25 Learnings From Life
Almost Nothing is Worth Sacrificing Your Health. No job, project, money or external goal is worth giving up your health.
For sustained motivation, it’s as important to feel like you’re making progress as it is to actually make progress.
I don’t know what the meaning of life is, but you are here on this beautiful planet and you are alive and breathing, so you might as well make something of it. Pick goals and dreams which get you excited to wake up in the morning and go after them, and be sure to have fun along the way.
Things I Will Never Regret Doing: I think everyone should have a ‘Things I will never regret doing’ list. When you are overwhelmed or stressed or are struggling to find balance in your life and all you find yourself able to do is procrastinate, this list will come in handy. For me, it includes:
Calling family and close friends
Exercising
Reading or Writing
Get off the wrong bus. If you know you are on the wrong bus, the first thing you do is get off it, even if you don't know where you are and which bus you have to take next to get to your destination.
Expressing gratitude is the easiest thing I can do to feel happier everyday - it could be by way of writing down 3 things at the end of the day, or simply saying it to myself whenever something good happens during the day.
Almost everything is a skill - if you put in the time and effort, you can learn it. - music, sports, coding.. But also: sleeping better, stressing less, socializing, public speaking. All of these can be learnt if you put your mind to it.
Real, deep friendships are hard to come by, and you know when you have one. When you know you do, go all in. Take care of them, cheer for them, open up to them, meet their friends and families. It’s worth it.
When choosing friends, pick the ones with a good heart above all else.
Chasing happiness can often feel like a fool’s errand. Chase service instead. Serving others - in whatever way I can - is likely to make me happier any way.
Focus On What You Can Control.
Consider compound interest when making life decisions. The value of your first conversation increases the longer you stay in the friendship, the value of your first workout increases the longer you keep hitting the gym, the value of your money increases the longer you keep it in the investment.
Cold emails are a ridiculously easy and powerful way to connect with people over the internet. Learn how to write good cold emails.
“A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept.” - How fast you learn is much more important than how much you know to begin with.
Write down your goals.
Starting something is often the hardest part for any new project, hobby or even a new habit. Push yourself to get started - it gets easier to continue once you have taken the first step.
Being present is the most underrated social skill today. So many people are constantly distracted or thinking about themselves when in social settings. If I am present and truly listen to the people around, my social interactions are much more enjoyable and memorable.
I can’t put it better than Seneca, and it is something I have followed, but a worthwhile reminder:
“Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul.”Don’t judge the quality of your decisions by the quality of your outcomes. A bad decision that leads to a good outcome is still a bad decision, and vice versa.
If you’re a beginner at something, often the best person to learn from is not the expert who has been doing it for ages but instead someone who is just a little ahead of you and was a beginner not too long ago.
Share your learnings and journey with the world. You may not think you have anything groundbreaking to offer, but there are a lot of people out there who are where you were not too long ago and they would rather look at your journey than of someone who is twenty years ahead.
A phone call is better than a text. A video call is better than a phone call. But to me, nothing quite makes up for in-person interaction.
A lot of us today (myself included) seem to have deferred life plans - “when I get x, I will do y”, ‘once I have saved up enough, I will actually start my company”, “once I get promoted, I will start focusing more on my personal life” etc. etc. Nothing wrong with these- but, hold your future self accountable. Don’t follow into the trap of a never ending deferred life plan. (How much money do you want to have saved? How many promotions before you start going out more? How many years before you make that career switch?)
Writing a letter to your future self is a great way to reflect and do a reality check. I have done this a few times using https://www.futureme.org/ and it’s always been great to get the letters from my past self, especially because they have come at a time when I’ve been so caught up with the day to day- the letters reminded me of the goals I had and of what is truly important to me, and forced me to look at my life and see if I’m headed in the right direction.
Above all else, be true to yourself. Life is too short for pretenses, fake friendships and living someone else’s version of success. Figuring out what you truly care about is half the battle, having the courage to eliminate everything else is the other half.