Full text of Hunter S. Thompson's "Ninth Path" Letter

Finally, be patient. In a famous letter to his friend Hume, Hunter S. Thompson argued that searching for the right path in life was important, even if it required many attempts. He told Hume that if he tried eight different paths and failed, that he must keep searching: “you must find a ninth path.”⁠28 Embracing the pathless path can be a slow and

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“... Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.”

– Hunter S. Thompson

his guidelines are more like a fundamental code of everyday living: - know your long-range purposes - work in the service of some cause that you can respect - attempt to live and work in an environment in line with your own innate values - develop a philosophy of gratitude - reduce procrastination – it can be dangerous - use muscular activity to al

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1. Your career is not your life2. Explore, then exploit3. Don't do the job you want to tell other people you do. Do the job you want to do.4. Be ruthlessly honest with yourself about what you value—and how much professional success matters to you5. Flow comes from voluntary, difficult, worthwhile work

One of the biggest challenges people have when embarking on an unconventional path is disconnecting from extrinsic markers of success and listening to internal motivational cues. On the default path, you can spend an entire career playing other people’s games. At first, people on a pathless path try to fill the lack of extrinsic goals with new ones... See more