Opt for privacy and solitude

Go out for a walk. It doesn't have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn't have to be a walk during which you'll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don't find meaning but "steal" some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn't make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.

Recalculating the cost of convenience

Convenience is seductive, and we trade precious things away for it all the time. Part of the reason it dominates our lives is that we only consider the cost once. After that, it continues to remind us of the benefits–the time and hassle and decisions we save. But convenience can cost us. Our humanity, our health, our well-being, our connection to others, and to what we truly care about. Even if it’s a habit, it might be worth reminding ourselves of what we’ve given up in exchange.

Act now!

Start where you are. Start with what you’ve got. Start now. Now is the perfect moment. It only feels ‘fast’ if we’re rushing. Don’t rush. But act with deliberate progress.

Most arguments are ego competitions

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. Most arguments are ego competitions disguised as truth-seeking. Learning to say "you're probably right" will save you a lot of time and energy.

We avoid doing simple things

We avoid doing simple things that work because they don't make us look smart. Smart people feel stupid doing simple things, so we invent complicated alternatives that accomplish less but feel more intellectually satisfying. Meanwhile, the people who dominate their fields are doing embarrassingly basic things, but they do them better than everyone else.

Make your mood, or it makes you

Make your mood, or it makes you. Most complexity is unnecessary, but we manage it instead of removing it because deletion requires courage that addition doesn't.

You are capable of helping yourself

You are capable of helping yourself. Capable of figuring it out. Capable of squeezing everything you want out of this life. And to believe otherwise is to do yourself a great disservice. To hand over your agency. To give in. To wait for rescue. To curse your luck. To assume someone else will fix it. Don’t look out. Look in. You have within you everything you need. You are at the wheel. Never let it go.