This speech is the perfect blend of humor and sound advice:
"I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average."
Life and How to Survive It (2008)
11–20 of 30 posts
Re: Life and How to Survive It (2008)
#12"Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway." Always loved a similar quote by Thoreau: "This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to ma…
How about using 7 years for a life of not needing to work? Seems fair to me...
If you would succeed that is. The question is what happens if you dont? Try another seven years of doing sth only for the monies?
Re: Life and How to Survive It (2008)
#13"Be Hated." I always thought being liked by everyone should be my goal. After reading this, I realized that being hated is is even better.
My interpretation of him saying be hated is to speak and do the things you believe in even if they dont quite resemble with the audience you are in. So I think it's not in searching of people to hate you but in having the guts to speak your mind and do the things you believe in no matter what others think of it. And hatred of other people because of you doing it and them not having guts to do it sometimes comes along with it.
Re: Life and How to Survive It (2008)
#14"Be Hated." I always thought being liked by everyone should be my goal. After reading this, I realized that being hated is is even better.
My interpretation of him saying be hated is to speak and do the things you believe in even if they dont quite resemble with the audience you are in. So I think it's not in searching of people to hate you but in having the guts to speak your mind and do the things you believe in no matter what others think of it. And hatred of other people because of you doing it and them not having guts to do it sometimes comes along…
Very true.
Re: Life and How to Survive It (2008)
#15Fantastic read. One sample: " It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable." (The Anna Karenina principle, in other words.)
Just for completeness, in case someone doesn't know about it, the Anna Karenina principle (first time I've heard it called this) refers to the first line of the Tolstoy book of that same name:
http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,489...
'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'
Re: Life and How to Survive It (2008)
#16"Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway." Always loved a similar quote by Thoreau: "This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to ma…
How about using 7 years for a life of not needing to work? Seems fair to me...
Except that you may die tomorrow.
Re: Life and How to Survive It (2008)
#17The ability to be able to say this, and mock so many of his surrounding people and disciplines, probably highlights best the fact that he practices what he preaches.
A refreshing read indeed.
Re: Life and How to Survive It (2008)
#18"And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument."
I am absolutely in love with this speech. The message is so clear and succinct, while he also manages to inject relevant, yet not terribly offensive humor into it and still stay on topic.
I also love that he can cover so many different points without making any one point take priority over others. Meanwhile the quantity of topics covered also doesn't dilute the strength of each. I find that really remarkable.
He sums it up so nicely right in the middle:
"I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated."