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- #28: What are you waiting for?
#28: What are you waiting for?
Shem Opolot
July 14, 2023
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 10 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 distil the content into bite-sized wisdom for you
I’ll occasionally make you laugh
If this sounds good to you, click the subscribe button below, add your email, read the welcome email from me in your inbox (check your spam folder or Promotion tabs), and follow ALL the instructions. This is important so you don’t miss future posts.
Happy Friday 🎉 Do you know that time machines exist?
We see objects because the light from those objects is reflected into our eyes, and our brains register the images.
But light travels at a certain (insanely fast) speed; therefore, it takes time for us to see those objects. For things close by, it’s pretty much instant. But the farther we look, the more interesting it gets:
It takes the light from the sun about 8 minutes to reach the Earth, meaning that when we look at the sun, we’re looking at the sun from 8 minutes ago.
Wild? It gets better.
When scientists use modern telescopes to snap images of other galaxies billions of light years away, the images you see—that sometimes become your phone wallpaper—are actually images of those galaxies billions of years ago.
What we see in the present (through a telescope) is really the past.
That’s how scientists can guestimate what the universe looked like just after The Big Bang God made Adam 😅.
Time machines exist; they’re called telescopes.
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
💡 1 thing I've learned
You can do all things…
Source: GIPHY
You can do anything you want.
I wasn’t always a “data guru.” But during the COVID lockdown, after twiddling my thumbs for days, dutifully participating in conceiving my first child, and eating the hundredth homemade pizza my wife made in her singular attempt at domestication, I decided to learn a new skill.
So I woke up a little earlier and coded every day.
Some days I coded entire projects; other days I mustered only a line or two of code before firing up the TV. But because I measured success by a single line of code written, both days were successes.
Now, I build systems in Excel and Python.
***
I wasn’t always a writer.
But I decided I wanted to be a better storyteller because I think it’s one of the most powerful skills one can learn. So, again, like my friends and I used to squeeze into the back row of the taxi after fellowship at Watoto in the early 2000s, I squeezed my schedule and picked up the pen (keyboard, really).
I created time every day to read and write. Instead of planning to read a book, I aimed to read a sentence. Instead of planning to write 1,000 words, I aimed to write one word.
Now, you read my ramblings every Friday.
What do you want to do?
Break it down to its smallest components and start there.
You can do anything you want.
This anecdote was inspired by this TED talk
🔌 Shameless plug
Over 1,000 people read TLDR Weekly every week. This is me trying to give you FOMO. Is it working?
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🎁 My favourite things
An article
A Bikozulu banger: Peggy’s curse
A video
If you don’t already follow me on Instagram, you’re missing out on nice things like this.
A quote
Selfishness must always be forgiven, because there is no hope for a cure
A movie
Going to watch the latest Mission Impossible because I’ll always sign up for lies, explosions, and Tom Cruise running at full speed for no good reason.
🚀 Pro-tip
Putting names in buckets in 3,2,1…
Ever had a list of names you wanted to separate into equal groups? Boyyy, do I have a function in Google Sheets for you 😮💨.
1. Here’s the list of 20 names that look like the cast of the last movie you hated
We want to create 4 groups of 5, so…
2. We use the WRAPROWS function:
=WRAPROWS(range, wrap_count, [pad_with])
range: the list of names
wrap_count: The maximum number of names we want in each row (In this case—4)
[pad_with]: this is optional; ignore it for now
🧩 Where fun goes to flourish
Brain teaser
Brought to you by Braingle
You are a prisoner sentenced to death. The Emperor offers you a chance to live by playing a simple game: He gives you 50 black marbles, 50 white marbles, and 2 empty bowls. He then says, "Divide these 100 marbles into these 2 bowls. You can divide them any way you like, as long as you use all the marbles. “Then I will blindfold you and mix the bowls around. You can then choose one bowl and remove ONE marble. If the marble is WHITE, you will live, but if the marble is BLACK,... you will die."
How do you divide the marbles up so that you have the greatest probability of choosing a WHITE marble?
Answer below
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❓Riddle answer
Answer:
Place 1 white marble in one bowl, and place the rest of the marbles in the other bowl (49 whites and 50 blacks).
This way you begin with a 50/50 chance of choosing the bowl with just one white marble, therefore life! BUT even if you choose the other bowl, you still have ALMOST a 50/50 chance of picking one of the 49 white marbles.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
🤝🏾 How I can help you
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