You must choose your own forms of hardship, or they will be chosen for you by fortune. Suffering through workouts or being surprised by injury and frailty. Budgeting your money or being blindsided by unexpected events. Controlling the food you eat or being weakened and sickened by the lack of discipline. You get to choose all of these. You get to choose what form of exercise to do, or what to spend your budgeted money on. The only choice you do not have is "No Hardship."
So, if most people who show up for an individual competition are losers and show up anyway, what's the point? At least the guys who win are satisfied, right? In my experience? No. For the people who are interested in growing and developing their skills, winning at a certain level just means one thing: it's time to go to the next level. Everyone climbing the mountain is looking up at the guy at the top of the mountain, but he's not looking down the mountain at the people behind him. He's loo … (Continued)
You have been given the gift of discovering just how little it takes for you to be happy. We all go through life with certain default constraints we stay within. Now, free of these, you are discovering what the ancients knew. To live happily is only to live in accordance with one's self. Not by complying with foreign dictates. Without anyone telling you where to go and where to be, you are left alone with yourself, to understand what drives you. Think of every thing thing that causes you pain … (Continued)
This moment right now is not so bad. If you're sitting somewhere, reading this, wherever you are, whenever you are, it's not so bad around you. Sure, somewhere in the world there are people facing very tough challenges. But they are less worried about their predicament than you are right now. When you are in the midst of the battle, you don't have time to worry. You just do what you have with the resources on hand. Right now, on the other hand, you are probably idle. You have time to sit, a … (Continued)
The smaller area you try to improve, the more effect and influence you can have. You are a tiny sliver of your country, but you are a tenth of your team at work, a quarter of your family, and one half of your marriage. You are also, of course, 100% of your own self.
All future expectations are uncertain. When one does not come to pass, do not feel robbed. It never really existed except in your imagination. … (Continued)
One of the advantages of being early in your career is that you're on the outside of things. People talk to you and tell you the truth because you don't have any power. When you have power, people would tell you what they think you want to hear. Sometimes you'll get someone who will tell you just the right things to try to manipulate you into exercising your power to further their goals. Neither is particularly helpful. But early on, you don't have to worry about that. One of the perverse rea … (Continued)
There are three basic steps to any engineering task. First, you have to understand the constraints that the product will operate under, and also to understand as much as you can--to the limit of your research budget--about the environment that the project will operate in. Second, you have to understand the capabilities of the existing materials and solutions to the problems you'll face in this project. Sometimes this means researching and finding obscure solutions or materials that fit the p … (Continued)
Pushing someone to do better requires wagering some or all of your relationship capital with them. If you're wrong, you could lose your whole stake. If you're right, you could double your bet. But this requires that you built up the relationship capital before deciding to use it.
Satisfaction and happiness comes from moving in the right direction, not being in the right place. No matter where you are, if you try to linger there, you will eventually stop being happy. You have to keep moving in the right direction to keep being happy and satisfied. Likewise, no matter how far you feel you are from a good place, you will feel better as soon as you start heading the right way, even if it feels very far away. Learning to notice that feeling of moving in the right direction … (Continued)
You think you can make good decisions for yourself because you know yourself better than anyone else knows you. But you also have the greatest conflict of interest. It is easy to convince yourself that what is easier is also better. But in the long run it rarely is. Thus, surround yourself with trustworthy people who want what's best for you, not what is easy. And listen when they speak.
We admire things that we can't do but think we could one day. If we can already do it, it's not that impressive. If we don't think we can ever do it, it's just depressing.
