Life Is Short And So Is This Book

by Peter Atkins

The trick is people who are most productive tend to say no to things that are unimportant to them and focus on what they believe matters.

I know many people who work super hard to fill up the spaces in their lives, so they won’t have to think. A wise colleague calls this “numbing out”.

just because someone else wants you to do something doesn’t mean you have to do it.

Focusing on what matters means saying no to things that don’t matter. Otherwise, your life becomes cluttered with distractions.

Albert Einstein said: It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

I frequently ride an indoor bicycle while reading, since the indoor bicycle takes no mental attention, and it allows me to get exercise at the same time.

the human mind is not a linear machine.

So to make the most of your life, say no to things that don’t matter, work hard at what you love, and occasionally take time away from your core focus to rest so that your mind can be quiet for great insights to come.

If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep. -Dale Carnegie

An inspirational woman I know has cancer, yet she finds the beauty in every day and every moment.

The lesson to me is that you can focus on something going well, or something beautiful, or something interesting -- even amidst terrible times.

The things I can’t do anything about, I try to ignore. There’s no use, for example, being jealous of other people’s success or good luck; it won’t make me any happier.

Accept that luck and bad luck aren’t evenly or fairly distributed, and you can’t do anything about that.

Lastly, when you make mistakes along the way, as I have at many points in my life, accept them as well. I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes. They’re experience – and they’re the sort of experience you won’t soon forget.

As Winston Churchill said: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

I’ve learned, I’m better off doing nothing when the only available choice has glaring issues.

Character is like a tree, and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. - Abraham Lincoln

Do what you think is right. Don't follow other people blindly. Be honest and keep your word. Admit your mistakes.

If you live your life authentically, keep your word, admit mistakes, and admit what you don’t know, you’ll find people will trust you more over time, and you’ll become wiser too.

Inevitably, we take on some of the habits of people with whom we’re closest.

No matter how much wealth or fame you accumulate, if you don’t have true friends it’s unlikely you’ll be happy.

As a society, we’re getting fat. We’re creating many health issues (and costs), which we’ll have to deal with down the road.

Taking care of yourself extends beyond your body to your mental health.

For instance, a number of people I know spend money in unhealthy ways, sometimes running up large amounts of debt by buying things they believe will make them feel better. Sadly, but predictably, it doesn’t work. The pleasant feeling of owning something new soon fades, and then they’re onto buying the next thing. The debt potentially incurred by this sort of activity not only causes financial difficulties, but may also lead to health issues.

People also compensate for not feeling good about themselves by over-eating, drinking too much, over-working, and becoming reliant on constant or unhealthy sex to numb their pain. All of these are addictions. Taking care of yourself means finding a balance that works for you, then having the discipline to maintain that balance.

You may not have the parents or the siblings you’d have chosen. You may not look the way you’d have picked. The people you love may not always love you back. You may not live where you’d like. You may not have the job you want, or get the promotion you believe you deserve. If you get married, it may not work out the way you thought it would.

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.

Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

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.

So it’s quite possible to reinvent your career even late in life.

It’s said that to become an expert in a given activity requires about 10,000 hours of practice. At 40 hours a week (doing nothing else, which is extremely unlikely) it takes five years of solid work to master a subject.

How do you determine what you passionately want to do? I’ll share my own experience. Before I left Microsoft, I took out a piece of paper, and listed those moments in my life I loved most. I tried to identify patterns. With that information, and a bit of research about various career options, I picked something which I thought would allow me to do what made me most happy. I also paid close attention, using the same method, to things I didn’t like to do, and worked hard to eliminate those things from my life.

Ideally, you want a job you’d do even if you weren’t paid to do it.

Those who live in the past tend to be unhappy.

No matter how significant your past accomplishments may be, they won't keep you satisfied.

Change will happen whether you like it or not.

“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.”

Since change is inevitable, the key is learning how to manage it.

At some points in your life, you may try to drive change. In those instances, I’ve found patience is a huge virtue. Change comes slowly.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

If you want to learn from experience, I’ve found the following useful: Be curious.

Read widely.

I read as much as I can.

Find mentors.

People love to teach others. If you’re highly motivated, and don't ask for anything other than wisdom you can learn a great deal.

Observe. A good friend of mine says people have two eyes, two ears, and only one mouth for a reason. There’s certainly a lot to be gained from watching and listening.

Data and patterns matter a great deal. There’s much to be learned from analyzing the world.

History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In other words, just because something happened once doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen again in the same way.

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.