> In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. **The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important.** And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life— the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.

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> Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN— and here is the essence of all I’ve said— you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.

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Hunter S. Thompson's Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life

> You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

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> Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. **If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.**

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> Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. **Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.**

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Steve Jobs' Commencement Address (2005)

> And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. **The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.**
>
> \
> **That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.**

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This is Water - David Foster Wallace

The days are long but the decades are short - Sam Altman

> It's not just a figure of speech to say that life is too short for something. It's not just a synonym for annoying. **If you find yourself thinking that life is too short for something, you should try to eliminate it if you can.**

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> One byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive. Which means we will increasingly have to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions — to stand outside ourselves and ask "is this how I want to be spending my time?"

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> **One heuristic for distinguishing stuff that matters is to ask yourself whether you'll care about it in the future.** \[...\] The things that matter aren't necessarily the ones people would call "important." Having coffee with a friend matters. You won't feel later like that was a waste of time.

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> If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise. And that is just what tends to happen. You take things for granted, and then they're gone. You think you can always write that book, or climb that mountain, or whatever, and then you realize the window has closed. The saddest windows close when other people die. Their lives are short too.

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> **Cultivate a habit of impatience about the things you most want to do. Don't wait before climbing that mountain or writing that book or visiting your mother. You don't need to be constantly reminding yourself why you shouldn't wait. Just don't wait.**

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> How you live affects how long you live. Most people could do better. Me among them.
>
> But you can probably get even more effect by paying closer attention to the time you have. It's easy to let the days rush by. The "flow" that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms.

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Life is Short - Paul Graham

Short and to the point article that illustrates just how short life is. Life is not about the years we have left, but rather our experiences and relationships. These are measurably finite, and likely far more depleted than we realize—no matter how "young" we think we are.

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The takeaways:

> **1) Living in the same place as the people you love matters.** I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.
> **2) Priorities matter.** Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you—not by unconscious inertia.
> **3) Quality time matters.** If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.

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The Tail End - Wait But Why (Tim Urban)

> Lots of people focus on living an objectively longer life by eating well and exercising.
>
> But just as important is living a *subjectively* longer life, where every month or every year feels like a lifetime of experience. It’s eminently possible to affect one’s subjective sense of time, speeding it up or slowing it down.

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> Routine is the enemy of slow subjective time. It will speed up subjective time enormously. No doubt you’ve felt the feeling “where has the year gone?” and “time speeds up as you get older”.
>
> This is because of routine. Working the same job at the same place for the same hours week in and week out is what causes a year to flash by.

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> Novelty makes the human brain pay attention. Something novel is something potentially life-changing, in both good and bad ways. Full focus, aliveness to the present moment and unusually clear memory all kick in when paying attention to something novel.
>
> **So the true antidote to subjective time speeding up is to inject new, different and surprising things into life.**

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Originally found from [this Hacker News post](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24386120) — there are some interesting thoughts in the comments, especially on meditation as a related technique.

Tips for a longer life

This is more in the realm of career advice, but it's a great aggregation of perspectives on this question.

What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and Advice - Alexey Guzey

Time is not something that statically exists outside of our consciousness; rather, it’s something we experience in our mind. If you think about it, both the “past” and the “future” are simply thoughts—the “past” is a memory and the “future” is a daydream. The only thing *real* is the here and now.

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Recognizing this truth (through meditation or introspection) is critical, because it gives us the power to experience life as it is, as opposed to holding on to ideas about the past or the future—both of which take us out of the present and make time seem to fly by.

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As the title of the article eludes to, the key to living a “long” life is to pay attention to it. The reason novel experiences make our life seem “longer” is that it forces us to pay attention:

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> Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthy and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next – and disappear. That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.

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Too Busy to Pay Attention

> I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.

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Life advice

Mar 29, 2021 • 10 blocks •

fs.blog

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news.stanford.edu

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