A Good Life

Maybe “what have you done for the world” isn’t even the right question. It assumes an acting upon, separate from-ness. What if the good stuff happens less when you act upon the world and more when you become one with it? Part of it.

I was supposed to be the example. I was supposed to be the good influence. It was only a matter of time until there was a division between “I should do this” and “I want to do that.” In my youth, there is the universal idea that my enjoyment always comes at the cost of someone else’s despair. How can you rest when your neighbor is working?

“Write your obituary, then work backwards to live it.” – Buffett

“To make living itself an art, that is the goal.”

– Henry Miller

I believe what Steve Jobs said about how you “only connect the dots in retrospect,” but every once in a while, you know with unshakeable certainty that this moment you’re in right now is a massive new dot getting drawn. You don’t know exactly where you’ll go from here, or even what exactly to make of the experience, but you know it will have been a... See more

The task of living is figuring out a way to build enough resilience to honor, respect and nurture your nature (to essentially cultivate values) so as not to abandon it when the culture endorses something different.