Mappy September!
In this letter:
New on MappyEverAfter: The folly of Time Management and 2 new videos
Travel: Thailand’s Lantern Festival in November
Money: Giving multiplier matches your donation to the most effective charities
Eat: Try Liver Dumpling soup (and not just for brain health)
Read: “The Uncommon Reader” by the legendary Alan Bennett about the cheeky adventures of QE II
Mental Hack: Test how present you are
Just because: 52 wacky ways to stand up
Note: I will always tell you if I’m getting any referral bonuses and how much they are. There aren’t any in this letter
New on MappyEverAfter.com
- If you’re as obsessed with time management and productivity hacks as I am, this might set you on the road to recovery: Time management for the rest of us
- My two new videos:
and Sunday night Drum Circle at Venice beach, California (and the most awesome taco stand)
Thai Lantern Festival in November
There are 2 lantern festivals in Thailand, Loy Krathong with a sea of candle-lit floral baskets being set afloat on the rivers, and Yi Peng Festival, a magical sight of thousands of paper lanterns raising into the night sky. Both happen during the full moon in November which this year falls on the 8th. They celebrate the end of the monsoon season and letting go of the past.
The best place to partake is Chiang Mai, a colorful city in northern Thailand with laid-back people, great food (and omg, the fruit!), low prices (our hotel room in the center cost us $7/night), beautiful temples, a walled Old City, and modern amenities all in one. We spent over a month and still hadn’t had enough.
Many websites try to sell you a ticket to these festivals but you don’t need one. They are happening all over the city, for free. The tickets are for an organized dinner for thousands of tourists and a mass release of the lanterns. As per usual, we joined the locals instead.
Giving Multiplier boosts your donations
I used to like CharityNavigator to help me pick the best charity to donate to, but their metrics mainly focus on overhead expenses, not lives saved, or suffering diminished per dollar. So, as Will MacAskill, a Scottish philosopher and one of the founding fathers of Effective Altruism points out, if I started a charity that used donations to provide caviar for bank executives on their lunch break but had no administrative expenses, I’d rate among the best organizations in many of the charity rating websites.
That’s why I was excited to find GIveWell, an Effective Altruism research organization that helps people do as much good with their donations as possible, maximizing the impact of your dollar (or whatever currency you use) to save lives and reduce suffering of people and animals.
And it gets even better. There’s a new organization called GivingMultiplier that lets you split your donation between your favorite US based (for now) charity and one of the Most Effective Charities from the GiveWell list, and they'll boost your donation by 9-90%. See how it works in the pictures below.
Right now, if you use the code WakingUp (from Sam Harris’meditation app), they add even more to your donation.
Traditional and Paleo Liver Dumplings
I’ve always hated the taste of liver. It’s the only thing I refused to eat no matter how long my parents made me sit at the dining room table. With two exceptions: liver dumplings in soup, and liver pâté on a slice of bread. Those I couldn’t get enough of.
Liver and eggs have the highest concentration of choline (essential for liver, muscle, nerve, and brain health) of any food, and you can find them both in these recipes: Traditional Czech liver dumpling soup, and if you’re trying to avoid gluten, here’s a Paleo version. I cook them in chicken or beef bone broth and add carrots, peas, and parsley to the finish off the soup.
The Uncommon Reader by the iconic Alan Bennett
This was such a delightful little novella, beautifully written and Britishly funny. The topic is Queen Elisabeth II. She inadvertently discovers a mobile library, to the dismay of those around her.
I got the audiobook from the library, beautifuly read by the author.
Mental hack: How present are you?
If I want to calm myself down, quiet my mind and be more present, I use a deceptively simple breath-counting technique I learned from Dr. Andrew Weil. You can also use it to test your attention span and ability to be in the moment.
It goes like this: Breathe normally. As you breathe out, in your mind say “1”. Breathe in again. As you breathe out, say “2” and go on like this until you reach 5. Then start at 1 again and repeat the cycle of 5 breaths for a few minutes (or as long as you like). If you find yourself counting breath #6, 7 and 8, your mind has wandered (which is normal), just get back to 1 and start again.
I thought counting to 5 over and over? That’s silly. Of course I can do that. But the number of times I caught myself at 18, 19, 20.. totally lost in thought… Back to one I'd go. Give it a try yourself.
52 Wacky Ways to Stand Up
I have no idea who Jiemba Sands is but I love what he does with his body. I wonder how many of these we, mere mortals, could do :)
So there you have it. Hope you’re having a fun September. How about, in the coming month, we all do something we’ve never done before? I have a feeling that mine will be food-related 😋
Be Mappy,
Mags
