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- #74: Wabi-sabi
#74: Wabi-sabi
Shem Opolot
May 31, 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.
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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
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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:
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Otherwise, grab a seat 🪑.
Happy Friday 🎉 Remember my lamentations about potty-training Zi? We did it, friends! We did it! I’m sure I’ll be a millionaire soon because if you can potty train a defiant 2-year-old, you can do anything.
***
In the spirit of breaking free from algorithms and echo chambers, hit reply, and please share the top 5 songs you’ve heard this month. There are few things better than finding a new song you love.
***
Also, I got this one from IG: What begins with “T,” ends with “T,” and has “T” in it?
Answer at the bottom.
LIFE.
Wabi-sabi
You’ll never look at your favorite pair of shoes the same way again.
In primary school, I wore a new pair of the infamous Bata Toughees every year. And every year, I ensured the shiny shoe tip, which looked like a concrete burger bun was stuffed inside it, resembled the gaping mouth of a fish.
I’d play football on murram and kick rocks often.
And surely, every December, the not-so-Toughees died, and Dad replaced them in time for the next football season semester.
But things changed in P.6.
My growth plateaued, and Dad traveled to Egypt and returned with the toughest leather shoes I’d ever seen—Bebos.
Despite my best efforts, trying to destroy the Bebos was like trying to nuke the Nokia 3310—futile.
Have you ever gotten a perfect hug? Where the height ratio is perfect, your bodies align like puzzle pieces, and the pressure from the squeeze is just right? That’s how the Bebos hugged my feet.
But I was too young to appreciate that in P.6 and P.7. I just wanted new shoes.
Over time, the shoes grew on me, as their leather ordained the perfect marriage of form and function, but two years later, when I finally loved them, I outgrew them.
And Dad didn’t return to Egypt.
Wabi-sabi is a Japanese paradigm that celebrates beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and simplicity. Or, to put it plainly—nature’s good accidents. Like weathered pink cherry blossoms on a lawn or naturally faded jeans before fast fashion forced the issue.
Think of your oldest and favorite pair of jeans. They’ve endured an onslaught of elements over the years—the dust on a seat you forgot to wipe down, a drop of soup, or the ketchup that spilled from your burger after that delicious third bite.
But somehow, these elements made your jeans better.
You can experience Wabi-sabi when you stop dying your hair black and embrace the greys. Or by going full bald instead of praying for miracles in a salon chair and checking the cost of flights to Turkey. Or by appreciating how your past “mistakes” led you to this good place.
Don’t be like me. Don’t take too long to appreciate your Bebos.
THINGS.
A quote.
Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time.
A picture
One of my favorite experiences in D.C. has been visiting all the botanical gardens when spring sprung.
📍 Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
WORK.
Freeze and scroll.
This is one of those features you may have seen before but don’t really know how it works: Freezing panes.
Freezing panes enables you to scroll through your data while keeping certain data (usually headers) visible.
It looks like this:
Notice that the header row remains visible as you scroll up and down. Also, the “month” column remains visible as you scroll sideways.
1. If you want to freeze the header row, select the entire row below the header
2. The same applies for freezing a column or any number of columns.
3. To do both, click in a cell that’s both below the row you want to freeze and after the column you want to freeze.
Done.
This document will help you polish your Excel skills.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ An essay on how to stop worrying.
✅ This is what it’s like to walk down the street in major cities around the world
✅ Take a look at Open AI’s old-school library, if anything, for the cool web page.
Answer: A teapot.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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