Life lessons

Bloom where you’re planted.

When you're young, you have time, you have health, but you have no money. When you're middle aged, you have money, you have health, but you have no time. When you're old, you have money, you have time, but you have no health. So the trifecta is trying to get all three at once.

Life is forever a work in progress. Be a student of life.

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.

Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different.

If I acted normal, nobody would know me.

Identify the reason why you’re doing certain things in life, so that you can focus on doing it in the most efficient way possible. This way you can become the very best at it. If you’re writing blog posts, is it to make money? To document your thoughts? To interact with human beings? Once you know your reason, you can eliminate all the things that doesn't help with fulfilling that. If writing blog posts to you isn’t about making money, don’t put ads on your blog. If it isn’t about human engagement, there’s no need for a comment section.

The journey is the destination.

Great design simplifies a very complicated world.

Complexity is sometimes preferred over simplicity. It’s exciting to not always be in control. Being in an overwhelming forest is a richer experience than being in a controlled park.

If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.

Discipline equals freedom.

Being small is a feature — not a bug

Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and above all, integrity. Don’t partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Being a good writer is an essential part of being a good remote worker, since most arguments are settled over email or chats. Make sure to hire people that can properly express their thoughts in writing.

If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it.

Timing is often the biggest component of success.

Things to take into consideration when calculating your real hourly wage: - commuting - costuming - meals - daily decompression - escape entertainment - vacations and expensive playthings - job-related illness - other job-related expenses

The purpose of wealth is freedom.

No one looks stupid while they’re having fun.

Time enjoyed is not time wasted.

Family is not necessarily blood, but instead who you would bleed for.

Just because you become comfortable and used to your significant other doesn’t mean you should give up the effort to make them feel loved. Love is forever a work in progress.

The ability to afford something is the luxury, not to not being able to afford it.

One day, humanity will be destroyed, and it will be because we decided to film it instead of running away.

Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.

Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories.

Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.

Life’s not supposed to be easy. That’s why it feels so fucking good.

Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there”.

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry—all forms of fear—are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.

We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change.

Living well is the best revenge.

You shouldn’t measure your life based on how long something takes. Instead, you should measure your life based on how far you go. Time is a distance.

I think what most people—especially educated, pampered middle-class white people—consider “life problems” are really just side effects of not having anything more important to worry about.

To measure the quality of your life, simply do nothing, and see how it feels.

People devote a lot of energy to thinking about things. Whether they want to or not. Yet in the end we all just have to wait—only time can tell how events play out. The answers lie ahead.

Don’t let reality control your imagination. Let your imagination be the user interface to steer your reality.

“If that’s true,” she said, “then that’s one heck of a hypothesis.” “Perhaps nothing can be certain in this world,” I said. “But at least we can believe in something.” She smiled.