Some Lessons I Learned in 2013
- Life isn’t a story.
- A lot of things don’t need to be intellectualized: “because I want to” is often a good enough reason.
- Empathy is first an act of imagination.
- Don’t take business advice from people with bad personal lives.
- There are two ways to look at your life: what happened to you or what you did.
- Resources don’t replace will.
- Lazy trumps smart.
- Everybody wants to give advice and no one wants to take it.
- We only deserve what we can take care of.
- Clearly labeling other people’s petty grievances as bullshit is a fast track to well-being and fewer complaints of your own.
- Money is circulated. Time is spent.
- You can punch back.
- Social media gets less annoying if you’re willing to say to people, “Who the hell do you think you are?”
- Pain is unavoidable. Suffering is optional.
- Who you are has more to do with how you act and what you love than what you have or say.
- It’s more complicated than that.
- Everything good I have came from honesty, good intentions, and low expectations.
- Stick with the attentive ones.
- Find a way to forgive your mistakes.
- You’ll never know enough. Oh well.