When you choose whom to follow on Twitter, you’re choosing what types of mindsets and aesthetics to expose yourself to on a regular basis. You’re choosing what types of conversations to have. You’re choosing to be reminded regularly of certain things, and not of others. This is a kind of Programmable attention.

“The happiest people want the lowest profile.”

“Fanaticism is the death of conversation.”

E.M. Cioran

Fear is self-focused. Day to day, our fear is about us. What will happen if we give that speech, launch that project, get stuck in traffic, are eaten by an alligator...

And generosity is about others. “How can I help?”

Jumping in the water to save a struggling swimmer stops us from worrying about how we look in our suit or whether the water is cold. ... See more

“The short-term crowd is always too distracted to notice the long-term crowd slowly compounding.

An investor obsessing over daily economic data misses the big picture. A teenager chasing fleeting popularity neglects to develop genuine interests and skills. A co-worker stops paying attention to the details to chase attention. All chase false stimuli... See more

“If you ask other people about every decision you make, you're going to end up doing exactly what everyone else does and getting the same results that everyone else gets.”

Every “overnight success” is the result of years of thankless work. Success comes not from great acts of genius but from doing lots of small things consistently

“There's a second component of reading that many people don't realize exists: searching for the good books. There are a huge number of books and only a small percentage of them are really good, so reading means searching. Someone who tries to read but doesn't understand about the need to search will end up reading bad books, and will wonder why peo... See more

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.