Selection of ideas I liked from reading books and blogs.
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Dangers of Narrow Lessons
[After the dot-com crash], the lesson people learned from that was not, “I should never speculate on overvalued financial assets.” The lesson they learned was, “I should never speculate on internet stocks.” And so the same people who lost 90% or more of their money day-trading internet stocks ended up flipping homes in the mid… Read more
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Paradox of Maintenance
Loved this short essay on the importance and paradox of maintenance: Maintenance: Of Everything by Stewart Brand The apparent paradox is profound: Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. It it easy to put off, and yet it has to be done. Defer now, regret later. What to do? Soften the paradox and the… Read more
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Our delusions are relative
This is a great episode on The Morgan Housel Podcast. Your willingness to believe something is influenced by how much you want and need it to be true. If you tell me you’ve found an easy way to double my money in a week, I’m not going to believe you; I am just going to… Read more
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Road Not Taken
You should never look down the road not taken. Because that road never leads to where you think it should. Never Look Down the Road Not Taken by Nick Maggiulli Read more
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Most important takeaway from surprises
Whenever we are surprised by something, even if we admit that we made a mistake, we say, ‘Oh I’ll never make that mistake again.’ But, in fact, what you should learn when you make a mistake because you did not anticipate something is that the world is difficult to anticipate. That’s the correct lesson to… Read more
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Happiness and Expectations
What actually brings happiness is the contrast between what you have now and whatever you were just doing. When you realize how powerful expectations are, you put as much effort into keeping them low as you do into improving your circumstances. Happiness, contentment, joy … all of those things come from experiencing a gap between… Read more
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Useful and overlooked skill I practice
If you can’t use your legs and they bring you milk when you wanted orange juice, you learn to say ‘that’s all right,’ and drink it. Franklin Delano Roosevelt via Morgan Housel Read more
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Good things take time
As I become impatient with a couple of long-term goals that don’t seem to be progressing fast enough, I seek solace from a couple of encouraging perspectives on time: Nearly everything awesome takes longer than you think. Get started and don’t worry about the clock. James Clear Demotivated because of how long it’ll take? Remember… Read more
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Possessions and Lifestyle
Our possessions should be suited to our bodies and lives, just as our shoes are suited to our feet. Epictetus I recently read The Manual: A Philosopher’s Guide to Life and have been pondering over the above quote from that book. That’s the philosophy I apply when I buy things, from the clothes I wear… Read more
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Five Years
Five years is a long time. It is much slower than most of us would like. If you accept the reality of slow progress, you have every reason to take action today. If you resist the reality of slow progress, five years from now you’ll simply be five years older and still looking for a… Read more