Week 13, 2025 - And relax
Song of the week:
Top of mind
After the dizzying highs of being at Vegas for Adobe Summit with $job, I stayed in a different lane this week. I took a few days off work to catch up, calm down, connect with the real world (I dislike the notion that we 'disconnect' from work as an verb as it relates to your job).
My wife & I turned 40 over the Christmas period. And so some folks got together to buy us vouchers for a very fancy and exclusive rural retreat spa hotel. We got two nights out of it, including dinners in the two different restaurants and a few treatments. I spent more than the vouchers offered but that was ok; it was well worth it. Kids were minded by my mother in law. And it was mid-week, which made it easier for everyone (kids are in crèche so it's not a 24/7 thing). And I also had time to take off work as carry-over from not taking enough in 2024.
It was wonderful. I smashed through a third of a book I've had little to no time to actually read, did hours upon hours of relaxing spa things (outdoor sauna, salt cave, acquatherapy, etc.) as well as a deep tissue massage and facial. We came out of it shiny, fresh and looking 35, rather than the 50 we probably appear as normally.
And what was nice was that while work was still buzzing, people mostly respected my PTO notification on Slack and my inbox didn't quite blow up. I was very clear that I need to get away. No one died. Some things got delayed, but mostly nothing crazy happened. My team were incredibly supportive and were clear that I did not need to bring my work phone. I took a few hours on Friday to catch up, respond to things and action anything that needed it. And going into next week, I'll be on level terms as we end the quarter. Win-win!
All of this to say that I've worked myself like a dog for over a decade. And as I enter my forties, especially with young kids, while I've a demanding job that requires my time & energy -- a job that I love doing -- I need to be gentle to myself. I'm not exactly going to 'wind down,' but I need to be selfish sometimes. And so should you. Don't learn that lesson at 40. Learn it far, far earlier.
Photo of the week
(via my flickr)
Tabs
- Waymo crashes less than humans. Having used one, it's not that shocking. They're extremely good.
- Collision tracker
- Signal update fends off Russian phishing attack
- EU publishes paper on how they'll handle threats. The pull-back from America is very real, and we're only 3 months into the orange era.
- Jack Dorsey's email
- Pixelfed leaks DMs. Not good at all.
- CEO of AI ad-tech firm pledging to rid world of fraud... sentenced to fraud
- Internet archive dot EU
- Jensen Huang on GPUs