I'm currently reading The Sports Gene by Jeffrey Epstein (really enjoying it so far) and he provides a great analogy for nature vs. nurture, liking nature to be "hardware" and nurture to be "software". So here are a few things that really stood out for me: You are born with certain traits, i.e. your genetic... Continue Reading →
I agree with Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, the authors of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, who argue that products and systems, especially those with which people interact to make decision, ought to be designed to nudge them in the direction of what best serves their true interests. Few, S.... Continue Reading →
An unforced error is a missed shot or lost point (as in tennis) that is entirely a result of the player's own blunder and not because of the opponent's skill or effort often happening because of impatience; inattention; or taking unnecessary risk. In other words, completely preventable. Life, I find, comes in peaks and troughs.... Continue Reading →
As I was going through my Goodreads account, looking through the ratings and reviews of books I'd read, I realised that almost all of them were highly rated! I couldn't help but think what a poor reviewer I was, contributing to a ratings inflation. Did I have an inherent bias of giving high scores to... Continue Reading →
Yes, sometimes I feel overwhelmed. How could I not when I have to juggle kids while going 110% at work thanks to Covid-19? Who'd think a pandemic could complicate our lives this badly? It doesn't make it any easier that I also feel this invisible weight of fear for my own and my family's health... Continue Reading →
If I manage to live through these crazy times, what stories I will tell! Covid-19. It's made the world weird. Shutting businesses. Tanking stock markets. Making sure you know damn well your job's as secure as using 123 as your password. Some context: I do regular investing through a regular savings plan via my bank.... Continue Reading →
An experiment of sorts: 2020 marked the year my two kids came home to stay (they were with in-laws previously). Looking at my writing output on edonn.com, mostly long-form writing, it's markedly down. Short-form writing, on the other hand, on LinkedIn and Workplace has gone up. Play to your strengths, eh?
Reading When to Rob a Bank (by the authors of Freakonomics) and there was this little passage on plastic wrappers on fruit and food in general. In my mind, there was no doubt that that was a symptom of excess, and that it was undoubtedly a bad thing. But Levitt and Dubner (the authors) made... Continue Reading →
I underwent surgery a few days ago. Since then, I've been in so much pain I have second-guessed my decision almost every single damn minute. But you know what's interesting? As in the other times I undergo significant stresses, whether physiological or psychological, I've been forced to confront what's really important in my life. And... Continue Reading →
An e-mail came in and it was brief. No pleasantries; no salutations; just straight-to-the-point. In many cases, that'd be fine. But in this case, it felt curt. There wasn't a lot of history behind sender and receiver, and the main message wasn't a particularly pleasant one. Still, having learned about Hanlon's Razor, I checked myself:... Continue Reading →
Donn, fragments 