The craftsman is an archetype of manliness that has been with us for millennia. We admire his independence, his work ethic, and his unwavering sense of purpose. We envy the way he personally shapes and creates the fruits of his labor. … Continue reading
Li Ka Shing words on buying car and house in 5 years!
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Suppose your monthly income is only RMB 2,000, you can live well. I can help you put money into five sets of funds. The first $600, second $400, third $300, fourth $200, fifth $500.
The first set of funds is used for living expenses. It’s a simple way of living and you can only be assigned to less than twenty dollars a day. A daily breakfast of vermicelli, an egg and a cup of milk. For lunch just have a simple set lunch, a snack and a fruit. For dinner go to your kitchen and cook your own meals that consist of two vegetables dishes and a glass of milk before bedtime. For one month the food cost is probably $500-$600. When you are young, the body will not have too many problems for a few years with this way of living.
Second set of funds: To make friends, expand your interpersonal circle. This will make you well off. Your phone bills can be budgeted at RMB 100. You can buy your friends 2 lunches a month, each at $150. Who should you buy lunch for? Always remember to buy lunch for people who are more knowledgeable than you, richer than you or people who have helped you in your career. Make sure you do that every month. After one year, your circle of friends should have generated tremendous value for you. Your reputation, influence, added value will be clearly recognized. You’ll also enhance your image of being good and generous.
Third set of funds: To learn. Monthly spend about RMB 50 to RMB 100 to buy books. Because you don’t have a lot of money, you should pay attention to learning. When you buy the books, read them carefully and learn the lessons and strategies that is being taught in the book. Each book, after reading them, put them into your own language to tell the stories. Sharing with others can improve your credibility and enhance the affinity. Also save up $200 per month to attend a training course. When you have higher income or additional savings, try to participate in more advanced training. When you participate in good training, not only do you learn good knowledge, you also get to meet like-minded friends who are not easy to come by.
Fourth set of funds: Use it for holidays overseas. Reward yourself by traveling at least once a year. Continue to grow from the experience of life. Stay in youth hostels to save cost. In a few years you would have travelled to many countries and have different experiences. Use that experience to recharge yourself so that you’ll continually have passion in your work.
Fifth set of funds: Invest. Save the $500 in your bank and grow it as your initial startup capital. The capital can then be used to do a small business. Small business is safe. Go to wholesalers and look for products to sell. Even if you lose money, you will not lose too much money. However, when you start earning money, it will boost your confidence and courage and have a whole new learning experience of running a small business. Earn more and you can then begin to buy long-term investment plans and get long-term security on your financial wealth being of yourself and your families. So that no matter what happens, there will be adequate funds and the quality of life will not decline.
Well, after struggling for a year and if your second year salary is still RMB 2,000, then that means you have not grown as a person. You should be really ashamed of yourself. Do yourself a favour and go to the supermarket and buy the hardest tofu. Take it and smash it on your head because you deserve that.
If your monthly income is at RMB 3,000, you must still work very hard. You must try to find a part time job. It will be great to find part time sales jobs. Doing sales is challenging, but it is the fastest way for you to acquire the art of selling and this is a very deep skill that you will be able to carry it for the rest of your career. All successful entrepreneurs are good sales people. They have the ability to sell their dream and visions. You’ll also meet many people that will be of value to you in the later part of your career. Once you’re in sales, you will also learn what sells and what not. Use the sensitivity of detecting market sentiments as a platform for running your business and in the identification of product winners in the future.
Try to buy minimal clothes and shoes. You can buy them all you want when you’re rich. Save your money and buy some gift for your loved ones and tell them your plans and your financial goals. Tell them why you are so thrifty. Tell them your efforts, direction and your dreams.
Businessmen everywhere need help. Offer yourself to do part time for any kind of opportunities. This will help to hone your will and improve your skills. You will start to develop eloquence and soon, you’ll be closer to your financial goals. By the second year, your income should be increased to at least RMB 5,000. Minimum it should be RMB 3,000, otherwise you would not be able to keep up with inflation.
No matter how much you earn, always remember to divide it into five parts proportionately. Always make yourself useful. Increase your investment in networking. When you increase your social investment, expand your network of contacts, your income also grows proportionately. Increase your investment in learning, strengthen your self confidence, increase investment in holidays, expand your horizons and increase investment in the future, and that will ultimately increase your income.
