Robert Kennedy Jr. on Mental Freedom, Finding Clarity w/Journals used by Tim Cook & Wisdom

Welcome to One Rich Life, where I share stories, wisdom, and habits that contribute to creating an extraordinary life. My intention is for this newsletter to infuse more enthusiasm, wellbeing, calm, clarity, and performance into your life.

What’s Inside:

• Lessons from MIT Professor Lex Fridman 's talk with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about the Myth of Sisyphus and Freedom (and in my view, mental wellbeing).
• Journal like Apple CEO Tim Cook
• Wisdom from Sadhguru

30,000 foot Anchor & Robert Kennedy Jr.

There’s no need to sugar coat it: the current state of the world seems to be anarchic, disorderly and changing faster than ever.

In the midst of it, mental wellbeing is becoming harder to safeguard and manage for so many.

Finding what I call a “30,000-foot anchor” in your daily life can be a remarkable antidote.

The inspiration behind this note comes from a recent podcast I listened to released by the Russian-American computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher and research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lex Fridman, who hosts the Lex Fridman Podcast .

Lex came up with the show in 2018 as part of the MIT course 6.S099 on artificial general intelligence. Originally titled the Artificial Intelligence Podcast, he later changed it to the Lex Fridman Podcast to reflect a wider range of topics such as history, philosophy and the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power. Dalio, Musk, Dorsey and MMA fighter Georges St-Pierre have been guests.

On one of his latest episodes he interviews U.S. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. where he asks him what he thought about Albert Camus’s essay titled The Myth of Sisyphus, penned in 1942, in the context of freedom.

RFK Jr. went on to describe his interpretation of the essay, seeing Sisyphus as a character that had managed to find a 30,000-foot anchor amid a life of disorder, and thus a meaning in the form of some sense of duty in life.

I suppose the way that Camus viewed the world and the way that the Stoics did and a lot of the existentialists, it was that it was so absurd and that the problems and the tasks that were given just to live a life are so insurmountable that the only way that we can get back the gods for giving us this impossible task of living life was to embrace it and to enjoy it and to do our best at it.?

Kennedy seemingly compared the absurdity of Sisyphus’s task of pushing a rock up the hill only to have it fall back down, ad infinitum, as similar to the absurdity we are all facing in the world today - global warming, terror, wars, AI concerns, etc.?

Yet, he ends by reframing Sisyphus’s work of pushing the rock up the hill with his shoulder as a duty; a responsibility that Sisyphus has embraced and thus something that gives meaning and even stability to his existence.

In other words, because Sisyphus found a meaning in his work, he became free. And in my mind, that freedom also gave way to a sense of mental release and mental wellbeing.

RFK Jr. alluded to this mental wellbeing when he remarked that at the end of reading Camus’s piece that he imagined a smile on Sisyphus’s face as he continued to push the rock up the hill.

Although Camus wrote his essay during the German Occupation of France, the essence of his words resonates with the challenges we face today. To nurture and enhance our mental wellbeing, we must seek a deeper purpose in our actions. It is through this profound sense of purpose that we can find stability in our minds, despite the absurdities occurring in the world around us. This concept is what I refer to as a 30,000-foot anchor.

Sisyphus embraced his mundane task as a moral duty. RFK Jr. sees his moral duty as serving others - that’s his version of pushing a rock up the hill. Even though the task might seem insurmountable, do it anyway is what he advocates.

He took his duty, he embraced the task and the absurdity of life, and he pushed the stone up the hill. And that if we do that, and if we find ways of being service to others, that is the ultimate, that’s the key to the lock, that’s the solution to the puzzle.

Now, I invite you to reflect on your own life and the events unfolding in society. Many aspects are beyond our control, but amidst it all, what serves as your "30,000-foot anchor"? Is there a person or group you can uplift, providing your life with meaning and purpose? Perhaps that person is you, and your journey towards self-improvement contributes to the betterment of others?

Journal like Tim Cook for Clarity

A lot of self-improvement authors and thought leaders talk about actionable habits. Habits are great, but without clarity on who you are and where you want to go, habits are futile. They’ll get you on a path, yes, and help you get down it fast, yes, but does that path lead you to the direction you really want to go? And what happens when you get there?

Well, the answer to that also takes clarity.

Daily journaling is a habit that I think works wonders because it helps you find the right path. And after you find it, journaling helps you stay there.?

It’s a habit that can turn the cacophony of ideas in our heads into a masterful, honed symphony on paper, providing us with that all important secret sauce for an extraordinary life: CLARITY of MIND.

Here is an image of the journals I use, purchased at a shop where Apple CEO Tim Cook is also a patron and buyer of these same journals and presumably a fellow daily journaler.

Read my previous post on Linkedin here .

Reach out to me directly to learn where to buy and the name of the manufacturer.

Wisdom I’ve Been Contemplating this Week

Every human being is made in a unique way. It is important that every human being explores what is so unique about him/her and how to find expression to the intelligence that we are.

The beauty of life is that you explore the full potential of who you are. Not do better than somebody. Or do what somebody else has done. It is of no consequence.

No two human beings can ever be equated in body and mind. Don’t destroy that by imitating anybody. Imitation we should have left in our previous stage of evolution.

~ Sadhguru (paraphrased)

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Thanks for reading One Rich Life. I hope it made you think and uplifted your life, mind and spirit in some touching, beautiful way.

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