I complimented her.
“Thanks, Shem, but there’s always room for improvement,” she said, smiling brightly.
***
There’s always room for improvement.
At Simon’s, I left the space heater on for hours on end, but I had other flaws in different area codes:
I forgot to flush the toilet.
I left the kitchen cabinets open.
I left the fire on the gas cooker burning on low.
I drank almost all the juice in the container and left just enough to prevent the container from tipping over. The next person would buy more juice, not me.
I left my hairs in the sink after brushing my beard.
One day, after one of those occasions when I took a sabbatical from my senses, my wife said, “Sometimes there’s a huge difference between the real Shem and The Friday Fix Shem.”
The woman’s ability to find the jugular while blindfolded in the dark notwithstanding, that statement would’ve crushed me if it didn’t validate me.
That was the point of The Friday Fix—to get those two Shems to wed each other.
I started writing this newsletter to commit to doing something I could control and to talk to my past, present, and future selves.
I’ve always been self-conscious and self-critical. I’ve always wanted to be better and failed miserably at it. But when I read the writings from my past self, I realize I’ve closed some cabinets, de-haired some sinks, and bought some fresh juice.
There are many lessons you can take away from 100 weeks of The Friday Fix, but I like the power of consistency, the power of compounding by stacking small efforts on top of each other, and the notion that you can change anything about yourself, but to do that, you have to look at yourself more closely; ugly though it may be.
THINGS.
A quote
In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete discord between the spouses or loving harmony. But when the relations between spouses are uncertain and there is neither the one nor the other, nothing can be undertaken. Many families stay for years in the same old places, hateful to both spouses, only because there is neither full discord nor harmony.
A picture.
It means so much to me to see my kids with my parents.
WORK.
Tidy up!
You have data, and it could look better:
You want to view all the text in the cells without manually enlarging the column widths like this:
1. Select the entire sheet by clicking the top left corner of the spreadsheet
2. Hover the cursor over the line between column A and column B until the cursor becomes a cross with two arrows on either arm, then double-click.
3. You can do the same with the rows
Fin.
If you need help with Excel, book a session with me or get this guide.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Christmas playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ See what’s on everyone’s bucket list.
✅ Long read: why humans cry emotional tears.
✅ How Hollywood became world famous.
✅ If you love design, you’ll love this YouTuber’s redesign of a transit diagram, you’ll love this YouTuber’s redesign of a transit diagram
✅ Scientists trace back the first documented human kiss.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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