Maintain this balance and gradually you will begin to have a lot of surplus. This is a virtuous circle of life plans. Your body will start to get better and better as you get more nutrition and care. Friends will be aplenty and you will start to make more valuable connections at the same time. You will then have the conditions to participate in very high-end training and eventually you’ll be exposed to bigger projects, bigger opportunities. Soon, you will be able to gradually realize your various dreams, the need to buy your own house, car, and to prepare an adequate education fund for your child’s future.
Life can be designed. Career can be planned. Happiness can be prepared. You should start planning now. When you are poor, spend less time at home and more time outside. When you are rich, stay at home more and less outside. This is the art of living. When you are poor, spend money on others. When you’re rich, spend money on yourself. Many people are doing the opposite.
When you are poor, be good to others. Don’t be calculative. When you are rich, you must learn to let others be good to you. You have to learn to be good to yourself better. When you are poor, you have to throw yourself out in the open and let people make good use of you. When you are rich, you have to conserve yourself well and don’t let people easily make use of you. These are the intricate ways of life that many people don’t understand.
When you are poor, spend money so that people can see it. When you are rich, do not show off. Just silently spend the money on yourself. When you are poor, you must be generous. When you are rich, you must not be seen as a spendthrift. Your life would have come full circle and reach its basics. There will be tranquility at this stage.
There is nothing wrong with being young. You do not need to be afraid of being poor. You need to know how to invest in yourself and increase your wisdom and stature. You need to know what is important in life and what is worth investing in. You also need to know what you should avoid and not spend your money on. This is the essence of discipline. Try to avoid spending money on clothing, but buy a selective number of items that have class. Try to eat less outside. If you were to eat outside, do make sure you buy lunches or dinners and foot the bill. When buying people dinner, make sure you buy dinners for people who have bigger dreams than you, and work harder than you.
Once your livelihood is no longer an issue, use the remainder of your money to pursue your dreams. Spread your wings and dare to dream! Make sure you live an extraordinary life!
Famous theory from Harvard: The difference of a person’s fate is decided from what a person spends in his free time between 20:00 to 22:00 . Use these two hours to learn, think and participate in meaningful lectures or discussion. If you persist for several years, success will come knocking on your doors.
No matter how much you earn, remember to split your salary into five parts. Take care of your body so that it will still be in good shape. Invest in your social circle so that you will constantly meet new people where you can learn new knowledge from. Expanding your network will also have an important impact in how much you earn eventually. Travel every year and expand your horizons. Also keep abreast with the latest developments in the industry. If you follow this plan diligently, you will soon see big surplus in your funds.
Whatever happened in the past is over. Do not dwell on past mistakes. There’s no point crying over spilt milk. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s what you learn from the mistakes, and promising yourself not to repeat those mistakes that matters. When you miss opportunities, don’t dwell on it, as there are always new opportunities on the horizon.
Being able to smile when being slightly misunderstood is good upbringing. When you’re wronged and you smile with calmness, it is generosity. When you’re being taken advantage of and you can smile, you’re being open-minded. When you are helpless and you can do a philosophical smile, you’re in a calm state. When you’re in distress and you can laugh out loud, you’re being generous. When you’re looked down and you can calmly smile, you’re being confident. When you’re being jilted in relationships and you can smile it off, you’re being suave.
There are many people who are struggling to make ends meet. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. There are lessons for all to learn from Li Ka Shing.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT YOU “SHOULD” DO AND WHAT YOU “MUST” DO
This is a story about two roads: Should and Must.
It’s a pep talk for anyone who’s chosen Should far too long–months, years, maybe a lifetime, and feels like it’s about time they give Must a shot.
There are two paths in life: Should and Must. We arrive at this crossroads over and over again. And each time, we get to choose.
Should is how others want us to show up in the world–how we’re supposed to think, what we ought to say, what we should or shouldn’t do. When we choose Should the journey is smooth, the risk is small.
Must is different.
