The better life you absolutely can build isn’t going to be brought to you by ChatGPT but by your own steady uphill clawing and through careful management of your own expectations. You live here. This is it.
All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push... See more
"If you already live a comfortable life, then choosing to make more money but live a worse daily life is a bad trade.
And yet, we talk ourselves into it all the time. We take promotions that pay more, but swallow our free time. We already have a successful business, but we break ourselves trying to make it even more successful.
According to Kierkegaard, when we first find life boring, we seek new delights. He called this the aesthetic stage of life. Kierkegaard focused particularly on art and the erotic, but the category obviously refers to much more. This is the time, usually in early adulthood, when people are most open to new experiences and opportunities.
The monotony of life contains a reservoir of ways to find relief, if we can only muster the courage and energy to dive in instead of opting out. If today you find yourself bored with your work—perhaps surfing around and reading some random essay on happiness—you may have just gotten a signal from the universe that it’s time for your spirit to... See more