Agency
Everything in our world is there because someone decided it needed to exist. We all have things we know need to exist. What stops us from making them exist?
Agency
fast forward a year from now. your life is the best it's ever been, entirely as a result of your own choices.
what choices did you make now and in the coming months that created that reality for you?
Profound. I'll have to return to this one.
It strikes me a higher-level decomposition of that Naval thread.
“Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”
—Charlie Munger
Doing a few sets of pushups each day is a simple idea.
Saving at least 10% of your income is a simple idea.
Sending Thank You notes is a simple idea.
...but most people don't take simple ideas seriously.
—Charlie Munger
Doing a few sets of pushups each day is a simple idea.
Saving at least 10% of your income is a simple idea.
Sending Thank You notes is a simple idea.
...but most people don't take simple ideas seriously.
James Clear • Highlights From jamesclear.com
A good passage in continuation of the note on collective imaginations.
Responsibility that should be borne by an individual is dissolved amongst a group, who rely on the process of deliberation, passing on the responsibility to the organization.
Excerpt: “Committees are commonly used in our society because they create the illusion of avoiding risk. They are a wonderful device for avoiding responsibility while making the institution seem more rather than less accountable. Modern institutions have overloaded on actual risk while fleeing the appearance of it, especially if you count “failing at core mission” as a risk. Such aversion to the appearance of the unusual can’t be justified on economic grounds. Rather, it is a socially driven aversion.“
My most profound moment in college was when a professor mentioned that we were in school not to learn concepts, but to learn how to think critically. It was a major unblocker for me.
Prior to that moment, I'd been prioritizing getting good grades in my classes. It was the most important thing at the time. The clearest object I had in front of me.
Now
2020 Letter to Shareholders
aboutamazon.com
To go with the flow is to seek equilibrium.
Excerpt from a remarkable final shareholder letter:
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings.”
I need a good image to symbolize the Whispering Earring
it’s only going to become more relevant https://t.co/SWNMrqHpev
Convenience can indeed become a burden
the first time you do something that everyone in your social environment tells you is a bad idea, and it turns out you were right, is more psychoactive than any drug
2 Years Later: Reflections on Working at a Startup/San Francisco
ayokan.me