Must is who we are, what we believe, and what we do when we are alone with our truest, most authentic self. It’s our instincts, our cravings and longings, the things and places and ideas we burn for, the intuition that swells up from somewhere deep inside of us. Must is what happens when we stop conforming to other people’s ideals and start connecting to our own. Because when we choose Must, we are no longer looking for inspiration out there. Instead, we are listening to our calling from within, from some luminous, mysterious place.
SHOULD IS HOW OTHERS WANT US TO SHOW UP IN THE WORLD. MUST IS WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO WHEN WE ARE OUR MOST AUTHENTIC SELF.
Must is why Van Gogh painted his entire life without ever receiving public recognition. Must is why Mozart performed Don Giovani and Coltrane played his new sound, even as the critics called it ugly. Must is why an unknown lawyer named John Grisham spent three years writing his first novel only to be rejected by three dozen publishers.
Must isn’t exclusively for writers and painters and composers, though. Must is why, in the early days, Airbnb sold boxes of cereal to make ends meet because no one would give them money and every conceivable metric said they should quit.
While working at Mailbox, I came across Stefan Sagmeister’s TED talk about jobs, careers, and callings.
He spoke about their differences, and I began to wonder which one I had. At the same time, I was also reading a biography about Picasso.
In it, Arianna Huffington describes the joy she felt learning about how Picasso chose to live his life:
The more I discovered about his life and the more I delved into his art, the more the two converged. “It’s not what an artist does that counts, but what he is,” Picasso said. But his art was so thoroughly autobiographical that what he did was what he was.
Picasso’s life blended seamlessly with his work. It was all one huge swirling mix of bullfights and beaches and booze. And we could tell. Because to look at one of Picasso’s canvases is quite literally to look into his soul. And this is exactly what happens when our life, our essence, is one and the same with our work. It’s when job descriptions and titles no longer make sense because we don’t go to work–we are the work.
And this lead me to a big hypothesis. What if…
What if who we are and what we do become one and the same? What if our work is so thoroughly autobiographical that we can’t parse the product from the person? What if our jobs are our careers and our callings?
And this was about the time that my head exploded.
Choosing Must sounds fantastic, right? To step into the fullness of our gifts and offer them up to the world in the form of our work. But if Must is so great, why don’t we choose it every day?
Well, it turns out that choosing Must is scary, hard, and a lot like jumping off a terrifyingly high cliff where you can’t see anything down below.
It was one year ago that I jumped off the first of many cliffs, leaving a dream job at Mailbox to make art.
CHOOSING MUST CREATES THE KIND OF WORK THAT PUTS RIPPLES THROUGH THE UNIVERSE.
But it starts as a whisper, a call from somewhere far away.
The path to my Must started with a recurring dream about a white room.
Concrete floors, white walls, and a mattress on the floor. That was it. And I would visit this room practically every night. One day, a friend asked the question that would forever change the course of my life: “Have you ever thought about finding your dream in real life?” I hadn’t, but later, I began to wonder…
Craigslist, I thought.
As I scanned the tiny photos of apartments for rent, I felt ridiculous. But then, I saw it. The white room. There it was, literally right there on the computer screen–my dream–in a tiny image just 72 x 72 pixels big.
And, just like that, my journey began.
Growing up in Texas, I had a vague idea of what it meant to be “called”–in the grand sense of the word–although I had never experienced it for myself. Moses was a favorite story of mine, because Moses was the last person on earth we would choose to lead thousands of people to the promised land. He was quiet; he had a stutter; and yet, Moses was called.
“Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before,” modern philosopher Joseph Campbell wrote. But recently, someone asked me a question, “But what if I don’t hear the call?” he asked. “What if I want to hear it but I can’t? What do I do then?”
Two ideas came to mind.
Write Your Future Press Release
At Mailbox, we adopted a well-known practice from Amazon to write our future press release. That’s right, we wrote a real press release about a nonexistent product–the one that we wanted to exist in the world. We envisioned the headlines. We dreamed of what would happen if all of our wildest dreams came true. We even taped it inside of a magazine and put it on the coffee table. Most of us do this kind of big scary dreaming with our products, or our companies, but very few of us it with our lives.
