August 2023
No one is thinking about you very much. So don’t worry about looking stupid or embarrassing yourself or whatever. No one cares.
Maybe it’ll take you five or ten years to succeed at whatever you want to do. Well, those ten years will pass anyway. In ten years you can either have made progress on your goals, or still be whining about how long things take.
Unless you’re at the fringes of science and technology your problems are not new, people have been dealing with some form of them for thousands of years. Read books, they’ll give you answers.
Spend as much of your day outside as you can. Eat local food. Go for long walks. Try hunting or harvesting your own food at least once. You were not meant to sit in a wood box staring at technicolored glass all day.
Feeling “fine” is a dangerous attitude. You might have no idea how much better you could feel, how much happier you could be, how much fuller your life could be. Changes like exercising regularly, cleaning up your diet, it is impossible to convey the change in perspective to someone who has not experienced it. Sometimes you just need to trust the zealots.
Everyone wants to do more social stuff, but no one wants to organize it. Organize it. It’s not that much work, you’ll be much happier, and you’ll make more friends.
Happy people are off enjoying their lives, not complaining about them on social media.
No one is crazy. They just have different values and information than you. If you had their life experience, you’d probably think the same. The sooner you embrace this, the sooner you can empathize with people you disagree with instead of pretending you’re superior.
Try to bias towards improving things instead of whining about them. Or if you can’t fix them, forget about them.
Do things you think are stupid but other people swear by. Maybe you’re the stupid one.
The drive for prestige can unconsciously rule our ambitions and blind us to great opportunities that are front in front of our eyes. Ask yourself: “What opportunities am I missing because they’re not prestigious enough?”
Humans are like sheep. We don’t know what we want, so we imitate each other. Instead of creating our own desires, we desire the same things as other people. The entire advertising industry is built on this idea.
By reading this, you are choosing not to read something else. Everything we do is like this. Doing one thing requires giving up another. Whenever you explicitly choose to do one thing, you implicitly choose not to do another thing.
Define the limits of your knowledge. Hint: the limits are smaller than you think. That’s because being an expert in one area doesn’t make you an expert in anything else. Be clear about what you know and don’t know.
Your life is designed to get the results you are getting right now.
For the trajectory to change, the approach must change.
Life rewards action, not intelligence.
Many brilliant people talk themselves out of getting started, and being smart doesn’t help very much without the courage to act.
You can’t win if you’re not in the game.”
“All is a miracle, so smile, breathe, and go slowly. Walk as if you were kissing the earth with your feet. Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the earth revolves.” —THICH NHAT HANH
Every time you do something that is one less time you do it. One day you will do something the final time and you will rarely know when that day comes.
For all you know, today might be the last time you walk in a particular neighborhood. Or it might be the last time you smile at a particular someone. To think otherwise, would be foolish. Nothing is guaranteed, except this moment. Your only real choice is to cherish every exchange like it is your last — because it very well might be.
Health is wealth is a very common adage, but many people tend to ignore it in the regular hustle of wanting to quickly achieve their goals. Numerous studies have shown that there are long-term negative impacts of ignoring your health. So, prioritize your physical and mental health. Regular exercise, proper nutrition, and stress management are essential for sustained productivity.
“In meditation, it’s not the technique that’s important. It’s the attitude—the attitude of ease, and openness.” —ADYASHANTI
The world doesn’t necessarily reward hard work. It rewards people who make bold bets on a bold thesis that turns out to be correct.
“How you respond to anomalies is a good indicator of your open-mindedness. Anomalies are like a glitch in the matrix. You can identify these moments when you find something surprising, missing, or strange. Anomalies indicate the world doesn’t work the way you thought it did. These moments can be worth their weight in gold if you pay attention. Closed-minded people tend to ignore or gloss over anomalies. Open-minded people want to dive in and understand. Of course, diving in is hard as it may require you to discard your ideas and beliefs.”
Focusing on what matters requires continuous effort.
There is always something calling for your attention, pulling you away from what matters. It might be a grammar mistake begging to be corrected, an expectation put on you by someone else… Individually, none of these things really distract you much, but as days turn to weeks, they become an anchor.
It’s easy to overestimate the importance of winning the moment and underestimate how it can cost you the ultimate goal.
It’s a daily battle to focus on your ultimate goal, not the quick wins that lead to nowhere you want to go.
The more abstract a subject is, the easier it is to reason about and therefore make progress on. That’s why we’ve made a lot more progress in math and physics than any other subject.