Hi, I'm Nina Iordanova and this is the 22nd edition of Something Good, a newsletter filtered through my 🧠, 🖐, and ❤️. Coming your way every two weeks, I hope you find something good here.
Hi! So good to see you here on this side of 2022.
To me, the first day of a new year feels like peeling the plastic film off a new tub of ice cream in a flavour you’ve always wanted to try. The promise of possibility and the taste of it.
When I woke up on January 1st, I felt a lot lighter than I have in months. I bought a course from Rising Woman called Becoming the One, a course to get clear on your core values and relationship goals. It’s something I’d normally debate for months (is it worth it, do I really need it, can I figure it out on my own) before exhausting myself and giving up on it.
But that day, I just bought it. Fuck it, I’ll either learn something or I won’t. At least I’m leaning on the side of possibility - that it might help, that I can change.
I also bought a course on abstract painting and psychology. It feels nice to be involved with the world and my interests again.
I’ve found that over the past year, I’ve unsubscribed from every newsletter that’s focused on productivity and growth. Instead, the newsletters I’ve been enjoying most are the ones focused on people’s stories and lives. There’s Haley Nahman’s Maybe Baby (personal stories and cultural critiques), Marianela D'Aprile’s the immense wave (music and feelings) and Kevin Maguire’s The New Fatherhood (for the next generation of dads …and me).
I dunno man, I don’t wanna be taught how to do more stuff better. I just wanna hear how you’re experiencing your life. What stands out to you, how it makes you feel, what it makes you wonder.
It’s been a similar evolution for my newsletter. Something Good started as a newsletter for my old company, and my goal was for it to be useful. Useful to me meant lots of links and articles to interesting things. Then it became a personal newsletter with a little section of my thoughts, but still mostly meant to be useful.
Now it’s just stories from my life.
I’d say there’s nothing particularly useful here, but I think my definition of what’s useful (at least at this point in my life) has changed.
*
I’ve always been a lifelong reader, but books were never an expense I allowed myself. I’d rely on the library to get what I needed (never the latest books, usually a couple of months’ wait for holds to come through), and when I grew up a little and had enough spare money, my treat was a trip to a used bookstore. The selection wasn’t much better but still.
The rule was, I could only get two books at a time, and I wasn’t allowed to buy new ones until I read the ones I had.
It was like an IV drip of reading - no matter how much I wanted, the flow was controlled and restricted. Two books at a time, and even if they sucked you gotta read them before you can get something new.
Fast forward to this year. The company I work for has an education stipend that covers books. For week I would deliberate, order a book or two at a time, then diligently finish them before I ordered the next pair. I’d fret over my online shopping cart, adding and removing books, trying to make the most of the restraints I’d set. Did I want to read non-fiction or fiction? Was the topic interesting enough for me to stick it through? Was a fiction book really the best use of my time and money?
One day, I snapped. I’d spent forty minutes doing the back and forth dance on Amazon, moving books into my shopping cart before having second thoughts and deleting them, having third thoughts and re-adding them, then feeling guilty and compromising by moving them to my ever-growing wishlist instead. There, at least I could see them even if I couldn’t have them.
Fuck it, I suddenly thought. Fuck it, with each book I moved from my wishlist to my shopping cart. One book, two books, eight books, twelve. Fuck it. Fuck it fuck it fuck it, with each click as a kind of madness falls over me. I’ll have you all.
It felt like eating after years of starvation. A feast of books. Fiction, non-fiction, books I’d already read, books friends had recommended, books I was skeptical of, books I’d been eyeing for years, books about magic and philosophy and cooking and science, all for me. Ahhhhhh. Like sitting at a table loaded with food, heavy with textures and colours and aromas and being told, Eat. Eat your fill.
I was scared that it was just the treat of having a new book that kept me reading, the excitement of possibility. I was afraid that giving myself so much choice would mean nothing actually got read.
But the excitement doesn’t wear off. Instead, I fly through the books. I devour one only to move on to the next and the next and the next.
And it’s actually the opposite. This wealth of choice keeps me reading.
✨
Warmly yours,
Nina
If you're enjoying this newsletter, I'd love it if you shared it with a friend!
Thanks for reading and I'll see you in two weeks! 👋