The second idea…
Roz Savage, a management consultant in London living “the big life” was 33 when she sat down and wrote two versions of her obituary:
The first was the life that I wanted to have. I thought of the obituaries that I enjoyed reading, the people that I admired… the people [who] really knew how to live. The second version was the obituary that I was heading for–a conventional, ordinary, pleasant life. The difference between the two was startling. Clearly something was going to have to change … I felt I was getting a few things figured out. But I was like a carpenter with a brand new set of tools and no wood to work on. I needed a project. And so I decided to row the Atlantic.
Back at Mailbox, it was 8 a.m. on Thursday, February 7, 2013, when we popped the first bottle of champagne. There were 13 of us, and we were all wide-eyed, staring at our monitors, watching as nine months of work on the iPhone app was released into the world. As I looked around at the incredible people in that room, and watched the live ticker grow and grow, I knew that this moment was one of the highlights of my life. But, in the very back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder what any of it had to do with my dream of a white room.
CHOOSING MUST OFTEN REQUIRES A LEAP OF FAITH.
If you’ve ever peered out over the edge of a cliff, you’ve felt the fear.
Choosing Must raises questions that are scary, big, and often, without an easy answer in sight. Here are three of the biggest fears I’ve heard, and what to do about them.
Money
Money can be a bridge to the freedom of exploring Musts. And it often doesn’t require much. But it does require determination. Money can be used to buy you a day, a week, month of time to work on a Must, which may amount to nothing. Or it can be used to buy a sweater, a suit, a car–the value of which is obvious and low risk.
Of course, the best way to make money is to figure out what you love and then give yourself to it. Because the people who consistently choose Must over Should find a way to make it work, and, once they take the leap, they find it’s easier to make money doing what they love than they ever imagined.
Time
Finding our calling doesn’t mean we need to quit our jobs. And it also doesn’t mean we need to book a one-way ticket to a faraway magical land where there’s no cell service. As someone who did both of those things, I know first hand that it’s easy to pack a small bag, wave goodbye, and push the eject button for a while. But the return, the re-entry phase, can be absolutely brutal.
The harder road, trickier, and more sustainable, is to make shifts every day within our existing reality. To integrate, not obliterate. For Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In was a tiny yet growing piece of her heart for years until it exploded into the world–all the while she was still running one of the world’s biggest companies and raising two children. Weaving our Must into our existing reality is about co-designing small opportunities with our teams. It’s about setting aside quiet time to be alone with our thoughts, and then actually following through. It’s about doing one small thing, anything, to honor our personal truth–today.
But while money and schedules are the reasons cited most often for not making the leap, I believe the real reason is something deeper and far scarier.
Abandonment
While Must comes from somewhere deep inside of us, a beautiful truth that calls to us from within, Should comes from somewhere external, a place that’s equally important and powerful. Should comes from the place we call home, the people we love, the world we’ve created–the people, places, and things that define us.
It is here, standing at the cliff’s edge, peering down below, hearing the siren’s call, that we feel the terrifying prospect of abandonment, failure, and humiliation. And this is the exact moment when people decide against taking the leap–to avoid that great unknown, that transformative place where nothing is written, nothing is guaranteed, and everything is possible.
The ‘What are you so afraid of?’ Exercise
Grab a piece of paper and write the numbers one through ten on the left side of the page. At the top, title it: “What am I so afraid of?” This is your Worst Case Scenario list. This is your list of things that make you think “They’re all going to laugh at me.” These are your largest fears, and you’ve got ten minutes to write them down.
Go.
Line by line, walk yourself through each one. Would they really laugh at you? They would? How do you feel about that? Line by line, have a conversation about all of your fears. Would you really be homeless? Would you really be alone? Do you really need that much money? This is a list of your tradeoffs. And they are the biggest things standing in your way.
THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT DAYS IN YOUR LIFE ARE THE DAY YOU ARE BORN AND THE DAY YOU FIND OUT WHY.
– MARK TWAIN.
CHOOSING MUST IS A DAILY PRACTICE, A RECURRING CHOICE.
Just because we chose Should yesterday doesn’t mean we’ll choose Must today. And just because we chose Must today doesn’t mean we won’t slip back into Should tomorrow.
Dusk was falling as I arrived at the white room from my dreams. It was stark, absolute, white, and a symbol of something new, of beginnings. As I looked around, I thought, “What on earth have I done? Why am I here?” And as clear as day, I heard a voice say, “It’s time to paint.”
