Slowing Down

It’s far more helpful to assume that you’re ignorant and don’t know a whole lot. This keeps you unattached to superstitious or poorly informed beliefs and promotes a constant state of learning and growth.

Good values are 1) reality-based, 2) socially constructive, and 3) immediate and controllable. Bad values are 1) superstitious, 2) socially destructive, and 3) not immediate or controllable.

But the converse is true as well: the more you embrace being uncertain and not knowing, the more comfortable you will feel in knowing what you don’t know.

Being wrong opens us up to the possibility of change. Being wrong brings the opportunity for growth.

Instead, measure yourself by more mundane identities: a student, a partner, a friend, a creator.

And with simply doing something as your only metric for success—well, then even failure pushes you forward.

Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it.

The only way to be comfortable with death is to understand and see yourself as something bigger than yourself; to choose values that stretch beyond serving yourself, that are simple and immediate and controllable and tolerant of the chaotic world around you.