Sharing is Caring
This past weekend my wife and I hosted a milestone celebration for our daughter. In truth, my wife does all of the planning, and I am mostly a guest. Nonetheless, it got me thinking about the ingredients to a great party: someone/something important to celebrate and great friends (& family). That is all you need. Sure, it's not easy to obtain. The rest is appreciated, but superfluous. Life is about quality relationships, and I suspect these relationships are built upon shared experiences, inherent trust, and similar values. In this week's Loupe, I share some ways to stay connected and in touch with those who matter most, friends and family!
Shared Space
Where do memories get made? Kitchens have food. Living rooms have couches. Both beckon us, and are the heart of where we spend time with our family and friends!
Burrow
Home
Burrow is a new company that is trying to be the Casper (of Mattress fame) of Couches. They make luxury couches that are delivered in reasonably sized boxes directly to your home in 1 week. No furniture store ... no wait time, hooray! The assembly is straightforward. You can choose the number of seats (1-4), arm style (high or low), and color. Since the system is modular, you can always add a seat at a later date if you have a larger space or acquire an additional friend. Keeping it up to date, the couches also come with a USB charger which is always handy. And the fabric is stain resistant and chemical free. It is a cozy couch, and if you are skeptical of ordering a sofa online (like me), then you can test drive one in one of their showrooms (customer locations) scattered throughout the country. Now you will have enough room on your couch for a friend or two to binge watch Netflix!
Shared Food
There is no better way to hang out with family and friends than staying home and cooking or ordering in. If cooking ain't your thing, then start dialing! One of the best parts of living in NYC is, of course, the breadth of delivery options!
Uncle Boon's Sister
203 Mott St, New York, NY 10012
Now imagine if you could sample fantastic food from a recently opened hot spot, without ever leaving your (Burrow) couch. Click on Caviar (which service NYC + Boston, Chicago, Dallas, LA, Philly, San Fran, Seattle, DC) and get started! If you're a NY'er, I recommend ordering-in from the Thai spot Uncle Boon's Sister, the newest venture by critically acclaimed restauranteur couple Ann Redding and Matt Danzer. Like their sister restaurant, Uncle Boons, they are updating recipes passed down through Ms. Reddings family, and they are delicious! I kind of wish I was friends with them so that I could share a meal prepared by them in their home. For now, ordering in and gathering my peeps around my table will have to do!
Shared Stories
Before I started writing The Loupe, I was writing down my somewhat interesting (in my humble opinion) life stories in Wordpress to tell my children before they would go to bed. Each night they would want a new story. Soon the stories I remembered ran out. Therefore I would have to go to other sources (friends and family), many of whom had much better memories than myself (Thank G-d!). I realized through this process that the shared history is what binds relationships, and keeping these stories alive and creating new ones is what sustains friendships. There's a famous quote, "A good friend knows all your best stories, a best friend has lived them with you." If a story is forgotten (a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it), did it ever happen???
Wordpress
App, Website
If you have something to say/write, then Wordpress is the first place to go. This site provides all the tools needed to write and publish, including hosting. Like all great things (including your Blog), Wordpress had a humble beginning. According to Wikipedia, WordPress is the most popular website management or blogging system in use on the Web, supporting more than 60 million websites including more than 27.5% of the top 10 million sites as of February 2017. The Users vary from my silly stories to your silly recipes, to Fortune 500 companies. The reason for its widespread use is ease of use as everything you need is there to write, publish, and share. Now, document your stories and keep them in the cloud before they are forgotten! You can even accept submission by your friends and family, but be careful what you wish for!
Shared Values
It seems that the people I am closest to share my values as well. Those values include the importance of family, importance of trust ... you get the picture. Likewise, people that don't value things I value I am less close to. It's pretty simple!
The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*CK y Mark Manson
Book
The author describes his work as a "Self-Help book for people who hate Self Help books." This book articulates a value system to which I subscribe. Despite the title, the key is to figure out what is worth caring about. It is written like a conversation with a wise friend who is part smart ass, part great philosopher. The hard truths he walks readers through are self-evident but need to be said.
1. Take responsibility for everything, regardless who is at fault.
2. Recognize the existence of uncertainty and acknowledge one's ignorance.
3. Be willing to discover mistakes in failure to improve.
4. Embrace rejection, the ability both to say and hear no.
5. Contemplate one's mortality.
The author is somewhat of an enigma. He writes frequently and requires users to subscribe (pay) for his writings. He is brutally honest, has great ideas, and uses Wordpress (of course)!
Appreciate, nurture, cultivate, and deepen relationships with those that matter most, and consider Burrow, Uncle Boon's Sister, Wordpress, and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Found!