As time passed, I found myself choosing Must more often than Should. And over time, continuing to choose Must opened doors into worlds I never could have imagined. Here are three qualities I’ve integrated into my daily practice that have helped me achieve a sustainable Must.
Solitude
THE BEST THINKING HAS BEEN DONE IN SOLITUDE. THE WORST HAS BEEN DONE IN TURMOIL.
– THOMAS EDISON.
Often times, reconnecting with the road to Must is not about doing a lot of running around.
This solo inward journey has been called many things throughout time–the myths call it the labyrinth, the abyss, the forest, and the night journey. Culturally, it’s called the “walkabout,” the vision quest, and the pilgrimage. In tech, it’s recently been called “the Struggle” by Ben Horowitz.
Searching for solitude is how I eventually found myself in an Airbnb in Bali alone for six weeks, in the middle of the rice patties, with no phone, no email, and no walls on three sides of the house.
I called my new home “the house without walls.” It was wrapped in palm trees, smelled of jasmine, and over the coming weeks, the geckos and frogs and people would come and go as they pleased, because there were no rules and no walls to stop them. I had long dreamed of being in a place where the inside and the outside were one and the same. For six weeks, in “the house without walls,” I slowed down, silenced the voices, and relaxed into a quiet place deep within myself. I dreamed under the palm trees, the night sky, and various phases of the moon.
Focus
THE MONOTONY AND SOLITUDE OF A QUIET LIFE STIMULATES THE CREATIVE MIND.
– ALBERT EINSTEIN.
It was in “the house without walls” that I fell in love with the moon. And, one day, a Balinese friend of mine decided to turn two of my paintings into textiles–for the fun of it. Fast-forward a few months: I was back in San Francisco trying to figure out what to do with these exquisite textiles.The batik process of hand-painting each cloth was so beautiful, and so close to my own painting practice, that I wanted to find a way to combine these techniques on a larger scale. So I decided to go to New York, hunker down in an Airbnb, and figure it out in two weeks.
A friend of mine once compared focus to the beam of a mag light–if you keep the light unfocused, light shines everywhere. It’s bright, but it’s blinding. If you focus the light and tighten it, the light becomes a laser beam. Focused and strong.
Bring Others In
As a former Ideo-er who believes in the power of human-centered design, I began to wonder, even worry, how this inward journey connected with the outside world. And this is what I found:
Choose your Must, then begin following all cravings, longings, and desires associated with it (this might feel weird at first).
Make a tremendous amount of work, but don’t critique it–be present, not perfect.
If stuck, revise. If still stuck, destroy. If still stuck, call it a day and take a long hot shower.
Take note when connections begin to happen between seemingly disparate activities.
As new ideas begin to form, capture them. As opportunities begin to rise up out of the mess, set them aside. Then prototype them. Pitch them to everyone you know. And mock them up for real.
Take some time alone, every day, to meditate on your work.
During my two weeks in New York, I emailed a dozen of the most talented, brilliant women I knew, inviting them to collectively review my work and give me feedback at the end of my sprint. Of course I needed to bring others in, I suddenly realized, but not until after I knew generally what I was working on and why.
The women gave invaluable feedback, leading to significant insights. And this is why, the very next week, I found myself Bali-bound again. Except this time, with 200 yards of raw fabric. Working with master batik artists, we hand-painted 100 limited edition pieces of art, inspired by the phases of the moon. We launched the textiles as the inaugural collection of Bulan Project, and sold out in two weeks.
THOSE WHO CHOOSE “MUST”
When who we are and what we do are one and the same, we are walking the road of Must. When we make something because we Must, not just because we can, it is the difference between disposable products that last a few years and life-affirming movements that sustain generations. When we choose Must, what we create is ourselves. It is a body of work.
Choosing Must is Industrial designer David Pierce’s tattoo of a ruler running the length of his arm because his craft and his physical body are one and the same.
Choosing Must is Charles and Ray Eames who designed their entire life together and made their entire lives about design.
Choosing Must is Steve Jobs referring to Jony Ive not as a colleague, nor as a creative partner, but as a “Spiritual Partner.”
