261–270 of 393 posts
It is a succinct summary of what, with the benefit of hindsight, many people thought was important in their lives and what they should have done better.
Absent is "I should have worked harder" and "I should have spent more time at the office".
7 years ago I had just aborted an internship, my foray into being an employed adult, because I found myself unable to deal with disagreements. Contrary to my naive hope that the confidence boost from being a Professional Software Developer(tm) would solve all my emotional problems I now knew that my limitations would follow me around anywhere I would go. But I had no idea how to change and was too stuck in my own anx…
So many enlightened people have quoted this as the one thing that matters most than anything else.
I read this article "This column will change your life"[1] about an Indian philosopher named Jiddu Krishnamurti many many years ago but this passage really stuck with me:
Krishnamurti went on to give countless talks at which he frequently implied that his audience shouldn't be wasting their time listening to spiritual talks. But perhaps the most striking was a 1977 lecture in California.
"Part-way through this particular talk," writes Jim Dreaver, who was present, "Krishnamurti suddenly paused, leaned forward and said, almost conspiratorially, 'Do you want to know what my secret is?' " (There are several accounts of this event; details vary.) Krishnamurti rarely spoke in such personal terms, and the audience was electrified, Dreaver recalls. "Almost as though we were one body we sat up… I could see people all around me lean forward, their ears straining and their mouths slowly opening in hushed anticipation."
Then Krishnamurti, "in a soft, almost shy voice", said: "You see, I don't mind what happens."
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/aug/10/stop-mi...
I did fail out of school twice (as in 2.23 GPA) and never finished my phys-eng degree and at that time I was so stressed out like school was everything/I had debt piling up from loans, didn't know what I was going to do. Then this field pays you so much if you know what you're doing. Also lead me to the idea of entrepreneurship/trying to make some business like the stuff you'd see on Indie Hackers, this has not happened yet, I'm still an hourly Joe currently.
Actually I remember one site in particular: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ where a guy made a million dollars by selling a million pixels of adspace.
Similarly Peter Levels making $70K/month on his stuff... just things like this gave me the realization of an alternative life than what I thought to be "the way to success" at the time.
I had some really stupid ideas though, like BeforeYouDoIdo or dn2d8 which was a dating site. Anyway also learned about external validation vs. self delusion regarding what some idea is actually worth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It dawned on me that my attempt at completely controlling my life had, in fact, caused me to lose control over it. Could you possibly unpack this for me a little bit? It strikes me as absolutely true for me, too, or at least sounds like it could be true, but I'm pulling at a thread I can't quite grasp.
One more logic-focused on it is that control is a false concept in general. You can only choose what to control what you think about at best but outside factors are out of your control so you become a slave to those changing factors. So, effectively, attempting to control external factors makes the external factors control your thinking. Imagine leading an animal into a cage with food. To that animal, they are contro…
Controlling your thoughts is another matter. Just try to stop thinking for an entire minute. Don't have any thoughts. Alternately, only think about 1 thing. You very probably cannot do it. We don't choose what to think, but we can choose how we react (or not) to our thoughts. You CAN choose to accept the thoughts as they come and not identify with them, deciding "oh, that's a thought, how interesting". This is in opposition to what we normally do, which is to act on every little thought that floats along or decide to 'grab' onto the thoughts and stay with them while going down whatever rabbit hole they lead us into.
Your point does stand, control is a false concept in general.
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I would argue that reading Moby Dick is of value to your quality of life in general. Good fiction speaks to the human condition and can help us live our lives more fully.
I will respectfully disagree that it leads to a more 'full life' for everyone. People have different perspectives, values, etc. and that type of experience is purely subjective. I personally think it's of some value, but not as much as some other content.
You make my point for me.
Aaron Schwartz reviews growth mindset. It really changed how I approach things and I’ve attempted so many things I would have previously not tried because of reading that.
I know it’s silly to recommend a blog post about a book but it’s so well summarized that it’s better than the book IMO. The book seems to dilute the power of the message with a whole bunch of words and details.
The concept of norms, laws, and social customs being set my the most stubborn and intolerant among us: "The Minority Rule", by Nassim Taleb.
https://jimleff.blogspot.com/2019/04/did-you-miss-part-about...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It dawned on me that my attempt at completely controlling my life had, in fact, caused me to lose control over it. Could you possibly unpack this for me a little bit? It strikes me as absolutely true for me, too, or at least sounds like it could be true, but I'm pulling at a thread I can't quite grasp.
Warning: Buddhism redox and incomplete ahead. The purpose of what I write is to whet your appetite and maybe spark an interest for a personal journey. I strongly advise and even recommend a proper introduction. I suggest D T Suzuki and Alan Watts for their introduction to Zen. Amazing vulgarisers of these concepts. Watts' lectures are available on YouTube. In the Buddhist philosophy the notion that you can control an…
This still haunts me https://www.nashvail.me/blog/stop-learning . You got to build stuff too, not just learn. Still, you also have to figure out if you're a builder or a "learner". I like to figure stuff out, once I know the solution, my interest is minimal.
> You can be in the back seat and travel to a place a hundred times. But until you take the driver's seat you'll never know the way. I know this phenomenon well. In fact, when we moved into our new house which was an easy drive from where we used to live, I drove here half a dozen times using the GPS and still had no idea where I was going until I forced myself to do the trip without turning the GPS on.
Anymore I try to avoid using GPS anywhere in my city, and it's both taught me a lot and also 'explore' a lot. My wife always asks if I'm afraid of getting lost, but I always tell her 'ah, all roads connect somewhere', which makes me feel better at least. I can only think of a couple times I truly felt turned around enough to pull out GPS.