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- #97: Faith is a group project.
#97: Faith is a group project.
Shem Opolot
November 15, 2024
c 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.
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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:
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Otherwise, grab a seat 🪑.
Happy Friday 🎉 It’s cold in D.C. (it could be worse, but I’m African), and the sun scurries behind the buildings by 5 pm. I can’t wait for it to start wearing less and going out more again. I regret the days I rushed into the shade to avoid the heat. But, on the bright side, I have the right jackets to face this season, and next week’s playlist may or may not have Christmas music ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
LIFE.
Faith is a group project.
“I feel it in my heart to tell her Jesus loves her, and if I don’t tell her, Jesus will not be happy with me.”
Yes, she’s as adorable as she sounds.
Abeja, the most devout Christian I know, wanted to chase down a stranger she barely knew to tell them Jesus loves them.
After a passionate debate about abortion in which their opinions were as far apart as a-quarter-to-three, Abeja couldn’t help herself.
Abeja also said Jesus loves her whether she believes in Him or not, and I—.
You see, Abeja’s faith challenges and confounds me. I want to believe that strongly about anything, but my Lord knows for every miracle I’ve experienced that I attribute to him, I have a thousand questions bobbing about on the memory foam mattress in my head.
But I can muster more faith. You can muster more faith.
Because your capacity for faith is just as quiet and limitless as your love for group projects.
Yes—group projects.
Do you remember that group project where others did most of the work while you loafed around? It doesn’t have to be in class. It could’ve been planning a birthday party, a trip, or exchanging gifts.
You’re not a bad person. It happens to all of us.
Group projects work because you have faith in the members of the group.
Do you know how a car works? You sit in the driver’s seat, stick your key in the ignition (or push to start), and the engine revs. You release the handbrake, place one foot on the brake pedal, put it in drive, hit the gas pedal, and the car moves.
How, though?
What about a plane? Okay, let’s get simpler. Smaller. A remote control. Do you know how that tiny hand-held device that likes to play hide and seek in the crevices of your couch changes the channels on your TV? Do you know how a toilet flushes and where that water goes?
Even after taking physics, I still can’t explain these things to you, but if you ask me, I’ll say I know for sure.
Cognitive scientists Sloman and Fernbach say all humans suffer from this “illusion of explanatory depth.”
But this phenomenon is dangerous because the hubris at its core is a close relative of the hubris that makes you block those whose opinions differ from yours and surround yourself with like minds who reinforce your view(s) of the world.
Again, you’re not a bad person.
Your inclination to surround yourself with like-minded people—groups, if you will—is evolutionary. You had to live and hunt with people you trusted lest, like my nephew used to say, you’d wake up dead.
So you have faith in the members of your groups. That’s why you trust that planes fly, that remotes change channels, that cars drive (mostly), and that toilets flush. And you like group projects because, occasionally, you are happy to let others carry certain [mental] loads for you.
And sometimes, because your group can feel like a hive mind, you can’t tell the difference between where the knowledge of one group member ends and yours begins.
That’s why men think they could’ve been Ronaldo if their fathers had paid for a trainer. That’s why you hire a plumber to unclog your toilet, and you watch him do it so often that you begin to think you know how to do it. Until the toilet gets clogged again in six months and you’re on the phone like a crazy ex.
But still, faith is tricky because it’s bad and good for progress.
If you showed your distant ancestors an airplane, they’d dismiss it as witchcraft and smuggle you into a prayer circle. Faith can stifle questions by surrendering control to a higher power.
But at the same time, faith drives progress. Most of the greatest inventions in history happened in parallel. We don’t need to have all the answers to innovate.
So, take greater leaps of faith because you have much more faith than you realize. If anything, because it’s part of your DNA.
THINGS.
A quote.
Pollard reminds me why I despise jargon.
Evidently a certain amount of opaque insider talk is a professional imperative; indeed, without an inside and an outside you probably don’t have a profession.
A picture.
Another semester in the books; one more to go 🤩.
WORK.
Why you should Google Sheets’ new tables.
There are many reasons to use Google Sheets’ new table feature (which Excel has had for years), but here’s one:
You have some data:
You want to perform some calculations on the salaries and the ages of the staff in the company.
1. Convert the data to a table by selecting the entire range of data and navigating to: Format > Convert to Table.
2. Give the table a name (because how would you feel if people called you ‘gwe’ all the time?)
I recommend no spaces in your table names. Trust me.
Now, you can find the average age or average salary from anywhere in your workbook by shouting your table’s name inside your desired function.
If you need help with Excel, book a session with me or get this guide.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ What happened to love songs?
✅ Look at how people use Apple Notes (hint: for everything!)
✅ Calculators for every kind of category (taxes, chemistry, loans, etc.)
✅ Listen: Can you improve your physical health by changing your mind?
✅ Over 75 free games made accessible by YouTube.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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