If you believe that you have something special inside of you, and you feel it’s about time you gave it a shot, honor that calling in some small way–today.
If you feel a knot in your stomach because you can see the enormous distance between your dreams and your daily reality, do one thing to tighten your grip on what you want–today.
If you’ve been peering out over the edge of the cliff but can’t quite make the leap, dig a little deeper and find out what’s stopping you–today.
Because there is a recurring choice in life, and it occurs at the intersection of two roads. We arrive at this place again and again. And today, you get to choose.
Elle Luna is an artist and designer in San Francisco. She worked with teams to design and build Mailbox, redesign Uber’s iPhone app, and scale the storytelling platform Medium. Before startups, Elle spent five years at Ideo where she worked across a variety of industries to develop multichannel, holistic experiences with massive impact. When she’s not painting, you can find her traveling to Bali for her new textile venture, Bulan Project.
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George Saunders’s Advice to Graduates
Down through the ages, a traditional form has evolved for this type of speech, which is: Some old fart, his best years behind him, who, over the course of his life, has made a series of dreadful mistakes (that would be me), gives heartfelt advice to a group of shining, energetic young people, with all of their best years ahead of them (that would be you).
And I intend to respect that tradition.
Now, one useful thing you can do with an old person, in addition to borrowing money from them, or asking them to do one of their old-time “dances,” so you can watch, while laughing, is ask: “Looking back, what do you regret?” And they’ll tell you. Sometimes, as you know, they’ll tell you even if you haven’t asked. Sometimes, even when you’ve specifically requested they not tell you, they’ll tell you.
So: What do I regret? Being poor from time to time? Not really. Working terrible jobs, like “knuckle-puller in a slaughterhouse?” (And don’t even ASK what that entails.) No. I don’t regret that. Skinny-dipping in a river in Sumatra, a little buzzed, and looking up and seeing like 300 monkeys sitting on a pipeline, pooping down into the river, the river in which I was swimming, with my mouth open, naked? And getting deathly ill afterwards, and staying sick for the next seven months? Not so much. Do I regret the occasional humiliation? Like once, playing hockey in front of a big crowd, including this girl I really liked, I somehow managed, while falling and emitting this weird whooping noise, to score on my own goalie, while also sending my stick flying into the crowd, nearly hitting that girl? No. I don’t even regret that.
But here’s something I do regret:
In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “ELLEN.” ELLEN was small, shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.
So she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” — that sort of thing). I could see this hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After awhile she’d drift away, hair-strand still in her mouth. At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.” And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”
Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it.
And then — they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing.
One day she was there, next day she wasn’t.
End of story.
Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her.
But still. It bothers me.
So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.
Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth?
Those who were kindest to you, I bet.
It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.
Now, the million-dollar question: What’s our problem? Why aren’t we kinder?
Here’s what I think:
Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian. These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk – dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).
Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.
So, the second million-dollar question: How might we DO this? How might we become more loving, more open, less selfish, more present, less delusional, etc., etc?
Well, yes, good question.
Unfortunately, I only have three minutes left.
So let me just say this. There are ways. You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter. Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation’s good; a frank talk with a dear friend; establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition — recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us.
Because kindness, it turns out, is hard — it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, everything.
One thing in our favor: some of this “becoming kinder” happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish — how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we’re not separate, and don’t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”
And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit. That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today. One of their fondest dreams has come true: you have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.
Congratulations, by the way.
When young, we’re anxious — understandably — to find out if we’ve got what it takes. Can we succeed? Can we build a viable life for ourselves? But you — in particular you, of this generation — may have noticed a certain cyclical quality to ambition. You do well in high-school, in hopes of getting into a good college, so you can do well in the good college, in the hopes of getting a good job, so you can do well in the good job so you can . . .
And this is actually O.K. If we’re going to become kinder, that process has to include taking ourselves seriously — as doers, as accomplishers, as dreamers. We have to do that, to be our best selves.
Still, accomplishment is unreliable. “Succeeding,” whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there’s the very real danger that “succeeding” will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended.
So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf — seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.
Do all the other things, the ambitious things — travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality — your soul, if you will — is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. Bright as Shakespeare’s, bright as Gandhi’s, bright as Mother Teresa’s. Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.
