A Very Cool Holiday Season

By luck or fate or some other reason, you’ve found yourself reading an email from Thinking Is Cool, *the* podcast to listen to if you want to have better conversations. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up for regular correspondence from me, Kinsey, right here:

Do you smell that? The faintest hint of spiced orange? Maybe a sprinkling of ginger and warm clove? Perhaps just a pinch of brown sugar and the sudden urge to half-quote Ezra Klein to all of your conservative family members at the dinner table? Smells like a holiday newsletter to me. And you’re getting a big old serving (this email) fresh from the oven (my laptop).

It’s the holiday season and if Love Actually taught me anything, it’s that this is the time of year for honesty. The truth is this: Last night as I flew south from New York City home for the holidays, I wrote a completely self-indulgent piece about the lessons I learned in coming to appreciate those inevitable moments when your plans go awry. It was (not exaggerating) 1,324 unedited words about learning to let go and surrendering to the things you don’t see coming.

When I opened that Google Doc this morning to read through the piece one last time before hitting send, it dawned on me that…maybe no one wants to read that. Maybe we’re all a little tired of the end-of-year virtue signaling.

If your inbox experience has been anything like mine this holiday season, you’ve opened approximately 273 newsletters and read the words “2021’s biggest lessons” or “2021 gratitude list” or “a collection of my best work from the last 12 months” and immediately hit the trash can icon. I can’t be the only one who’s sick of the performative year-end content hamster wheel, right? Like can’t we all just take a beat? Maybe practice a little more self-awareness? Maybe just (and devoted Thinking Is Cool readers know what I’m about to say)...vibe?

I say we can and we should.

So instead of doing the writerly thing and sharing (shouting into the void?) what were very personal and perhaps specific lessons I learned in 2021…I’m just going to say happy holidays. This has been a b*tch of a year, and while I’m sure many of you might enjoy these end-of-year pieces, the only thing I'm certain we all need is some time to breathe.

Don’t force yourself to make all the lists and do all the goal-setting and engage in gratuitous reflecting if that doesn’t serve you. If sitting on the couch serves you, do it. I don’t know, find your bliss or something.

And if you have some urge to read those 1,324 words I had initially intended to send in this newsletter about releasing yourself from your own Type A chokehold, I’m happy to share. Reply to this email and I’ll send you a copy (edited).

But for today’s email, the only list I wish to share is this:

1. Happy holidays.

2. I hope you’re safe and content wherever you are.

3. Thank you for making 2021 the very best year of my life.

4. Listen to the episode of Thinking Is Cool I just released.

5. Hug your friends and family and loved ones tight this year. And always tell them how much they mean to you.

If No. 4 piqued your interest, you read right—a new Thinking Is Cool is out and ready for your ears.

It’s a Continuing the Conversation episode with the very, very smart investor Gaby Goldberg, diving deeper into the crypto rabbit hole with an exploration of web 3 and what the next version of the online world means for all of us internet users, reluctant or not.

I promise you’ll learn something new and enjoy doing it and, best of all, have the perfect resource to point your family members to when they inevitably ask you to “explain crypto” over your beef tenderloin.

Listen to the episode here.

Thanks for reading, everyone. May your days be merry and bright and all your inboxes quiet. See you soon.

Xo,

Kinsey