Weekly | #88
Choosing a road to travel, the futility of chasing more, 7 habits that make everyone around you better, Jon Bellion's studio show, a better sleep challenge, backyard 500, & Chickpea Salad
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In The Better Way Weekly
Article Review
Book Summary
Podcast Recommendation
Just Good Content
Weekly Challenge
Workout of the Week
Recipe of the Week
✅ ARTICLE
David Epstein reread the most quoted poem in America and found we’ve had it backwards for a hundred years. “The Road Not Taken” gets trotted out at every graduation as an anthem for rugged individualism: take the bold path, blaze your own trail. But read it closely and the two roads are identical — “worn really about the same.” Frost wrote it to needle a friend who agonized over every fork in the trail and then regretted whichever way they’d gone.
Epstein ties it to Herbert Simon’s idea of satisficing — deciding good enough is good enough, on purpose — and to the research showing that “maximizers,” the folks who can’t rest until they’ve found the best of everything, end up less happy and more prone to regret and comparison.
I see it in the gym every day. The perfect program, the perfect macros, the perfect morning routine — people chase the optimal version of everything and forget to live the good-enough one right in front of them.
“Maximizers tend to be less happy with their decisions, and their lives, and more prone to regret and to comparing themselves to others.” — David Epstein
Check out one of my most recent essays here:
📖 BOOK SUMMARY
Ecclesiastes: traditionally attributed to Solomon — "the Teacher"
Overview
Overview
One of the Bible’s wisdom books, written in the voice of “the Teacher” — a king in Jerusalem, traditionally understood to be Solomon, who had the wealth, power, and pleasure to test every theory of the good life and report back on his experience.
His refrain is the Hebrew word hevel: “vanity of vanities,” which literally means vapor, or breath. Everything we chase “under the sun” work, wisdom, pleasure, money all just slip through our fingers like mist.
Key Learnings
Everything “under the sun” is vapor. The Teacher pushes pleasure, work, wisdom, and wealth to their limits and finds none of them can carry the weight we put on them. Naming life’s fleetingness is permission to hold things loosely.
There’s a time for everything. The famous third chapter (”a time to be born, and a time to die…”) is a hard mercy: we don’t control the seasons, only how we meet them. Peace comes from accepting the rhythm instead of fighting it.
Receive the simple gifts. Again and again he lands in the same place… eat your bread, enjoy your work, love the people in front of you, because these ordinary things are gifts from God’s hand, not prizes to be earned.
The whole point, at the very end. After testing it all, he closes with a single line: “Fear God and keep his commandments.” Meaning was never going to come from accumulating more.
Why It Resonates
I read Ecclesiastes once or twice a year, and it feels like it acts as a kind of alignment check. This time, sitting right next to David Epstein’s piece on maximizing, the overlap was almost funny — a 3,000-year-old king already diagnosed our optimization problem and called it “chasing after the wind.” In a culture that swears the best life is always one more upgrade away, Ecclesiastes is the rare voice insisting the good life is mostly here already, in the bread, the work, and the people… if I’d loosen my grip long enough to notice.
🎬 JUST GOOD CONTENT
This is just an unbelievably satisfying and enjoyable listen/watch. Turn it on in your office, living room, car…whatever.
🎙️ PODCAST OF THE WEEK
Chasing Excellence — "7 Habits of People Who Make Other People Better w/ Jon Gordon
Summary:
Ben and Patrick sit down with Jon Gordon who is an author of 33 books, 18 of them bestsellers, to unpack seven habits that make the people around you better. The premise flips the usual self-improvement script: maybe becoming extraordinary isn’t about your own habits at all, but the ones that lift everyone in your orbit.
They get into the ratio of positive to negative interactions that decides whether a relationship thrives, why you “shout praise and whisper criticism,” and how an abundance mindset, give freely, make the pie bigger, win the person instead of the argument, creates energy that raises the whole room.
🚀 5 FACTOR CHALLENGE
(Factors of Health | Eat, Sleep, Train, Think, Connect)
Factor: Sleep
Challenge: The Same-Time Wake-Up. For the next seven days, wake within 15 minutes of the same time each morning and get your eyes on natural light within 15 minutes of getting up.
Why you benefit. A consistent rise time, paired with morning light, tells your brain when “day” begins. This improves how fast you fall asleep that night, how deep you go, and how steady your energy and mood run the rest of the day. It’s free, it’s simple, and it outperforms almost anything you can buy. The trick: pick a time you can do on a Saturday, not just a Monday. Summer makes this one easy because the light is often already up before you are.
💪🏻 WORKOUT OF THE WEEK
“The Backyard 500”, bodyweight, minimal equipment required.
Five rounds. Each round is 100 reps, for 500 total. Rest 60–90 seconds between rounds and move at a pace you can repeat. Newer to training? Start with three rounds and build up from there.
Air squats — 30: feet shoulder-width, hips below parallel, drive through the heels.
Mountain climbers — 20: from a strong plank, drive the knees toward the chest; count each leg.
Push-ups — 20: full plank position, chest to fist height, body in one straight line.
Sit-ups — 20: full range, hands lightly behind the ears (don’t yank the neck).
Reverse lunges — 10: 5 per leg, back knee kisses the ground, chest tall.
Modifications & Substitutions
Air squats — reduce depth, or sit back to a chair (box squat).
Mountain climbers — slow the tempo, or march the knees in place.
Push-ups — drop to the knees, or elevate the hands on a bench or counter.
Sit-ups — sub dead bugs (alternating arm and leg extension from a tabletop position) for the same rep count.
Reverse lunges — sub split squats (back foot stationary) or step-ups onto a low platform.
🥑 RECIPE OF THE WEEK
A healthy, nutrient dense, minimally processed meal or snack.
From: Lesley Price Hearth & Horizon
Lemon-Herb Quinoa & Chickpea Salad
Ingredients
1 cup dry quinoa, rinsed
1¾ cups water or low-sodium broth
1 can (15 oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 English cucumber, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
½ small red onion, finely diced
⅓ cup fresh parsley, chopped
¼ cup fresh mint, chopped
½ cup crumbled feta (optional; leave out to keep it vegan)
Dressing:
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Juice and zest of 1 large lemon (about 3 tbsp juice)
1 clove garlic, finely grated
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp honey or maple syrup
½ tsp sea salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Combine the rinsed quinoa and water (or broth) in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce to a simmer, and cook 15 minutes until the liquid is absorbed. Off the heat, let it sit covered for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork and spread on a plate to cool.
While the quinoa cools, whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a small jar or bowl until emulsified. Taste and adjust the salt and lemon.
In a large bowl, combine the cooled quinoa, chickpeas, cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, parsley, and mint.
Pour the dressing over the top and toss well to coat.
Fold in the feta, if using. Taste once more and adjust seasoning.
Serve right away, or chill 30 minutes to let the flavors marry. Keeps in the fridge up to 4 days. Add a fresh squeeze of lemon before serving leftovers.
