thoughts; both mine and other's

Try to strengthen connective tissue

Dolce Far Niente

Disappointment requires adequate planning

To study the self is to forget the self

“You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you”

The flexibility to change one’s mind is a great advantage

Just stare at yourself in the mirror

No confusion could mean no learning and/or no progress

Doubt makes space for questions

Don’t confuse movement with progress John

There exists a reality where the baseline is peace

Start where you are cuz it’s never too late

But for many of us, the main reason is that our brain rationalizes staying busy. We are filled with uncertainty all day long, and that drives us to try to do more, to get control of everything, to cram more into our lives, to stay addicted to technology and distraction.

To do this, we have to stop letting the uncertainty rule our lives. It can be with us, a constant companion, and we can learn to be comfortable with it and even love it as it is. But it doesn’t have to drive us.

–Leo Babauta, zenhabits.com

I am, by no means, a self-made man. None of us are, really. We all stand on the shoulders of generations past. It is their accomplishments, sacrifice, and legacy that have laid the foundation for our lives today.

I am grateful today for the men who made me. It is my hope that my life will be as honorable as theirs.

–becomingminimalist.com

We are the creators of our time. We have complete ownership of our time. What if we could drop our complaints, and take full ownership over our time? That means intentionally deciding how we want to spend the hours we have available.

They say the only constant in life is change. They are right.

Sometimes we plan out our lives—our days, our weeks, our years—and everything falls into place. But other times, we make our plans, only to have them upended by circumstances outside of our control.

Either way, the only constant is change. Life never remains the same. Sometimes it changes for the better, sometimes it changes for the worse, but always for something different than today.

I find myself reflecting on that fact this morning as I sit alone at this empty table. My life is good, and peaceful in this moment. My family is happy, and we are all healthy. I have friends I can rely on, extended family I enjoy being with, and our financial needs are being met doing work that I love.

It is easy, I suppose, to think life will stay this way forever. But that is not the case. Everything could change as early as tomorrow.

But I do not think the best response is to worry about the future. I mean, the change that is coming could be a positive one. Besides, worrying won’t change the future anyway. Change is going to happen whether you worry about it or not.

Instead, I think the best response is to fully appreciate this very moment, because it could change at any time.

If life is good, count your blessings, be thankful, and enjoy the moments—every single one of them. Slow down, take a deep breath, and savor this season as best you can.

If you can only live one moment at a time, you might as well make it the present.

After all, we have no idea how long “today” will last… everything could change as soon as tomorrow.

Everything in italics taken from https://www.becomingminimalist.com/

---

Hustle and Sacrifice

An attitude of gratitude

Sometimes we need to control, sometimes we need to say yes and surrender to the flow

Saying no to the trivial many (things) and yes to the critical few (things)

Guilt is, “I feel bad.” Shame is, “I am bad.”

Shoes that don’t fit are not a bargain at any price. A good idea that can’t be executed is a bad idea.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast

It takes effort and two people and courage and decisions

Opinions are like yesterdays, everyone’s got ’em

Your pain pushes you until your vision pulls you

To edify: to instruct or improve someone morally or intellectually

Trust that some of the best days of your life have not happened yet

Relearn how to be bored and your brain will motivate you to act again

The only panacea is authenticity, not perfection

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity – MLK

“There is nothing successful about being well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” (thought this one was particularly powerful)

Anger is the only thing to put off until tomorrow

This is all temporary and you’re part of forever

No one is normal

Remember that a part of your life might belong to others as well

Praise at LEAST as often as you disparage

The purpose of life is a life of purpose

What don’t I see because of my blind faith in whatever I’m pursuing?

We break through one cage into a bigger cage

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry – Churchill

Addiction to certainty = anxiety

Progress not perfection

We must insist that we become the best we can possibly be

Coach them to improve or get them off the team

It seems we may have been unconsciously programmed to lose our creative power. The matrix is a documentary. Rage against the dying light and keep the creativity.

Use fear as a tailwind to spur you on rather than solely as a headwind that slows you down

Security vs adventure is a paradox to manage not a problem to solve

We’re human beings not human “doings”

Just like a pilot, we have to consistently course-correct in life

The way we view stress affects the way it affects us

Life: an inevitable accumulation of multiple small decisions

Memories and experiences may be the only things that separate us from being but a beautiful container for bacteria

Can’t couldn’t do it, could did it all

There is nothing at the end of the rainbow

Matter tells space how to curve, space tells matter how to move

You are among the rarefied of rarefied heirs

Happiness: a state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time

You are perfectly imperfect

I am supposed to be me. I am supposed to look how I look. I am supposed to be where I am. Everything that has happened in life was supposed to happen. I will grow because of my unique life experience. Life is happening for me, not to me.

Your dreams are possible. Funnily enough, they were put here for you to achieve them.

Ask yourself, “Who would I rob in my neighborhood?” Now, do everything you need to do to make sure that someone isn’t you.

“We are the observer – there is no future and no past – just the present.” This statement is one that I wrestle with constantly.

If you change the way you look at things, the way things look changes.

No one is perfect, and no one has to be.

