Rowan Spazzoli

Lets say I had the following choices this afternoon:

1. Go for a run or walk on the promenade and spend the evening reading a book
2. Play playstation for 4 hours.

If I was asked “which option would make you feel better” I would say option 1. Or if I was to say which one I wanted to do, I’d also say 1. And If I’d evaluated them objectively, option 1 would definitely have been the best for me.

But I chose option 2.

And so I spent the afternoon doing something I didn’t really want to do, that was objectively worse for me and didn’t help me feel better.

The Wrong Choice

I think that this is one of the things that frustrates me most about my psyche and the human psyche in general. We often know exactly what’s best for us. But will actively choose the worse option.

I’d love to investigate the reason for this. And understand why we can’t get ourselves to do something that we want to do.

I know that willpower can get us over this hurdle. But what happens when that’s run out?

If anyone knows the answer, please let me know 🙂

Image was taken on the promenade last year. On a happier note, the person in the picture is back in Cape Town!

Song of the day: Vanilla Twilight - Owl City

Blog 142/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

“You can’t help everyone Rowan”

I was chatting to my flatmate this evening when he said this to me. I’d been telling him about how I client was making a really poor decision. One that would cost them. But they weren’t going to change their minds and I found it immensely frustrating.

Objectively, I know it’s true. I can’t help everyone. But I still have a tendency to worry about things that I can’t change.

I try and help people as much as I can. And get annoyed when I’m not able to. And this annoyance can even manifest itself as guilt.

Out of control

I know that this is because I think that I have much more power than I have in reality. I believe that I am responsible for so much more than just myself

But there is so much that is out of my control.

And as much as it’s good to help people, we can’t help everyone. Try your best, but don’t let it impact you when you’re unable to help

Image is of the magnificent storm we had in Cape Town today.

Song of the day: Embody - Lost and Found

Blog 137/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here

When we’re in school, there are a multitude of people that can guide us through the ups and downs. Our parents have been through school, older siblings are just ahead of us, teachers know the playing field. But as we grow older there are less people that have followed our same journey. Neither of my parents have lectured before. My siblings are entirely different fields to me. And so it becomes important to find a mentor.

I had a conversation about this with a friend today. We chatted about how a mentor can be a person that helps guide you through your development. And that you can have more than one mentor. One at the same age as you, one a little older and one towards the end of their career.

Asking someone to be your mentor may seem a little weird. But they’re likely to be more than willing to take you on. They’ll be able to give advice, share lessons and link you up with people. In doing this, they may also benefit from being in contact with someone with a different generational perspective.

So if you’re a young professional, see if you can get someone to be your mentor. And if you’re in a more senior professional, maybe offer to mentor someone if you feel they’d benefit from it 🙂

P.S here's a nice little article on mentoring

Image is of the hotel where we had a meeting this morning.

Song of the day: Shine on me - Watershed

Blog 136/365. Read more about my #365of25 journey here