62 bits of Unsolicited Advice.

November 10, 2024 · 6 min read

Below are some of the most profound pieces of advice and lessons that have shaped me over the last ~ 5 years. Enjoy.

• Your work is craft, so if you hone your ability and apply it with respect and care, then like the skilled wheelwright you can generate meaning in the daily efforts of your professional life.
• It's the anticipation of negative feelings that make you not do the boring work, not the work itself.
• Don't just keep adding to your bucket list. Cross some things out also. You want to pare it down, or else it's just an exercise in futility.
• Surprise yourself.
• Mostly try to live an un-Instagrammable life.
• To listen better, write down what someone is saying and force yourself to not interrupt. Especially when you are passionate about something. You tend to talk over people.
• Learn to build and learn to sell. It'll make you unstoppable.
• New years is just as good a time as any to transform yourself. But so is any other day of the year.
• Too many parents ostensibly make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.
• Words have meaning.
• It takes effort to be funny. Keep trying.
• Journal daily. Never underestimate the power of introspection and mindfulness.
• People don't remember what you said but they certainly remember how you made them feel.
• Before opening your mouth always ask yourself 3 questions - "Is this true? Is this kind? Is this necessary?"
• Morning routines are so important. Starting off the day right will lead to a better day overall.
• 80% of life is showing up.
• That voice in your head. Make sure most of what comes out of it is positive. Even if that means you repeat "I love myself" over and over again like a mantra.
• Body, mind, soul. Work on all 3 equally.
• Read more than a book a week. Reading is perhaps the most important skill in life. Write down what you read. And yes, audiobooks counts as reading. At least in my book.
• The regret of not getting a tattoo will be worse than the regret of getting a tattoo you didn't like. Carpe diem.
• The best time to pick up a new habit was one year ago. The second best time is now.
• Don't judge your feelings, notice them. Use them as your map. Don't be afraid of the truth.
• Figure out what is the biggest bottleneck to your personal growth. Then figure out why you aren't working on fixing it.
• Learn to accept that most interactions you have will be bland and draining. Not every hangout with a friend will make you fulfilled. Just, try not to totally shut yourself out from meeting people because of this.
• The purpose of a habit is to remove it from self-negotiation. You no longer expand energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it.
• When someone asks you a question it’s probably because they want to share their opinion. Ask 'What do you think?'
• Don't be afraid to be outspoken and to put yourself out there. Let people judge.
• It's perfectly fine to play the role of the listener in conversations with (most) people. Be extremely selective on what you chose to share with whom.
• We live in a perennially distracted world. Practice deep work.
• Be kind to others, but in not the Ellen way.
• By Google-stalking X, I've been watching his/her future unfold while I stay frozen in the past. But if you continue living in the present, you'll have to accept the loss of your future. Accept the L and move on.
• Put effort into building an audience today. It will pay off in the long term.
• Try to create something and put it out there without fear. Be it a podcast, or starting a magic youtube channel. It's all an ingredient that makes you who you are.
• One day you'll be ready to be intimate with someone but it's okay that today is not that day. That day will come. Don't focus on finding a relationship, focus on becoming someone who is datable.
• Track what you doing, every hour of the day. Most of us aren't mindful of how we actually spend our given 24 hours until we break it down hour by hour and say it out loud.
• If you look at someone with rose-colored glasses, all the red flags, just look like flags.
• People are not likely to give you honest criticism, so conduct a periodical anonymous self-evaluation. You'll be surprised how much you didn't know about the way others perceive you. You'll also realise how each person has a different impression because you have shown a different side of yourself in different situations.
• Ask not what it means, but how it makes you feel.
• Figure out how to make meditating a habit. More than a habit, aim to make it a ritual.
• When something reminds you of someone, drop them a text. Say thanks.
• Be that someone you would want to hangout with.
• You'll never regret treating someone to a meal or just buy them a cup of coffee. It's also stupid simple to do. You can make so many new friends this way. Remember: The more you give, the more you get.
• Your alone time should not be something you are afraid of.
• We gain the most skills in life through consistency and practice. Find fun in the boring. Delay gratification.
• Ignore what others may be thinking of you, because they aren’t.
• Schedule when to be distracted. Stay as far away from the chronically distracted version of yourself as humanly possible.
• A work of art is good if it has fallen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.
• If Feynman can work stubbornly on a problem until it yielded, why can't you?
• Write everything down. Publish some of what you write.
• It gets easier. Everyday, it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it everyday. That's the hard part. But it does get easier.
• Become strong by doing hard things simply because they are hard.
• You have to like what you do enough that the concept of 'spare time' seems mistaken.
• When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don't get to decide that you didn't. Ironically this came from Loius C.K, but it holds up.
• If you have no nunchi, people will irrationally hate you without you (or them) knowing why. (Nunchi is the subtle art of gauging other people's thoughts and feelings to build harmony, trust and connection)
• Trust the process.
• You will never be sorry for having kept silent / never pass up a good opportunity to shut up.
• How you react to daily inconveniences like someone cutting you off in traffic is the best gauge of your internal state of mind. If it makes you lose your shit, you have deeper issues you gotta work through buddy.
• Don't be afraid to drop a friend from your life. Even if this means you are left with no friends. Or family.
• You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
• Incremental knowledge is so much easier to maintain in a rich way. Take fun in the consistency.
• Monotony collapses time. Novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably to the next - and disappear.

Inspired by this then that.