Articles of the Year 🎖️

#119 | The Wisdom Project Wrapped

Hey folks👋

Welcome to Wisdom Letter #119.

As the year is coming to a close, we’re spending more time in reflection and relaxation.

Which is the reason for the delay in sending out the newsletter today.

But which also means that we’re spending a lot of time reading and analyzing the best pieces of content we read this year.

So last week we shared the best podcasts of 2021, this week we’re looking at the best long-form articles of 2021.

Hope you enjoy them.

Now, let’s go👇

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1. The Great Resignation

The Great resignation or the “big quit” has been a major theme of the year. With people figuring out interesting ways to make a living, not relying on their corporate job for their livelihood.

Before we get to a great article on the topic, there’s a video I want to share.

I feel like the poster boy of the great resignation myself. I was invited on a podcast recently to talk about the decision, and how more people can make such a move.

You might find this interesting.

(PS: if you’re new, you might not that know I quit my full-time job earlier this year to go solo. Read more about my new adventure.)

Career vs Job

There’s been plenty of great writing on the great resignation this year. Some amazing journalists have covered it in depth.

But Charlie Warzel’s take is the most interesting. He argues that what if we detach the idea of a “job” and a “career”.

Read his fascinating thesis -

What if people don’t want ‘A Career’.

What If People Don’t Want 'A Career?'

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Critical Thinking

Thinking clearly is one of the most important endeavors for this newsletter. We pursue it ourselves, in our own life decisions, and we try to help our readers do it as well through our content here every week.

This is an excellent article in the publication “Psyche” about how to think clearly.

Author Tom Chatfield breaks down the process of ‘thinking’ to its bare bones and explains how exactly we can approach forming opinions and making decisions in life.

Must read -

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Facing Death

One of the most heart-touching pieces of the year for us was from journalist Jack Thomas.

Jack is in his 70s, has been a newspaperman for 60 years now. Earlier this year he found out that he had cancer and just had a few months to live.

What do you do when you know you’ve got just a few months to live?

Well, being a journalist, Jack sat down and wrote.

And he wrote beautifully. It’s hard to describe this article, you have to read it yourself to experience it.

Go ahead -

Also, read this “letters to the editor” post where people have showered love for Jack.

Writing like this forces us to reflect on our own mortality. Which is actually a worthwhile task towards the end of the year.

Pair this article with a book called “When Breath becomes Air”. This was one of the books we recommended last year in our post - 5 books for the heart.

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Worth a mention

A few articles which we enjoyed but couldn’t make it to the top 3 -

• Everybody Hates Millennials: Gen Z and the TikTok Generation Wars | The Walrus

• There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble | Intelligencer

• Sixty years of climate change warnings: the signs that were missed (and ignored) | The Guardian

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Hope you find something interesting to read in this collection. Do let us know which are your favorite articles of 2021.

Reading long-form content forces us to think more deeply and with nuance. Something that can’t be achieved in a Tweet.

It’s a good exercise to increase our attention span as well our intellectual capacity.

Do it.

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👀 Next Week

Next week we’re looking at the best books we read this year.

We’ve read quite a few books, and like a bunch of them as well. Should be an interesting exercise.

Let’s see how it goes.

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📂 From the archives

This week, that year -

• Building My Best Self | Wisdom Letter #67

• Passion, Perseverance and Practice | Wisdom Letter #15

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Important Update

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Ayush & Aditi

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