Alan

A story cannot simply be a series of remarkable events. You must start out as one version of yourself and end as something new. The change can be infinitesimal. It need not reflect an improvement in yourself or your character, but change must happen.

The old adage tells us that “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,” but the math tells us why: the unknown has a chance of being better, even if we actually expect it to be no different, or if it’s just as likely to be worse.

The futility of chasing an eternal legacy felt like permission to let go. The real point, my twelve‐year‐old self decided (and my adult self still believes), is to live fully in the sliver of time we’re given—to savor our brief window of human experience rather than worry about being remembered forever.

Microsoft Office works in an office where you pretend to work until you can finally go home. There is no other app that can make you look so busy and serious doing nothing and saying nothing as PowerPoint. It’s a pro tool for creating bullshit

Everything must land on the page, regardless of how ridiculous, nonsensical, absurd, or humiliating it may be. Similarly, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization are meaningless. Penmanship is irrelevant.

Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does. Responding inappropriately to your e-mail, your thoughts about what you need to do, your children, or your boss will lead to less effective results than you’d like. Most people give either more or less attention to things than they deserve, simply because they don’... See more

We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem; we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.