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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

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…

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 to…

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…

Chop wood, carry water

I recently read Carl Richards’s personal finance book The Behavior Gap, in which I came across this quote that struck a chord with me: When the Zen master Wu Li was asked what to do to achieve enlightenment, he responded, “Chop wood, carry water.”When he was asked what to do when you have achieved enlightenment,…

Price of things

Money is often a negative art. What you don’t do can be more important than what you actively do.Everything has a price, and prices aren’t always clear. The price of exercise isn’t just the workout; it’s avoiding the post-workout urge to eat a ton of food. Same in finance. The price of building wealth isn’t just the…

Ego vs outcome

When you decouple your ego from a bad outcome, it creates an opportunity for you to learn from it.When you decouple your ego from a good outcome, it saves you from future disasters.Vishal Khandelwal in How to Stop Sabotaging Your Investing In that post Vishal mentions What I learned by losing a million dollars book,…

Right skin thickness

All I can say is that writers of all ages should stay away from the extremes of hypersensitivity-to-feedback and obliviousness-to-feedback. Seek out wise criticism. Reserve time in your week for the regret that comes with getting things wrong. I promise the feeling will go away, and something else will appear in its place, which is…

Big Skills = Small Skills. Compounded.

It’s tempting to want to find the one big skill that will set you apart. But most incredible things come from compounding, and compounding isn’t intuitive because the incremental inputs are never exciting on their own. Big Skills by my favorite blogger and author, Morgan Housel

API: Assume Positive Intentions

When working with people, assume good intentions. When listening to people, interpret their words in a generous way. You will occasionally get burned and mistreated by always assuming the best in others, but it is a far better way to live than the opposite. January 27, 2022 issue of James Clear’s 321 newsletter