Life Is Short And So Is This Book

by Peter Atkins

“If I’d had more time I would have written a shorter letter”.

He once told me he found it funny that the busiest people on his team were always the people to whom he could give more work, while the ones who accomplished less had little time for anything (often including their existing responsibilities).

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

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

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

try to avoid too much debt, drinking too much, staying away from people who are bad influences, eating poorly, and not exercising.

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.

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

think about the values and habits you want to have,

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

If I do my job well, my friends and clients will be able to send their kids to college, to retire without financial worries, and to do things that are important to them.

For example, taking the interests of children seriously, encouraging and supporting them, as well as setting high standards, can make a big difference in their lives.

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,

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

Part of knowing yourself means acknowledging what you genuinely want.

that I finally found a career which drew on all of my natural curiosity,

It’s said that to become an expert in a given activity requires about 10,000 hours of practice.

Before I left Microsoft, I took out a piece of paper, and listed those moments in my life I loved most.

Graham Bell said: “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.

Find mentors. If you can identify people who have more experience than you and who excel at what they do, it's incredible to have the opportunity to learn from them.

life is not like a math problem with one perfect solution. A lot of decisions are inherently probabilistic and the best you can do much of the time is make a decision that’s likely to turn out in your favor.

And you can’t become great at anything without a lot of repeated practice.

I think long distance running is an excellent way to think about big, challenging goals.

It also helps to imagine your success. The mind is an amazing thing. If you focus your brain on success and you practice seriously, you’ll slowly build the deep confidence you need to persevere in life.

Progress depends on action. If your goal is to help other people, but you never do anything about it, you’ll be unsatisfied.