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June 27 - June 28, 2024
A contrarian reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure to conform.
If all your beliefs line up into neat little bundles, you should be highly suspicious.
There are two attractive lessons about suffering in the long term. It can make you accept the world the way it is. The other lesson is it can make your ego change in an extremely hard way.
I don’t believe I have the ability to say what is going to work. Rather, I try to eliminate what’s not going to work.
I’ll start at the beginning, but I’ll move fast. If it’s not interesting, I’ll just start flipping ahead, skimming, or speed reading. If it doesn’t grab my attention within the first chapter in a meaningful, positive way, I’ll either drop the book or skip ahead a few chapters.
If you start with the originals as your foundations, then you have enough of a worldview and understanding that you won’t fear any book.
If you’re a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money.
One can be very happy as long as one isn’t too caught up in their own head. [4]
Happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop.
At any given time, when you’re walking down the streets, a very small percentage of your brain is focused on the present. The rest is planning the future or regretting the past. This keeps you from having an incredible experience.
We crave experiences that will make us be present, but the cravings themselves take us from the present moment.
Eliminating vices makes it easier to be present.
What if this life is the paradise we were promised, and we’re just squandering it?
Every Desire Is a Chosen Unhappiness
The fundamental delusion: There is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever.
it’s way more important to perfect your desires than to try to do something you don’t 100 percent desire. [1]
younger people are less happy but more healthy. Older people are more happy but less healthy.
you have to go through your life replacing your thoughtless bad habits with good ones, making a commitment to be a happier person.
the “five chimps theory” where you can predict a chimp’s behavior by the five chimps it hangs out with the most. I think that applies to humans as well.
The people who are the most happy and optimistic choose the right five chimps. [8]
Don’t hang around people who constantly engage in conflict.
The most important trick to being happy is to realize happiness is a skill you develop and a choice you make.
Pick one thing. Cultivate a desire. Visualize it. Plan a sustainable path. Identify needs, triggers, and substitutes. Tell your friends. Track meticulously. Self-discipline is a bridge to a new self-image. Bake in the new self-image. It’s who you are—now. [11]
