Life Is Short And So Is This Book

by Peter Atkins

Focusing on what matters means saying no to things that don’t matter.

I’ve found you can choose to let all the things that go wrong in life depress you. Or, you can accept that things will go wrong, try to laugh, and then look at what you can do. There’s a Japanese proverb that gets right to the point: We’re fools whether we dance or not -- so we might as well dance.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

If you focus on what other people expect of you, you may impress your friends, family and colleagues, but it’s unlikely you’ll be satisfied with yourself over the long term.

“When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

Although it’s incredibly hard to do, it’s also useful to see if you can identify mistakes you’ve made even when things work out as well as, or better than, you expect.

To learn from your experience and the experience of others it’s important to try to be dispassionate in looking at the world and analyzing it. You need to be willing to try things you think make sense, and then to admit your mistakes, to throw away your beloved theories, and to learn from other people.

It ain’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that just ain’t so.

You need to set the bar high enough that achieving your goals will mean something to you in the long term. And you should ensure that your goals are at least broadly realistic. But you also should try to get on a train going in the right direction.

To be happy, you need to pay attention to who you are, what you want, and how you feel, versus staying busy just doing ’stuff,’ or doing what other people want or expect you to do.