A Short Guide to a Happy Life: Anna Quindlen on Work, Joy, and How to Live Rather Than Exist
working together toward something intriguing and worthwhile. You can live a long life, making and doing really cool things the entire time. You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is not really the point.
Elizabeth Gilbert • Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear
And the life you will see incrementally taking shape, in the rearview mirror, will be one that meets the only definitive measure of what it means to have used your weeks well: not how many people you helped, or how much you got done; but that working within the limits of your moment in history, and your finite time and talents, you actually got aro
... See moreOliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Life will go faster than you know. It will be tempting to live a life that impresses others. But this is the wrong path. The right path is to know that life is short, every day is a gift, and you have certain gifts. Happiness is about understanding that the gift of life should be honored every day by offering your gifts to the world. Don’t let your
... See moreTimothy Ferriss • Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World

To harness the courage we need to get on the right path, it pays to reflect on how short life really is and what we want to accomplish in the little time we have left. As poet Mary Oliver wrote: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”12
Greg Mckeown • Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To... See more