A reader writes in to ask:
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John–just noticed you’re based in Zanzibar City. How is it over there? Have been curious.
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I get this question maybe once a month on average. Some people note the mandatory address listed at the bottom of each of these emails, which says I live at “101 Desert Kite Drive” in Zanzibar City, in Tanzania.
The fact is, I’ve never been to Zanzibar or Tanzania.
So why is the address there? The story goes something like this:
During covid I was traveling the world.
Since there were lots of restrictions and lockdowns, I launched a newsletter called Masks On A Plane, about where it was open and attractive to travel.
Tanzania at the time was one of a few open locations. Since you have to put in some kind of physical address for an email newsletter, I used a made-up address in Zanzibar City at the bottom of each Masks On A Plane issue.
I eventually shut that newsletter down, but the address became a kind of running inside joke, including now in this newsletter.
Ok, so what? Well, get ready, for I’m about to share a truth that I live my life by, which might be useful to you too:
I’ve done a lot of traveling in my life. I typically dread it before it happens, and I find it stressful while it’s happening. I still do it, a lot, for the same reasons that I read a lot, not because I love reading, but because I think it’s important.
Specifically:
I have this theory that mindset <<< action <<< environment.
In other words, if you want to change how your life is, right now, the hardest way to go about it is to change how you think and feel, sitting where you are now, with gritted teeth, trying to be all grateful and creative and accepting.
A much better way to change how your life is, right now, is to go do something different than what you’re doing now. Go wash the dishes, or get up and stretch and squat, or go make a castle out of a deck of playing cards.
And the bestest way to change how your life is right now?
Go somewhere else. Go outside your house, your neighborhood, your solar system. A new environment is sure to change how your life is right now, completely.
But is changing your life a good thing?
Definitely not all the time, at least for me. I got completely burned out on travel following my covid-era peregrinations, living out of a backpack, a new town every month or so, over and over for two and half years.
It took me a long time after that, sitting in one place, to even consider taking another trip unless absolutely necessary.
But I’m back to traveling. Again, not because I enjoy it so much, but because I feel it’s so important — for a change of perspective, to learn something new, or simply for the blessed relief of arriving back home and having everything feel easy.
And now, on to business:
You might wonder, if I don’t really like traveling, and if I don’t really like reading, then what do I like?
I personally do like writing. Writing is something I look forward to.
Maybe you feel the same.
Or maybe… you don’t. Maybe you feel about writing the way I feel about traveling, as a “should,” a responsibility rather than something to look forward to.
If that’s the case, you might get value out of my Daily Email Habit. You can think of it as a kind of guided tour of the most attractive and valuable locations in daily email land.
With Daily Email Habit, you still get to do and experience everything yourself, but a lot of the care, work, and thought that normally goes into writing a daily email has been taken care of for you.
In case you’re interested in finding out more: