Random thoughts for you

The big 4 factors to a quality life is health, wealth, relationship, sleep. If any of those four are lacking, you will likely not be happy. While not having them will lead to unhappiness, having them will only unlock the door. What will get you through is Purposes. This is my current theory in happiness

This is another tough lesson to learn. There’s seemingly two parts: the planner and the partier; the saver and the spender. On the surface they seem to contrast one another, but the reality is that they should be working together.

If you don’t plan for the future and only live in the now, you will make decisions that end in regret. This is the person who parties all the time, but is barely scraping by and sometimes not even that. This person will look back with regret because he will be struggling when he’s old, unable to take care of himself or others.

If you don’t enjoy life and only plan for the future, you’ll also look back with regret as you will feel like you did not live life. While this person will be well off, he may ask himself what was it all for? In addition, the unfortunate thing is that tomorrow is not always guaranteed. Being young, it seems like life is a long long road. But as you get older you’ll learn to appreciate the finiteness of it. And that something can happen to end that life short: a terminal disease, a car accident, heart attack, or just really bad luck. It’s a bit dark and to be fair, not as common, however it is a possibility. And then again, you don’t want to focus on building a life that you forget to live.

So it’s not focusing on one or the other, but working to optimize both. You want to work on both at the same time: enjoy life to a degree while also planning for the future. Work towards a better future, but do something everyday that you enjoy and that fulfills you. Because while life is not guaranteed, it is likely to go the distance.

So what does that balance look like? There’s no perfect ratio. It’s a spectrum depending on where you want to be, but there’s this idea by philosopher Aristotle of the middle path (his term I believe is the virtuous mean) where you aren’t too far one way or the other, but somewhere in the middle. That middle is a bit of a personal choice. Some lean towards planning and others leans towards living.

Personally, I lean towards planning, trying to set myself up to live comfortably while I’m older. The way I see it, if something happens and I can always give what I’ve made/earned to family and friends. However, if I don’t plan enough, I’ll end up destitute in the years I would yearn for comfort. And odds are I’ll likely live a decent amount of time.

You don’t want to be struggle paycheck to paycheck, but you also don’t want to be miserable while saving a fortune. Spend enough to not be miserable. That’s the bare minimum, but don’t spend so much that you can’t save at least 10-20% of what you earn. There are some people that are save 50%+ what they earn, so again it’s all contextual and individualized to specific person in life.

Enjoy today tempered with the belief that you’ll likely be around until you’re 80

This is a tough lesson to learn, but you don’t have necessarily have to prove yourself to others.

Growing up, you take tests and are always being graded. It creates this subconscious idea that you need to prove yourself. In some ways, it’s reasonable when you’re young to make sure you are developing and progressing appropriately.

However, as you get older and become more experienced, you’re less and less likely to be tested. You also know who you are and what your values are. Those become the new criteria to measure yourself. It becomes an internal metric.

If you keep at it and learn from your experiences, you’ll find those values. Unfortunately, it’s something you can’t learn solely from a book (although it may help).

People don’t talk about it, but as you get older there’s this shift from external validation to internal validation. Where instead of getting validated from others, validation comes from within.

It comes from knowing who you are, what’s important to you, knowing what you value, and then living in alignment with all of that.

Getting there takes time and experience unfortunately. The only way to expedite the process is introspection.

The most important commodity is your time. You can make more money, but you can not make more time. It is finite. Use it wisely.

When you’re young, you have lots of time and not a lot of time. When you’re old, it’s the reverse. I don’t know if a single old person who wouldn’t trade their money for more time.

The older you get; the more valuable time becomes and you should treat it as such. Protect your time

Emotions will cloud your judgement. Try your best to remain objective when you make a decision.

The most dangerous emotion is anger as it can cause us to lash out and act not in our best interests.

Now, I’m not saying you need to be a robot. We are naturally emotional creatures and I feel it is important to honor how you feel.

However, you can honor it by taking a moment, acknowledging it, feeling the emotion and then let it go. As with all emotions, the feelings are transient. Once you have made peace with the emotion, it is okay to move forward with a clear mind

It’s the little things day to day that ultimately add up to become the big changes. Be mindful of what you do and think each day. No one positive or negative act will make a big change, but over time each little stroke of the brush will paint a picture to reflect the life you live

In terms of planning a car ride or making it to an appointment, you have to realize that things take time. There are nonzero time events that take place prior to you leaving such as packing, changing clothes, grabbing you phone, combing your hair. These things add up. You have to incorporate that into your planning or you’ll never be on time

Just because there’s food around, doesn’t mean you should feel obliged to eat it.

If you were in a room full of snacks, you are going to be infinitely more compel to eat compared to a room without snacks.

Sounds pretty obvious. And yet, people tend to graze more if snacks are around. Why is that?

Is it a scarcity mentality? Is it the allure of novelty of flavor? Or maybe you’re actually hungry. Or maybe it’s indoctrination of our childhood such as “clean plate club” or “finish your food. There’s starving children in Africa.” Regardless, there is something triggering about having food around.

Perhaps it is an evolutionary mechanism that causes us to vacuum food when we see it. And yet there are others who act no different in the above scenario.

There is something driving people (but not all people) to eat food if they see it. This is a reminder that just because it’s there doesn’t mean you have to eat it.

If you ever give your car keys to a place to get your car fixed. Take pictures as you walk around the car and then once you get the car back, walk around and take pictures. This will help prevent overlooking unintentional damage to your car

The important thing is what you do after.

Failure is inevitable in life. If you never fail then you haven’t pushed yourself

It’s important to own up to your mistake, learn from them and attempt to rectify them

Also, it’s important to learn to forgive yourself