#30: Hashtag Goals

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Happy Friday 🎉 *Taps mic*

[A deafening feedback echo screeches, fills the room, and dissipates.]

“HELLO?!” “Can you hear me?”

[Obviously, you only hear me when I ask if you can hear me.]

This is the 30th issue of The Friday Fix, and y’all are still here? Is it crack? (I hope so.)

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We have a new addition to the newsletter—a music playlist! 

Charles, a data analyst and avid reader of this newsletter, moonlights as a DJ under the alias Bantu Groove and has offered to curate a playlist for every issue of the newsletter going forward. I was delighted to get his email. The playlist will live in the fun section of the newsletter and is the perfect way to kickstart your weekend.

Estimated read time: 5 minutes

💡 1 thing I've learned

Hashtag Goals

Every Ugandan I know is either an exile or an exile in waiting.

When they tell you anything is possible in Uganda, optimism might lead you to believe you can achieve your wildest dreams.

Optimism might lead you to believe the “potential” we blabber about is similar to the American dream, where you can dance on TikTok at noon and meet Oprah by dinner time.

But no.

By anything is possible in Uganda, I mean I saw two goats tethered to the fuel price indicator at a Shell petrol station just a few minutes ago.

Not Mogas. Not Agip. Shell. They’re supposed to be one of the good ones 🤦🏾‍♂️.

I promise this is related. Stick with me.

***

At lunch yesterday, a couple of friends and I traded sob stories about Uganda:

Friend #1, who makes the most premium coffee you’ll ever have, had back-to-back conflicts with their neighbor. First, the neighbor felled trees that collapsed on my friend’s ripe coffee plants. Then, the neighbor burned a large pizza slice of my friend’s farm.

I sat there, read the room and fought the urge to tell him he must be…

…burnt out 🥁.

Friend #2 visited a government office and waited for a meeting with a government official for 5 hours, only succeeding in familiarizing themselves with the only efficient schedule in government offices—meal time. ‘Tis a conveyor belt of tea flasks and snacks ferried by ladies with thick underarms.

‘Twas my turn next, and I shoved my simple story about a Safeboda guy canceling on me and calling me a cockroach back in my chest pocket. One must read the room.

Silence washed over us for a moment.

Tired of (over)intellectualizing our problems, I said tersely, “We’re cursed.”

Friend #1 laughed and infected the rest of us. We all laughed to avoid crying.

The helplessness we feel reminds me of a lesson on goal-setting:

You can set extrinsic or intrinsic goals.

Extrinsic goals are outside your control—I want my son to play in the NBA and surpass LeBron James in every statistical category.

But intrinsic goals are within your control—I want my son to play basketball.

I think about my goals the same way I think about my fears. I name them specifically, figure out what I can control, and focus on that.

What are you hoping for? What are you scared of?

Do what you can and leave the rest for God and my country Uganda.

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🚀 Pro tip

Make your data UNIQUE in 3,2,1…

Sometimes you have duplicate information and want to see only the unique items.

For example, you asked people for their dietary preferences for an event, and the results looked something like this:

After wondering why anyone would pick anything other than Gonja and wings, here’s how we figure out the unique items to order:

💡 Bonus tip: If you expect more preferences to come in, you can extend the range in the UNIQUE function as far as you want. UNIQUE is called a dynamic array, which, in simple terms, means it’s awesome and will update automatically.

Good luck at your next event!

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The Friday Fix playlist

Brain teaser

Brought to you by my Maths contest in Primary 6:

A book has 99 pages. How many numbers do you need to number the entire book?

Answer below

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Brain teaser answer

Answer:

Only 10 numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Have a great weekend,

— Shem

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