January 2021

“A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought—they must be earned.”

“Oh ye who cannot take a good rub, how would you ever become a polished gem.” ~ Rumi

“When you change the way you see things, the things you see change.” — Wayne Dyer

“Am I part of the cure? Or am I part of the disease?” — Coldplay

Discipline is superior to motivation. The former can be trained, the latter is fleeting. You won’t be able to accomplish great things if you’re only relying on motivation.

“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

Make accomplishing things as easy as possible. Find the easiest way to start exercising. Find the easiest way to start writing. People make things harder than they have to be and get frustrated when they can’t succeed. Try not to.

If you listen to successful people talk about their methods, remember that all the people who used the same methods and failed did not make videos/write about it.

Noticing biases in others is easy, noticing biases in yourself is hard. However, it has much higher pay-off.

Selfish people should listen to advice to be more selfless, selfless people should listen to advice to be more selfish. This applies to many things. Whenever you receive advice, consider its opposite as well. You might be filtering out the advice you need most.

Keep your identity small. “I’m not the kind of person who does things like that” is not an explanation, it’s a trap.

Don’t confuse ‘doing a thing because I like it’ with ‘doing a thing because I want to be seen as the sort of person who does such things’

Compliment people more. Many people have trouble thinking of themselves as smart, or pretty, or kind, unless told by someone else. You can help them out.

If somebody is undergoing group criticism, the tribal part in you will want to join in the fun of righteously destroying somebody. Resist this, you’ll only add ugliness to the world. And anyway, they’ve already learned the lesson they’re going to learn and it probably isn’t the lesson you want.

Human mood and well-being are heavily influenced by simple things: Exercise, good sleep, light, being in nature. It’s cheap to experiment with these.

You have vanishingly little political influence and every thought you spend on politics will probably come to nothing. Consider building things instead, or at least going for a walk.

Liking and wanting things are different. There are things like junk food that you want beyond enjoyment. But you can also like things (like reading) without wanting them. If you remember enjoying something but don’t feel a desire for it now, try pushing yourself.

Bad things happen dramatically (a pandemic). Good things happen gradually (malaria deaths dropping annually) and don’t feel like ‘news’. Endeavour to keep track of the good things to avoid an inaccurate and dismal view of the world.