🧠 Nugget of the Post
This video is one of the most realistic and informative talks I have seen in a long time. We are so fed up with clichés like follow your dream and listen to your heart... The video does something special and real, especially in the first three lesson.
1. You don't have to have a dream. If you have something you always want to do, fine go for it. What instead? “Passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals.” I loved that. Be micro-ambitious. Screw macro goals.
2. Don't seek happiness. Keep busy and aim to make someone else happy. We did no evolve to be constantly content.
3. Remember it's all luck. You are incalculably lucky to be born.
4. Exercise.
5. Be hard on your opinions
6. Be a teacher.
7. Define yourself by what you love.
8. Respect people of less power than you.
9. Don't rush.
📦 Link Bundle
1️⃣ This site made me sad. Let’s join me in my 9 am existential crisis.
Assuming I live to be eighty, I’ll have had about four thousand weeks. The rare few lucky enough to become a centenarian will see only five thousand.
“You have lived one thousand five hundred one of them so far.”
Pfff. That was the sexiest thing someone ever said to me.
Which of us truly lives on twenty-four hours a day? Which of us is not saying: “I shall alter that when I have a little more time?” We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.
-Arnold Bennett
2️⃣ If you could change one thing in your live to be happier, what does the data say you should choose?
"You should invest in your relationships with other people."
"You know, we've tracked these lives for eight decades. And the wonderful thing about following these life stories is we learn it's never too late," he added. "There were people who thought they were never going to have good relationships, and then found a whole collection of good close friends in their 60s or 70s. There were people who found romance for the first time in their 80s. And so the message that we get from studying these thousands of lives is that it is never too late."
3️⃣ Good overview of productive tactics. Especially look into:
Don't Break the Chain
Getting Things Done
MIT
4️⃣ Whenever you pick a job consider these two factors: Network and Optionality. Do not care much about compensation and the role. This article explains why.
5️⃣ Hydration might be an important factor for your war against aging and diseases.
The results found that adults on the higher end of normal level of serum sodium had a 10 to 15 percent greater chance of being biologically older than their chronological age, when compared with participants in the mid-normal range. Additionally, participants at greater risk of aging more quickly also had a 64 percent higher risk for developing chronic diseases such as stroke, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, chronic lung disease, peripheral artery disease, dementia, and diabetes.
How much water should I drink? Exactly I asked the same but then I learnt I must choke 3 liters per day. Come on science, you need to cut me some slack.
For men, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends a total of 13 cups (about 3 liters) of fluid each day.
For women, they suggest 9 cups (a little over 2 liters) of fluid each day. Pregnant women should drink about 10 cups of water daily. Those who breastfeed need about 12 cups.
6️⃣ We are told that if we persevere enough or if we are smart enough. We are going to get rich? Are you not rich? Then are you dumb?
Thanks to the efforts of Alessandro Pluchino and a few collaborators at the University of Catania, Italy, we now have a response. They developed a computerized simulation of human ability and how it's utilized to capitalize on opportunities in life. This model permits the researchers to examine the impact of luck on this phenomenon. I told you it is luck, it must be because I am not rich :) I have to be unlucky not stupid.
Their simulations accurately reproduce the wealth distribution in the real world. But the wealthiest individuals are not the most talented (although they must have a certain level of talent). They are the luckiest.
7️⃣ Arthur Brooks sums up good solutions from Seneca for our modern aches. For more of this you know where to ping me.
I will look upon death or upon a comedy with the same expression of countenance.
Two of the lifelong habits of older people who are both happy and well are continuous learning and healthy exercise. As an easy rule of thumb, read and walk each day.
I will do nothing because of public opinion, but everything because of conscience: Whenever I do anything alone by myself I will believe that the eyes of the Roman people are upon me while I do it.
8️⃣ If you have not read Sapiens yet here is a good alternative way for you. He talks a little bit slowly but 1.5x speed is perfect for length/knowledge ratio.
9️⃣ Pick partners with integrity, energy and intelligence. This can apply to business, friendship and marriage settings.
When I was younger, I used to try and talk people into things. I had this idea that you could sell someone into doing something. But you can’t. You can’t keep them motivated. You can get them inspired initially.
