Hi friends,

 

I’m back from a nice vacation with my family over the Eid holiday; the highlight was there were 9 people on this trip, including my mother, which made this trip the first time we traveled together in 19 years. The last time we traveled was when I was still in university.

 

It was a vacation where we spent a lot of time on the beach, by the pool, taking strolls, or having meals together, so it was not an action-packed kind of vacation. My mum enjoyed it a lot, especially seeing her grandkids having fun and swimming well, but she also grew restless a bit because she is the kind of woman who likes to stay productive and busy. She wished she had brought her crochet set.

 

Luckily, I have been reading about white space in the book A Moment To Think, and I talked to her about productive relaxation. I told her that while she feels she’s doing nothing, her brain is working in the background to solve problems creatively and generate new ideas.

 

I used to feel the same way, but now I trust the creative process to work on my behalf while I feed my eyes with relaxing images of blue horizons and my ears with the crashing of the waves and the buzzing of the crowds. Of course, this is much easier when you are away from your usual environment. I remember trying a do-nothing Saturday at home last year, but it did not feel good because there was a lot I thought I could get done instead of reading in bed.

 

Finally, I can’t wait to see what my brain would come up with in the coming few weeks after spending some time not thinking or consuming new information, except for a few pages I read from a light book on my Kindle.

 

What about you, my friend?

 

Have you learned to trust non-productive days, too?

 

A snapshot from my week:

Vitamin Sea

Here is your weekly dose of The Sunday Spark ⚡️ a newsletter listing 3 sparks that I thought were worth starting your week with: 

 

1. 🎙️ Elevate your communication skills with Charles Duhigg in this wonderful podcast interview. The author of The Power of Habit discusses his brand new book, Supercommunicators.

 

2. 📚 Have you tried decluttering books? Here is an interesting thread to read and put into action. I love the different filters people share to declutter books. One I liked is: Do I plan to read this book in a year? Do I plan to read it in five years? If not, get rid of the book.

 

3. 💬 🚶‍♀️ مشيتوا اليوم؟

 

"Today, make sure you take a walk. And in the future, when you get stressed or overwhelmed, take a walk. When you have a tough problem to solve or a decision to make, take a walk. When you want to be creative, take a walk. When you need to get some air, take a walk. When you have a phone call to make, take a walk. When you need some exercise, take a long walk. When you have a meeting or a friend over, take a walk together. Nourish yourself and your mind and solve your problems along the way.”  

—Ryan Holiday, Stephen Hanselman, The Daily Stoic

 

(Thank you Readwise for helping me find this quote. Readwise is my favorite app to recall favorite passages in books and articles I read and now they have a new product, Reader, which will make you forget about all the other read-it-later apps)

 

 

 

 

 

 

See you next Sunday First name / my dear friend

 

* Note: To the best of my ability, I am trying to share content by authors who have not disappointed me, and they are hard to come by! Please let me know if any author I share about was disrespectful to Palestine.