Hello, Adversity Weekly Roundup #01 - Feb. 4, 2023
Hello, Adversity Weekly Roundup #01 - Feb. 4, 2023
Hi everyone!
Greetings from Connecticut, where it is currently about -150 degrees Fahrenheit. I hope all my friends in the Northeast are nice and warm.
This is the first edition of the Hello, Adversity Weekly Roundup. The goal of this email is to share various news/feature articles I’ve come across in the past week and what we can learn from each story.
Some will make you laugh. Some will make you cry. Some will make you question my thought process. All, I hope, will make you think.
As a final note, I tend to shy away from stories that are artificially optimistic or “inspirational”. Oftentimes they come off as cringeworthy and condescending. But I do enjoy human interest pieces when I can learn from someone’s personal journey. I like inspiration in the form of concrete takeaways and advice.
Without further ado, here is this week’s roundup:
The legendary actor posted on Instagram to commemorate 47 years of sobriety. Hopkins provides a lot of great takeaways in his video. This is my favorite:
“Be kind to yourself. Be kind. Stay out of the circle of toxicity with people if they offend you. Live your life. Be proud of your life.”
We are often our own worst critic. We only seem to focus on what we do wrong, and if someone is mean to us, it affects us deeply. We must counter this negativity with self-love. We need to give ourselves a break from time to time.
One thing to know about me is that I am a Pocket app power user, so sometimes I’m reading articles for the first time that are a few months old. This article is from October, but I thought it was still worth sharing.
I have come to appreciate the value of friendship these past few years. I like the first item on the list. Would I buy you a book? Probably not - there’s too many of you - but I would definitely recommend a book! Here are a few of my favorites:
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand - All-time favorite book.
Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl - This helped to shape my outlook on life.
Of Beetles and Angels, by Mawi Asgedom - I still think about this one a lot.
Fantasyland: A Sportswriter's Obsessive Bid to Win the World's Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseball, by Sam Walker - I love fantasy baseball. I am also a nerd.
In 2019, I attended the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s advocacy conference. One of the issues we spoke to lawmakers about on Hill Day was accessible air travel. I learned at the conference (and it continues to blow my mind) that airplanes are not covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
This video shows the many problems faced by wheelchair users who want to fly on an airplane. Without ADA protections, the process is a nightmare.
It is an infuriating video, but wheelchair users are resilient. We have to be. I give Emily credit for keeping her cool after her chair was broken. I don’t think I would have reacted the same way.
I came across this article while doing research for my New Year’s resolution piece.
Samuel Johnson, the famous 18th-century writer and lexicographer, made a new resolution every year, only to fail after a short time. His writing is full of optimism and dry humor, even when facing failure. That is an attitude we can all adopt.
Amid so much lament it’s easy to miss the one resolution Johnson did keep, though to my knowledge he never wrote it down: the resolution to continue resolving.
(Why didn’t I ever think of this?)
If you have any feedback on today’s email or want to send me a story to include in the future, please email me at HelloAdversity@substack.com or drop a comment below.