Life Is Short And So Is This Book

by Peter Atkins

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while you could miss it. - From the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

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.

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. Most of us do the opposite -- with predictable results.

that people who tend to be the most creative have three things in common: They’re incredibly well prepared in their fields -- they become masters of their domains by practicing for many years, day after day. They spend time deeply focused on solving a key problem or key set of problems, no matter the obstacles. They allow themselves to step away from the problem(s) on which they’re focused, so that insights can come to them in activities such as walking, or looking out on a beautiful scene.

Musicians I admire

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

take pleasure in the moment, even when bad things happen.

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

You don’t have to change everything overnight. In fact, thinking you can, or should, is likely to lead to failure, or to feeling overwhelmed -- and as a result perhaps doing nothing.

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

And it’s impossible to change other adults’ personalities, no matter what you may wish.

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.

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it. - Plato

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.

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

There are but three events in a man’s life: birth, life and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live. - Jean de la Bruyere