TIL: athens experience + 3 lessons

Visualizing each day of an upcoming vacation is fun.

I mean, most of the time, what I visualize and what actually happens have a massive difference, but every time, it offers some interesting insights.

I’ve noticed that every time I’ve booked a trip, I ended up wasting at least one afternoon doing nothing.

And by nothing, I mean staying in the Airbnb and doing something I could have done at home.

Every time, there was an excuse that made me feel okay for wasting an afternoon or two, but a part of me wanted to have this “clean” multi-day experience.

I had the chance to reflect on my time in Athens today. I stayed there for a week; I came back seven days ago, and as usual, the upcoming days were a mess of things left behind.

What I’ve realized today is that my visualization becomes more accurate with each trip.

I wasted no afternoons (or mornings).

I had the chance to do all the activities I planned beforehand.

And most importantly, I never ran out of energy.

The stars were probably aligned for this whole week, but it would be wrong if I didn’t encourage you to visualize every single hour of your next adventure.

You might be surprised how many pitfalls you will be able to identify and fix beforehand.

THINGS I’VE LEARNED

It’s hard to stay in business

Getting married, getting in shape, starting a business.

That’s the easy part.

Every once in a while will come a challenge that will either kill your marriage, your body, your business or I am simply not pushing hard enough.

Facing note-worthy challenges is what makes us stronger and helps us progress.

Married people are happier.

A recent Gallup Poll revealed that married adults tend to be happier than those in other relationship statuses.

The survey, conducted from 2009 to 2023 with over 2.5 million participants in the United States, asked people to rate their current life and anticipate their happiness in five years.

The data consistently showed that married individuals reported higher happiness levels, ranging from 12% to 24% higher than unmarried people.

This trend persisted even after adjusting for factors such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, and education.

According to Jonathan Rothwell, the principal economist at Gallup and the author of the poll, “Any way you analyze those data, we see a fairly large and notable advantage to being married in terms of how people evaluate their life.”

Interestingly, the study also revealed that even married adults without a high school education rated their lives more favorably than unmarried adults with a graduate degree.

Brad Wilcox, a researcher involved in the study, noted, “Things like race and age and gender and education matter. But marriage seems to matter more than those things when it comes to something like this measure of living your best life.”

Life can be simple.

Did I say that I’m going to do something?

=> Add it on Trello

Did I say that I’m going to do something with/for someone?

=> Add it on Google Calendar

Did I have/hear a good idea?

=> Add it on Google Keep

I use these 3 apps all day. You might find them useful.

THIS WEEK’S HACK

I get happier the harder it gets.

I’ve stopped thinking “Oh poor me”

I think “Oh poor everyone else who is going to try”.