🦉 Charlie Brown Wisdom of the Post
📚 Book Summary of the Post
Here is what I highlighted from the book The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Italics are added by me.
“You want to avoid being disliked without being envied or admired.”
“Some pursuits are much duller from the inside. Even piracy, they say.” - What is the best way to notice this before diving into the pursuit? Think.
“Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.” - You are right and mean mister Marx.
“Someone who says “I am busy” is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.” - I am coming after you that friend who always cancels plans.
“People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels—people you don’t want to resemble when you grow up.” I kinda love asking people what their idols or role models are. Few have an answer to that question. This strategy of finding “anti-models” seemed reasonable to me. Who do you not want to be alike when you are grown ?
“The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia; the twenty-first will be that of the technological one.” - I was curious whether he refers to countries managed by communist practices or something else.
“People usually apologize so they can do it again.” -Sad but true I guess. Once you are forgiven for your mistake you easily know that you can be forgiven again.
“My only measure of success is how much time you have to kill.” This quote pops up lots of the times. I agree with it. You are not succcessful if you give your schedule away to earn money. You are not succcessful if your time is stolen by you.
“What I learned on my own I still remember.” There are lots of book on the topic of how to learn. Best way is by teaching. All these years I have mastered subject after I told it to someone else.
“Unless we manipulate our surroundings, we have as little control over what and whom we think about as we do over the muscles of our hearts.
“Knowledge is subtractive, not additive—what we subtract (reduction by what does not work, what not to do), not what we add (what to do).”
“Sadly, we learn the most from fools, economists, and other reverse role models, yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude.”
“Love without sacrifice is like theft.”
📦 Stoic Lesson of the Post
I am expanding and re-writing my book Stoic Guide and decided to give one lesson with the each post. This is just in case you did not get the book, or love the bite by bite lesson or you are someone still unsubscribed (dude what are you waiting for? ). And also my main aim is to increase the chance of spreading Stoic Wisdom. What did we say in the nugget of the post? Be a teacher.
“Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing. 2. The things that are within our power are by nature free, and immune to hindrance and obstruction, while those that are not within our power are weak, slavish, subject to hindrance, and not our own. 3. Remember, then, that if you regard that which is by nature slavish as being free, and that which is not your own as being your own, you’ll have cause to lament, you’ll have a troubled mind, and you’ll find fault with both gods and human beings; but if you regard only that which is your own as being your own, and that which isn’t your own as not being your own (as is indeed the case), no one will ever be able to coerce you, no one will hinder you, you’ll find fault with no one, you’ll accuse no one, you’ll do nothing whatever against your will, you’ll have no enemy, and no one will ever harm you because no harm can affect you” - Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1
Lesson one: Realize what is under your control and what is not. Stop agonizing about the things that are beyond your power. Take full control of the things that you can really affect.
The teachings of Epictetus and other Stoic philosophers have been a source of inspiration for millions of people. Epictetus, born in 55 AD in what is now present-day Turkey, was a former slave who went on to teach philosophy in Rome.
While much of his work has been lost over time, some of it has survived thanks to the efforts of his student Arrian, who wrote down his teacher's teachings and compiled them into several books (including one called Discourses and one called Enchiridion).
Epictetus' primary teaching was that we should concern ourselves only with what is within our control. "It's not events themselves that upset us," he wrote, "but how we think about the events." He urged us to take responsibility for the way we act—not for the things beyond our control, like other people or circumstances.
Let’s examine Epictetus’s categories: He says “thought, impulse, will to get and will to avoid and in a word, everything which is our own doing.” are the things that are in our control. Those that are not under our control are the body, property or possessions, reputation, positions of authority, and in a word, such things that are not our own doing.
Your happiness and tranquility is dependent on the power of differentiating what is under your control and what is not. You will never have to experience defeat, and unhappiness following it, if you avoid contests whose outcome is outside your control.
Whenever you feel like you are drowning with the effects of external circumstances remember the prayer:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other. - Serenity Prayer
🦋 Poem of the Post
Continuing from Mary Oliver, she is the best in explaining everyday feelings we all have.
Why am I always going anywhere instead of somewhere?
❓Question of the Post
Hit me a dm. This is my best conversation opener until I find the better one.