ToVa Weekend: Failure, Anticipating Hindsight, The Silent Treatment, Following Murad’s Girlfriend

Rupert is watching.

Happy West Virginia Day! This week: coping with failure, setting ‘future you’ up in a way that ‘present you’ thinks they’ll like, ditching the silent treatment and one photographer following his girlfriend around the world. Enjoy!


How to Fail and Live to Talk About It: 10 Tips for Explaining Your Missteps Without Sounding Like a Train Wreck

Art of Manliness take the long-form route to help you embrace your failures without looking like a complete failure. While failure will be the result of some of our more visible efforts (at work, among friends, at school, etc.), it’s important that we learn how to frame that failure so as not to create the impression that failure is our baseline. After all, others are more interested in how you cope with adversity than they are in the adversity itself.


The Psychology of Your Future Self and How Your Present Illusions Hinder Your Future Happiness

We work hard and make short term sacrifices in service to our future selves: foregoing enjoyable foods that are bad for us, taking jobs that aren’t great but ‘might lead to something great’, and socking away money for eventual retirement rather than hopping on a plane to New Zealand. What if our future selves aren’t interested in any of that, though? Recognizing that human beings never stop being a work in progress is the first step to striking a balance between short-term pleasure and long-term interests.


How and Why to Ban the Silent Treatment from Your Relationship

Anybody who has been the victim of – or even, I’d wager, the perpetrator of – the silent treatment knows that it sucks and can set off a self-perpetuating cycle of isolation and anger. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to fix and continually avoid if both parties are willing.


 The ‘Follow Me To’ Project by Murad Osmann (via)

Photographer Murad Osmann has been following his girlfriend around the world and capturing exotic locales in a simple but breathtaking way. Each photograph features his girlfriend (typically dressed in a way to match the scene) holding his hand and leading him toward destinations both famous and obscure (but always beautiful). It’s fascinating stuff that will only irritate your itch to travel – but why not go with that? Your future self won’t mind.


 Have a great weekend!

ToVa Weekend: Your Money at 30, Mapping Gotham City, iOS 8 Details

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The weekend is here and with it comes a selection of interesting reads from the week gone by. How your money should look at 30, the process of mapping a fictional city and all the nerdy details about iOS 8. Enjoy!


 30 Financial Milestones You Need To Hit By Age 30 (via)

Lists like this are best read with a healthy grasp on your own realities but bench-marking is always a great way to maintain forward momentum. I will hit 30 myself later this year, but considering I’m only just now wrapping up my MBA it seems unlikely that I’ll have paid off my student loans by my birthday – and that’s OK, considering my reality. Other items – like steadily raising your net worth and establishing proper insurance – are achievable on an ongoing basis regardless of your debt situation. Click through for the full list.


 The Cartographer Who Mapped Out Gotham City (via)

Gotham City is the only major comic book locale that has an official map – a fact that helps infuse the Batman saga with the gritty realism fans can’t get enough of. The map was first drafted in 1998 by Eliot R. Brown and has been used in the comics and movies ever since. An interesting takeaway from this article, which explores how the map was initially devised and the subtle changes it has undergone over the years, is that “restrictions can sometimes create the best art”. Whether you agree or disagree with that notion, the piece is a compelling examination of a bold creative undertaking.


All The New Stuff In iOS 8
Two of the Best iOS 8 Features Apple Didn’t Talk About
How To Get (Some Of) The Best Features Of iOS 8 Right Now

Apple released details concerning iOS 8, which is always a fun moment for productivity geeks. As usual, the crew at Lifehacker and Gizmodo have all the details across their network.


 Have a great weekend!

Take The Road Less Traveled In All Aspects Of Your Life

Skip the highway.

When considering travel to a neighboring city by car, the easiest route is usually the fastest route, as well. The highway. The freeway. The interstate. The bypass. The turnpike. These major roads go by many names and as convenience goes, they are a godsend. However, the highway is not the only way to get from Point A to Point B – any number of smaller roads connect the many smaller towns that highways have bypassed and forgotten. Sure, you’d have to endure intercity traffic and lower speed limits and traffic signals and the occasional tractor (or horse-drawn buggy!) but maybe it’s still a route worth consideration.

On the freeway, you limit your choices.

Lifehacker recently highlighted the above quote from David Klein – creator of Jelly Belly – as featured in Candyman, a documentary about Klein. It seems like common sense, but the implications are limitless and can extend to many parts of our day to day lives. Reading between the lines, it’s a statement about the sacrifices we make in the pursuit of convenience.

By zipping from town to town on the freeway, you may miss any number of interesting destinations in between. By choosing to shop at big box retailers that offer convenience and low prices by limiting their selection of items in each category you may be missing out on, say, a specialty shampoo that makes your hair look better than it ever has. By choosing to invest your energy in the CliffsNotes on Macbeth rather than reading the play itself, you’re missing the lyrical beauty of Shakespeare.

We’re all busy and little time savings get us back to House of Cards a bit faster, but maybe it’s worth taking the road less traveled here and there. Maybe in choosing the path of least resistance you’re missing out on something that would add unprecedented value to your life. Is that not worth slowing down for?