interesthings #4 - Long-term planning

Hi there! I hope you had a great start to your week. For me this week is all about recovering with my knee to start the cycling season off good. Every week I run into new issues with the knee but this week seems good (so far).

I hope that in a few weeks I will be able to start cycling in Gran Canaria and be fully painless. The level on which I perform will not be near peak level, but if I manage to ride a few times, the trip will be worth it. Currently I am trying to use pain medication to reduce the inflammation in the knee. This is such a battle between my mind and my body to get better.

In this newsletter I will share you a bit about Murphy’s Law, an article about analysing life with AI and how you can use long-term planning. Have fun reading!

- Mark

Thoughts - Analysing your life with AI 🤖

The use-cases for AI are explored in rapid fashion these days. This week I read an article about someone that used his journals from the last 10 years as input for AI. He asked the AI things such as: ‘What are the biggest challenges the writer had to overcome in his past’ or ‘What are things that people say about the writer that he does not know about himself?’.

The answers of the AI are really accurate and interesting. This will require you to have been journalling for a few years to get enough input to analyse your past. But analysing with AI is such an interesting use case of AI helping humans understand themselves.

If you have a database of journals of your life available, why not try it out and discover more about yourself 😄.

Thoughts - The act of long-term planning ⏰

Long-term thinking originates from the middle-ages known as ‘Cathedral Thinking’. In the middle ages, the church would decide to build a cathedral. This cathedral would have been build by multiple generations before finishing. For example, the Notre Dame in Paris was built between 1163 and 1345. That’s a span of 182 years 🤯.

Imagine that we would build something now that will finish in 2205. We are struggling to make it pas 2100. Why would we ever plan something for 2205 🧐?

‘Cathedral Thinking’ has been gone for a long time. In this time and age, society is constantly searching for ways to grow. This is why long-term thinking is really helpful. What can we do NOW that will benefit us THEN.

You get instant gratification for eating a hamburger 🍔 or looking at a 30 second Instagram or TikTok reel. Instant gratification triggers certain hormones in our body that give off a good feeling.

Reading a book or going to the gym on a daily basis doesn’t trigger instant gratification. You don’t feel your knowledge level increasing in a day or see your abs grow after a 30 minute workout. This requires dedication en showing up multiple times. That doesn’t give instant gratification, right?

Instant gratification is one of the reasons that smokers always say that you shouldn’t smoke. Smoking 🚬 is something that gives you instant gratification in feeling good and relaxed but on the long term does irreversible damage to your body. Smokers know that smoking isn’t healthy, but the instant gratification of nicotine keeps them from stopping.

Escaping this ‘instant gratification’ loophole is tough. Society constantly reminds you that short-term gratification is good by advertisements and marketing. How can you escape this loophole?

One of the ways to escape this loophole is to analyse your life. Looking back on what you did yesterday, last week of last year can give you a perspective on how you can look at the future. By making plans for the future you have something to work towards.

Another way to escape the loophole is to set clear goals for the future 🔮. This means that you set goals for coming year, but also for 5, 10 or even 40 years. Setting these goals will constantly remind you of the end result of your choices. This could be buying a house or doing that roadtrip you dream of. Setting goals gives you the possibility to escape the short-term loophole.

When you have set goals, there is a reason for dedication towards these goals. Dedication to show up to the gym or pick a healthy meal over fast food. Writing down your goals on a big board at home will remind you and push you towards achieving these goals.

Here are some good ways to maintain your dedication for long-term planning:

• Set goals for this year in a Yearly Review. Additionally you could categorise them for different aspects of your life such as work, family and sport ⚽️.

• Write down your goals on a place in which they will remind you. This could be on a door, your desk or a whiteboard on the wall.

• Find a accountability partner with whom you share your goals and which helps you to stay on track with your goals. Use this guide to find a accountability partner.

• Set calendar items to remind you of your goals. This helps you remind and keep on track.

Eventually, it is your own responsibility to achieve your goals. But there are really helpful tools and ways to support you in achieving these goals.

I hope that the way people used ‘Cathedral thinking’ to build the worlds most impressive structures will help you become a better person and achieve your goals. So you too can build a legacy to be proud of.

Cycling - Murphy’s law ⚠️

Have you ever heard of Murphy’s law? This law states that:

In the world of cycling this is often true. Especially in times where you are near a big race or event, the chances of things going wrong is surprisingly high 😅.

This has happened to me a few times, and happened recently as well. As mentioned, I am travelling to Gran Canaria in the beginning of February 🌴. In these last weeks my knee injury was not resolved, and my bike is now at the Canyon Factory for a broken steer after another workshop drilled in it and it might not even make it on the trip.

Another example is a trip I made to the Amstel Gold Race in 2021, before the trip my old bike failed and I had to bring it really quickly to the workshop to repair it. Luckily it was fixed but the timing was far from perfect.

Have you heard of Murphy’s law and maybe experienced it first hand? Let me know!

Things

• This newsletter has been written with the help of an AI called Lex. Lex is a writing tool based on GPT-3. Need an invite to skip the 26.000 people waitlist? Let me know!

• Want AI to make presentations for you based on your input? You should check out Tome! It’s not perfect, but it’s funny to see what presentations could be made with input.

• I bought the Oakley Kato cycling glasses. They look so fast💨.

Songs - Cinema by Benny Benassi

As a kid, I loved playing Need for Speed. These were the games that made my childhood great. The music in these games brings me back to these times. Songs as Riders on the Storm from Need for Speed Underground II and in particular Cinema by Benni Benassi.

I remember riding a Koenigsegg Agera on the beach on Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and blasting this song. Listen to Cinema by Benni Benassi on Spotify and Apple Music.

So this was already the 4th instance of my newsletter. I hope I inspired you this week and have fun in the things you do! Please consider subscribing!

- Mark