More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 1 - April 4, 2022
How could I best reassess my life, my priorities, my view of the world, my place in the world, and my trajectory through the world?
John Dewey’s dictum that “a problem well put is half-solved”
You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them. . . .
quote by Anaïs Nin, which I see every day: “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
My obsession with sleep has improved my life immeasurably.
Nothing else resets me like the ocean.
Time is a weird thing. Sometimes you can appreciate a moment that’s gone more in the present than you did when it was actually happening.
Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something—the book you’re writing, the album, the movie—and staying there for a long, long time.
Every great and extraordinary accomplishment in this world was done through courage.
Suffering is a moment of clarity, when you can no longer deny the truth of a situation and are forced into uncomfortable change.
“Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
Happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop.
We discourage failure and by doing so we subtly discourage success.
I like to think about careers through Dan Siegel’s model of a river flowing between two banks, where one side is chaos and the other side is rigidity. Dan points out that all mental illnesses reside on one bank or the other: schizophrenia is chaos, OCD is rigidity, and healthy integration is swimming in the middle of the river.
“Integrity is the only path where you will never get lost.”
Ego is about who’s right. Truth is about what’s right.
“I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” –Herbert Bayard Swope American editor and journalist, first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize
“You can be a juicy ripe peach and there’ll still be someone who doesn’t like peaches.”
Personally, I find that most things that are universally accepted are mediocre and boring.
I believe that sometimes, our shortcomings can lead to greatness, because those of us who have intense desire but lack natural God-given talent sometimes find roundabout ways of realizing dreams.
In the big picture of our lives, we really don’t know whether a particular success or failure is actually helping or hurting us.
“To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children . . . to leave the world a bit better . . . to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
In Japanese, there is a term, “forest bathing,” where you take a walk under the trees and the coolness, the smell, and the silence wash over you.
Don’t be afraid of being wrong. Because being wrong is just an opportunity to find more of the truth.
In moments when you don’t believe in yourself, you need other people who believe in you.
The principle: the power of empty space—or responding to aggression with a void.
“Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.”—George S. Patton
“Knowledge is the beginning of practice; doing is the completion of knowing.”—Wang Yangming
“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.” –Niccolò Machiavelli
failure is not the opposite of success but a steppingstone to success.
Fear is really false evidence appearing real.
DIN and DIP (“do it now” and “do it proper”).
You just have to dare to do it. If you dare, then you have already gotten further ahead than 99 percent of all the others.
“Always ask: What am I missing? And listen to the answer.”
While it can feel embarrassing and uncomfortable to apologize, it’s a sign of maturity and good character.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
Success should not be measured by financial gain; true success is doing something you love for a living.
“The actual consequences of your actions matter far more than your actions themselves.”
“Anger is often what pain looks like when it shows itself in public.”
“Either you’re in, or you’re in the way.”
I don’t think you realize [how much your parents have given you] until you get older and can reflect on it.
“No society in human history ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”
“I wake up each day with the firm conviction that I am nowhere near my full potential.
I should try to live my life backwards, starting with the wisdom of the elderly and applying it to the energy of youth.
idea has kept my eyes focused on the process over the result
A real good failure gives a person tremendous freedom. You can’t fall further down, so there’s nowhere to go but up.
Learn Transcendental Meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and meditate regularly. Ignore pessimistic thinking and pessimistic thinkers.
If you put ten people in a room and they have to choose an ice cream flavor, they’re gonna arrive at vanilla.
“Kuei-shan asked Yun-yen, ‘What is the seat of enlightenment?’ Yun-yen said, ‘Freedom from artificiality.’”
It’s often the case that people want to help you or work with you. But they can’t if you insist on holding on to tight control. The more you let go, the more people will surprise you.
