Selection of ideas I liked from reading books and blogs.
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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 -
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 learn from surprises: that the world is surprising.
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Via Morgan Housel. -
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 expectations and reality.
What Makes You Happy -
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 ClearDemotivated because of how long it’ll take? Remember the time will pass anyways.
Traf -
Possessions and Lifestyle
Our possessions should be suited to our bodies and lives, just as our shoes are suited to our feet.
EpictetusI 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 my phone and even the car I drive.
I vividly remember in 2008 iPhone 3G was hot, and I really yearned for it. I could have stretched my savings, but I wasn’t feeling great about my life overall. So I withheld the iPhone purchase until I can comfortably afford iPhone 4 in 2010, and importantly, when I felt some hope for my overall life situation.
I think we can extrapolate this rule to any material possessions: Anything I buy should first be within my means. And then it should fit my overall lifestyle. I don’t stretch my money and myself to buy things that aren’t congruent with my lifestyle. No point in owning flashy things when you are empty and miserable inside.
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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 shortcut.
James Clear’s May 26th edition of 3 – 2‑1 newsletter on Happiness, the opinions of others, and accepting the reality of slow progress -
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.“
Page 66, The Behavior Gap
When he was asked what to do when you have achieved enlightenment, he
responded, “Chop wood, carry water.“
Maybe happiness comes easiest when we are so busy working, taking care of
kids, shoveling snow, or cleaning the house that we forget to look for it.That’s precisely how I derive my happiness: from boring and mundane tasks. So it felt reassuring to see that definition of happiness mentioned in a popular book!
The book also has a fantastic set of sketches, which you can check on the Sketch Store on the author’s website.
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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 trouble of earning money or dealing; it’s avoiding the post-income urge to spend what you’ve accumulated.
Morgan Housel in After the Fact -
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 InvestingIn that post Vishal mentions What I learned by losing a million dollars book, which is one of my favorite books to learn how humans behave.