The past decade has felt like a lifetime; and although it may have looked like smooth sailing from the outside, I made so many mistakes that caused me a lot of pain and wasted hundreds of hours. But making mistakes isn't a bad thing like they teach you in school. It's an opportunity to learn something.
I walked around looking for a sign, looking for a guidance, looking for an answer. It was all around me to see, but I remained blind, never saw anything. I looked past them all, and I made my choice.
NOTE TO SELF:
- Question all advice you are given: Most advice is bad advice.
- Treat sleep as sacred: Sleep recharges everything that makes you magical.
- Appreciate the beauty and mystery of life: When you start to appreciate all that life has to offer, you are able to see reality more clearly and find more meaning.
- Cultivate deeply meaningful relationships: Connecting with people is the most rewarding thing you will do.
- Find and foster community: A loving support system is essential to your development and success.
- Fall in love with (the process of) learning: Learning is both intrinsically rewarding but also the key to your life satisfaction.
- Don't be afraid to ask "dumb" questions: Asking dumb questions helps you get smart.
- Figure out how you learn best: You won't enjoy learning if you don't learn in the way that best suits the way your brain works.
- Live by design, not by default: Life will be full of suffering if you don't live it on your own terms.
- Take time to make sense of the world: Your ability to make good choices depends on your ability to understand the environments in which you are making the choices.
- Learn how to think for yourself: Independent thinking is the key to liberating yourself.
- Invest in understanding and developing yourself: To understand the world and make it better, you must understand yourself and develop yourself into someone capable of making it better.
- Discover and use your superpowers: Everyone has different gifts they can unleash for their own and others’ benefit.
- Learn how to communicate: Communication is key to creating shared understanding, which is needed to do anything collaboratively.
- Learn how to listen: You will not be able to understand and appreciate other people if you don't listen lovingly.
- Learn how to set goals: If you are not setting your goals, your goals will be set by people who don't have your interests at heart.
- Learn how to say "no": Taking on opportunities, career pathways, and societal/family expectations that aren’t connected to who you strive to be does a disservice to your future.
- Learn how to stay organized: Cluttered physical and digital spaces create a cluttered mind.
- Learn how to sit alone with your thoughts: Alone time forces you to confront uncomfortable truths about your life.
- Learn about human nature: Studying this will help you understand how to support the well-being of yourself and others.
- Take risks: Take calculated risks that have the potential to greatly support your success and flourishing.
- Learn what words mean: Words help you make sense of the world.
- Be careful when making judgments: It's normal for your mind to jump to false conclusions.
- Express your gratitude often: It makes people's days to know they are appreciated.
- Don't depend on external validation: Caring too much about what other people think sets you up for a life of people pleasing and mediocrity.
- Don't put yourself or others in a box: People are more than even how they choose to identify.
- Enjoy changing your mind: It signals that you have courage and humility to learn and move on from a previous position.
- Take the time to get to know your teachers: Creating genuine connections with your teachers, professors, mentors, and other inspirations will take your learning to the next level.
- Be candid: The truth will set you (and others) free.
- Treat money as a tool, not a God: Those who pursue it as an ends itself can lose sight of its power to advance common good.
- Track and reflect on what you think and do: You know yourself less well than you think you do; daily, weekly, and monthly reflections will supercharge your self-understanding.
- Do things that suck: Choosing to do hard things (like taking cold showers) prepares you to handle the hardships life will throw your way.
- Start your day with some exercise: Pushing your body prepares you for the mental challenges of the day.
- Eat what sustainably energizes you: The quality of your conscious experience has everything to do with what you put in your body.
- Assume you know nothing: The truth is more elusive than you may realize, but you have your whole life to explore the beautiful mysteries of the universe.
- Protect your time and attention: Actions taken to protect these two sacred assets preserve your freedom.
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