January 2023

Posted on January 1, 2023

😀 Updates since last month

Updated: January 1, 2023

• I registered a new domain – https://joshua.best – and I’ve moved my web-site over there and also setup a new e-mail — josh@joshua.best
  • It’s just a little simpler, a little cleaner
• My wife, Pearl, received her Masters Degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha
  • Despite the pandemic, despite taking care of her mom, despite raising 3 children, despite moving houses, despite teaching high school English full time. Despite everything.
• I spent a good amount of downtime during the holidays and am ready to have a productive 2023.

📗 Book I’m currently reading

• Gilead by Marilyn Robinson
  • I received this as a Christmas present from my wife along with a few other books from some of the “top 100” books to read lists.

📕 Books I finished reading last month

• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  • The classic self-help book. There were a couple of good things in this. But also there were some things that made me question if people were just extremely rude back in the 1930’s when it was written – that someone would have to instruct people not to talk that way. This book got very repetitive by the end.

🎸 Music I’ve been listening to

• Country Coffeehouse, Spotify playlist
  • I frequently return to this playlist.  Something about slow, sad songs that make them very enjoyable.

🎧 Podcast episodes I thought were interesting

• Civil War Excursion with JD Baker Pt.1, Jock Podcast
  • I listened to this first episode of this 6 part series and it was good.  I’ll try to make time to listen to the other 5 episodes.
• Mind Mapping, Focused
  • Mind mapping is a simple topic, but it was interesting to hear 2 people discuss it for over an hour.

🎥 Videos I thought were worth watching

• Don’t Worry about Reading More Books. Focus on Reading Better., Jared Henderson
  • I’ve been doing a deep dive on the topic of reading and not just reading, but reading deep – and this is one video that stood out to me.
• How I Remember Everything I Read, Ali Abdaal
  • Some more thoughts on how to get more out of reading.

✍ Quote I’ve been thinking about



Do you want to have a meaningful life? Everything you do matters.

That’s the definition of a meaningful life.

But everything you do matters! You’re going to have to carry that with you.

Or do you want to just forget about the whole meaning thing, and then you don’t have any responsibility…and you’re stuck in meaninglessness, but you don’t have any responsibility.

Which one do you want?”

– Jordan Peterson,