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.

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

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

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

The biggest mistake men make when they think about getting married is they assume women won’t change; the biggest mistake women make is they assume they can change men.

In that light, if you have children, try to be sure their peer groups are healthy ones. Their peers likely will have more influence on the development of your kids' personalities than you will.

So if you want to feel good, be as productive as possible, live longer, reduce stress, be more creative, and be happier then you need to exercise regularly.

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.

If, however, you’re the sort of person who chooses to be unhappy, or filled with anxiety, chances are you’ll probably succeed with that as well.

It also helps to imagine your success. The mind is an amazing thing.

That being said, we in the developed world live dramatically better than even kings did hundreds of years ago.