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#57: The fear of YES
Shem Opolot
February 02, 2024
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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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Happy Friday 🎉 I have just the thing for you to bring up during a lull in conversation this weekend: A study using high-speed cameras and motion tracking technology revealed that the insects you see dancing around the flame are actually trying to avoid the flame. Yep. Artificial light disrupts the insects’ internal navigation systems, causing them to dance around the light while facing away from it. Everything we know is a lie.
In other news, I checked off one of my New Year’s resolutions when TLDR Weekly went premium yesterday, and people actually paid 🥹. As for you, yes, I’m talking to you, don’t overthink it. If you click here now, you might still find your favorite seat in the back.
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
LIFE.
The fear of YES
This was me right after
She said to me, smiling: “My apartment is behind yours, the first door on the ground floor. If you need anything, just pop by.”
You want it, you pray for it, but are you ready for it?
’Twas the summer of 2012, and EDM was having a moment. Pitbull, Justin Bieber, and even Usher conspired to make us fist pump in the club, and I moved to the city that gave us Victoria’s Secrets and Abercrombie and Fitch—New Albany, Ohio—for a six-week summer internship that changed my life forever.
On move-in day, Mindy from the leasing office gave Bryan (my roommate) and I the tour of the apartment complex—gym, pool, bar, name it. We had it all.
But there were more important things to consider.
Mindy was HOT. Like supermodel HOT. Bryan and I held our breaths until we returned to our apartment when we both said, in the same breath, “DAMN, SHE’S FINE.”
We moved in on a Saturday, so like a normal human being, I picked a nice round Monday for my first day in the gym.
And Monday was leg day.
Speaking of legs, Mindy was in the gym, wearing an all-black outfit sponsored by Nike with her midriff showing, and from the corner of my eye, she lifted her weights in slow motion.
Once I saw Mindy, what I intended to be a slow, lethargic workout turned into a powerlifting session. My back probably hurts today because of that ridiculous mating dance I did.
When Mindy completed her workout, I was panting over the barbell when she walked over. She offered to call 911, I chuckled, and we small-talked for a bit, but I just watched her mouth move as her sweat made outlines on her skin.
I wanted to ask her out, but I froze.
A second later, my seed of confidence sprouted, and I muttered my overture softly, but it was too late. Completely oblivious, Mindy told me how to reach her if I needed anything and left me hanging, like when someone goes for a handshake, and you don’t notice their hanging hand.
On my walk back to my apartment, I recalled some of the crucial small talk my brain blocked out in favor of my primal priorities:
“My apartment is behind yours, the first door on the ground floor. If you need anything, just pop by.”
I veered right and walked straight to her door, which, at this point, looked like a bright rectangular light at the end of a dark tunnel. I stood at her door for close to 5 minutes, watering my seedling of confidence, and once I knocked, I regretted it instantly. But it was too late.
She opened the door, and my soul left my body.
“Hi! Umm, so…do you want to umm…go on a date with me some time?”
[High pitched] “Yeah! Sure, I’m free on Thursday. Here’s my number; you can text me, and we’ll work out the details. I know you don’t know the area, so I’ll pick the place.”
The door shut, and my soul reinhabited my body.
I couldn’t believe it. I entered the apartment and told Bryan, and he couldn’t believe it. Actually, he didn’t believe me until he saw me climb into her Jeep Wrangler on Thursday evening.
But once the excitement wore off, fear set in.
What the hell was I going to do with this hot woman?
You want it, you pray for it, but are you ready for it?
SHAMELESS PLUG
How much is being informed, smarter, and funnier worth to you? The answer is only Shs. 100,000 a year.
THINGS.
A quote
Let me know when you begin the new tea, and the new white wine. My present elegances have not yet made me indifferent to such matters. I am still a cat if I see a mouse.
The Good Library
Read a book this weekend.
A picture
I had another “God, when?” moment when I picked up a free library card this week. With this card, I can access millions of books, movies, and news publications like The Washington Post, New York Times, etc., for free.
WORK.
TEXT before your date
You see many numerical dates (like so: 09/11/1956), and you want to extract the day and month for each date.
Here’s the data:
Introducing the little-known but magical function called “TEXT,” which formats numbers into text according to a specified format.
=TEXT(number, format)
We start with the day:
Notice the day format changing in the preview bubble as we add more “d’s.”
Then the month (same thing; just “m” instead of “d”):
Observe the preview format changing as we add “m’s.”
Try it with the year and see what happens.
The TEXT function can do so much, but the formatting magic above is probably why it gets invited out on dates 😉.
If you want to learn how to use Excel, this is a good place to start.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Brain teaser
From Braingle.
Below are 3 pairs of words. Find the words that fit in the middle of each pair of words to create two new words, one front-ended and one back-ended.
Example: EVER - ______ - HORN
Answer: EVER - GREEN - HORN
1. FORE - __________ - WAITER
2. FORE - __________ - HOOD
3. FORE - __________ - ABLE
Answer below
Shem’s picks
✔️ Where do billionaires come from? Mom and Dad
✔️ The 16-year-old model living in a slum in Mumbai
✔️ Since everyone is a DJ these days, this site allows you to play around with harmonics
Brain teaser answer
Answer:
1. FORE - HEAD - WAITER
2. FORE - FATHER - HOOD
3. FORE - BEAR - ABLE
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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