Dream or die.

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work” – Chuck Close.

This quote may relieve a lot of pressure. It’s not about waiting for hours for this ephemeral moment of inspiration to strike. It’s about showing up and getting started; and your effort makes it such that something amazing will happen. All that matters is that you enable the chance for something to happen. For that, you have to sit at your desk and you have to work.

Some of the best artists had something in common; they produced A LOT of content. Choosing to produce many works increased their likelihood of having that “eureka” moment, rather than opting to produce less content in the hopes of only producing masterpieces.

Learning machines always win.

Having the right answer is smart. Having the right question is genius.

About 60 trillion $ in global currency
Approx only 6 trillion $ in actual physical notes

Money is anything that people are willing to use in order to systematically represent the value of other things, for the purpose of exchanging goods and services
Can compare things of different types (apples, shoes, divorces, cars)
Can exchange things
Can store wealth conveniently

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt

What other people think of me is none of my business

There exists a reality where your baseline mental state is peace

I’m blessed with everything I need, working hard towards everything I want, thankful for nights that turned into mornings, friends that turned into family, dreams that turned into reality
​
​

Completely ignoring efficiency probably doesn’t lead to a fulfilling life. But letting that efficiency urge drop occasionally, by punctuating our doing with idleness, challenges that faint but persistent sense that the moment we stop doing, our precious lives begin slipping away.

That belief, which has largely motivated my adult life, is starting to seem completely backwards. Maybe life is slipping away in every moment we’re afraid to stop doing stuff. After all, nothing detracts from the enjoyment of your life like a creeping fear that you’re doing it wrong.

I don’t want to think of idleness as another investment—time exchanged for more wellness. So instead of thinking of it as an activity, we can think of it as an insight worth remembering: the end of one activity doesn’t need to be the start of another. You can simply remain where you are for a bit, without setting a course.

– www.raptitude.com

—

We lose strength twice as fast as we lose muscle – and we lose power much faster than strength, so as we age we lose a lot of fast twitch muscle fibers

—

Over the last million years is the earth has experienced an ice age every hundred thousand years ago or so, the last one lasting from 75,000 years ago to 15,000 years ago, with twin peaks at about 70,000 years ago and 20,000 years ago

—
​
Be super good at something and you may become passionate about it BUT there is no sense in becoming passionate or being passionate about something you’re absolutely no good at

Use your career as a startup you cannot sell – become very good at rare and valuable skills and use those skills to gain money to develop further autonomy, mastery and purpose

This is not a dress rehearsal for life – this is life

The more options you have the better
​
—

30 linear steps equals 30

30 exponential steps (doubling each time) equals 1 billion
​
—

Caloric consumption inhibits melatonin production

Melatonin inhibits insulin release

—
​
For deep work to carry significance we must be able to simply explain its grand mission

Some things exist in our shared imagination; the collective human consciousness

Wayne Dyer says, “Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is rather than as you think it should be.”

—
​
Hope is not a strategy luck is not a factor fear is not an option
​
Rick Rubin was told many times that he couldn’t work on diverse kinds of music
​
The only consistent thing is change

The concept of the self is itself an illusion

—

Even with his crazy schedule, Elon musk unwinds with video games
​
If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun – Audrey Hepburn
​
​

Perhaps friendship is confirmed the moment when one recognizes aspects of oneself in another.

Perhaps one must be a little afraid of over-rationality when choosing life’s path. Perhaps sometimes we just need to jump in…hard to know when that “sometimes” is though.

—

Many things are creations, figments of our mind, and do not “actually” exist.

Have you ever met a company? I haven’t.

Perhaps The United Nations, the idea of a country, human rights, legal contracts and corporations may all be figments, imaginations, extrapolations of modern society. Perhaps lawyers are the sorcerers of our times; enforcing and awarding and punishing those that betray these covenants of reality.

—

Flow is just the right amount of difficulty to keep you challenged and just the right amount of ease to keep you entertained. It’s the activity for its own sake.

—

Math is often giving you the information again in another form.

1 plus 1 was already 2.

“There’s my wife I married her. You already told me you married her by telling me she’s your wife.”

—

Adults tend to operate much more on autopilot: performing the super-familiar tasks of domestic life while most of their attention is on some past, future, or hypothetical moment. As children we’re immersed, quite helplessly, in present moment experience, which creates long, vivid days, with many more touch points for memory and appreciation.

Mindfulness, one of the qualities developed in meditation, begins to shift the balance back, effectively lengthening our lives by deepening our days and years. The more life is weighted towards attending to present moment experience, the more abundant time seems

www.raptitude.com

—

Remember, you don’t have to make your money back the same way you lost it.

Embrace being lost
Embrace unassigned time
Efficiency is for machines
Failure and the new requires low efficiency
Don’t become a master too early
Some uber-successful 70-year-olds are still asking what they wanted to do when they grow up

First do what you like
Then what you like and what you’re good at
Then what you like what you’re good at and what you can get paid for

Would you hire someone to teach you how to climb a mountain if they’ve only climbed half the mountain?
​
​No Risk = No Future