46 Reflections on a Life Half Over

In her book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, Annie Duke says, "When your identity is what you do, then what you do becomes hard to abandon, because it means quitting who you are."

Knowing when to walk away from relationships, careers, and creative endeavors that are going nowhere prevents unnecessary suffering.

You're going to die and when the subtlety, profundity, and reality of that statement seeps into your fucking bones. And when it ceases to be esoteric, poetic, hippy bullshit, when the pragmatism and the practicality of the fact that you are going to fucking die, you are going to die. This is what you have. This is it. This is what we have right now... See more

Life doesn't often spell things out for you or give you what you want exactly when you want it, otherwise it wouldn't be called life, it would be called vending machine. It's hard to say exactly when it will happen, and it's true that whatever you're after may not drop down the moment you spend all your quarters, but someday soon a train is coming.... See more

Curiosity is the Spark that Ignites the Flames of Passion. When you're naturally curious about something, it won't feel like work and you're more likely to find it engaging. As Tina Seelig once told me, "passion follows engagement." If you follow your curiosity regardless of where it leads, you might just discover your passion in the process.

When we envy other people, we often focus on the aspects of their lives that we want, while conveniently ignoring the parts that we don't. The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence until you're standing in someone else's yard. If you were to trade places with them, you'd get the good parts of their life, but it might cost you th... See more

Whenever I'm interviewed and the host asks me for advice, I preface it by telling them to consider the possibility that everything I'm saying is BS. Why? Because it very well could be in the context of someone else's life.

When you love the spotlight more than the music, reconsider your path.