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Any moment where you’re not having a great time, when you’re not really happy, you’re not doing anyone any favors. It’s not like your unhappiness makes them better off somehow. All you’re doing is wasting this incredibly small and precious time you have on this Earth.
No, you don’t need to do anything. All you should do is what you want to do.
Certainly, listen and absorb, but don’t try to emulate. It’s a fool’s errand.
To make an original contribution, you have to be irrationally obsessed with something.
“I don’t have time” is just another way of saying “It’s not a priority.” What you really have to do is say whether it is a priority or not. If something is your number one priority, then you will do it. That’s just the way life works. If you’ve got a fuzzy basket of ten or fifteen different priorities, you’re going to end up getting none of them.
You don’t make any decisions. You don’t judge anything. You just accept everything. If I do that for ten or fifteen minutes while walking around, I end up in a very peaceful, grateful state. Choiceless Awareness works well for me. [6]
If you stop talking to yourself for even ten minutes, if you stop obsessing over your own story, you’ll realize we are really far up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and life is pretty good. [6]
Over time, you will resolve a lot of these deep-seated unresolved things you have in your mind. Once they’re resolved, there will come a day when you sit down to meditate, and you’ll hit a mental “inbox zero.” When you open your mental “email” and there are none, that is a pretty amazing feeling. It’s a state of joy and bliss and peace. Once you have it, you don’t want to give it up. If you can get a free hour of bliss every morning just by sitting and closing your eyes, that is worth its weight in gold. It will change your life.
recommend meditating one hour each morning because anything less is not enough time to really get deep into it.
The greatest superpower is the ability to change yourself.
One of the things Krishnamurti talks about is being in an internal state of revolution. You should always be internally ready for a complete change.
Commit externally to enough people. For example, if you want to quit smoking, all you have to do is go to everybody you know and say, “I quit smoking. I did it. I give you my word.”
Impatience with actions, patience with results.
“Set up systems, not goals.”
I’m not going to be the most successful person on the planet, nor do I want to be. I just want to be the most successful version of myself while working the least hard possible.
If you hurt other people because they have expectations of you, that’s their problem.
But, if they have an expectation of you, that’s completely their problem. It has nothing to do with you.
Value your time. It is all you have. It’s more important than your money. It’s more important than your friends. It is more important than anything. Your time is all you have. Do not waste your time.
Don’t spend your time making other people happy. Other people being happy is their problem.
but you are not responsible for making other people happy. [10]
Observe when you’re angry—anger is a loss of control over the situation. Anger is a contract you make with yourself to be in physical and mental and emotional turmoil until reality changes. [1]
People who live far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyles can’t fathom. [11]
Once you’ve truly controlled your own fate, for better or for worse, you’ll never let anyone else tell you what to do. [11]
You have to create your own meaning, which is what it boils down to.
Before you can lie to another, you must first lie to yourself. Another example of a foundational value: I don’t
All benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities, or habits. I only want to be around people I know I’m going to be around for the rest of my life. I only want to work on things I know have long-term payout.
Another one is I only believe in peer relationships. I don’t believe in hierarchical relationships. I don’t want to be above anybody, and I don’t want to be below anybody. If I can’t treat someone like a peer and if they can’t treat me like peer, I just don’t want to interact with them.
like the Buddhist saying, “Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody.” I don’t want to be angry,
I don’t want to be around angry people. I just cut them out of my life. I’m not judging them.
Much of finding great relationships, great coworkers, great lovers, wives, husbands, is finding other people where your values line up. If your values line up, the little things don’t matter. Generally, I find if people are fighting or quarreling about something, it’s because their values don’t line up. If their values lined up, the little things wouldn’t matter. [4]
How do you define wisdom? Understanding the long-term consequences of your actions. [11] If wisdom could be imparted through words alone, we’d all be done here.