And someday, in 80 years, when you’re 100, and I’m 134, and we’re both so kind and loving we’re nearly unbearable, drop me a line, let me know how your life has been. I hope you will say: It has been so wonderful.
Congratulations, Class of 2013.
I wish you great happiness, all the luck in the world, and a beautiful summer.
19 Hard Things You Need To Do To Be Successful
You have to do the hard things.
- You have to make the call you’re afraid to make.
- You have to get up earlier than you want to get up.
- You have to give more than you get in return right away.
- You have to care more about others than they care about you.
- You have to fight when you are already injured, bloody, and sore.
- You have to feel unsure and insecure when playing it safe seems smarter.
- You have to lead when no one else is following you yet.
- You have to invest in yourself even though no one else is.
- You have to look like a fool while you’re looking for answers you don’t have.
- You have to grind out the details when it’s easier to shrug them off.
- You have to deliver results when making excuses is an option.
- You have to search for your own explanations even when you’re told to accept the “facts.”
- You have to make mistakes and look like an idiot.
- You have to try and fail and try again.
- You have to run faster even though you’re out of breath.
- You have to be kind to people who have been cruel to you.
- You have to meet deadlines that are unreasonable and deliver results that are unparalleled.
- You have to be accountable for your actions even when things go wrong.
- You have to keep moving towards where you want to be no matter what’s in front of you.
You have to do the hard things. The things that no one else is doing. The things that scare you. The things that make you wonder how much longer you can hold on.
Those are the things that define you. Those are the things that make the difference between living a life of mediocrity or outrageous success.
The hard things are the easiest things to avoid. To excuse away. To pretend like they don’t apply to you.
The simple truth about how ordinary people accomplish outrageous feats of success is that they do the hard things that smarter, wealthier, more qualified people don’t have the courage — or desperation — to do.
Do the hard things. You might be surprised at how amazing you really are.
Source: Biz Insider
19 Things To Stop Doing In Your 20s
1. Stop placing all the blame on other people for how they interact with you. To an extent, people treat you the way you want to be treated. A lot of social behavior is cause and effect. Take responsibility for (accept) the fact that you are the only constant variable in your equation.
2. Stop being lazy by being constantly “busy.” It’s easy to be busy. It justifies never having enough time to clean, cook for yourself, go out with friends, meet new people. Realize that every time you give in to your ‘busyness,’ it’s you who’s making the decision, not the demands of your job.
3. Stop seeking out distractions. You will always be able to find them.
4. Stop trying to get away with work that’s “good enough.” People notice when “good enough” is how you approach your job. Usually these people will be the same who have the power to promote you, offer you a health insurance plan, and give you more money. They will take your approach into consideration when thinking about you for a raise.
5. Stop allowing yourself to be so comfortable all the time. Coming up with a list of reasons to procrastinate risky, innovative decisions offers more short-term gratification than not procrastinating. But when you stop procrastinating to make a drastic change, your list of reasons to procrastinate becomes a list of ideas about how to better navigate the risk you’re taking.
6. Stop identifying yourself as a cliche and start treating yourself as an individual. Constantly checking your life against a prewritten narrative or story of how things “should” be is a bought-into way of life. It’s sort of like renting your identity. It isn’t you. You are more nuanced than the narrative you try to fit yourself into, more complex than the story that “should” be happening.
7. Stop expecting people to be better than they were in high school — learn how to deal with it instead. Just because you’re out of high school doesn’t mean you’re out of high school. There will always be people in your life who want what you have, are threatened by who you are, and will ridicule you for doing something that threatens how they see their position in the world.
8. Stop being stingy. If you really care about something, spend your money on it. There is often a notion that you are saving for something. Either clarify what that thing is or start spending your money on things that are important to you. Spend money on road trips. Spend money on healthy food. Spend money on opportunities. Spend money on things you’ll keep.
9. Stop treating errands as burdens. Instead, use them as time to focus on doing one thing, and doing it right. Errands and chores are essentially rote tasks that allow you time to think. They function to get you away from your phone, the internet, and other distractions. Focus and attention span are difficult things to maintain when you’re focused and attentive on X amount of things at any given moment.
10. Stop blaming yourself for being human. You’re fine. Having a little anxiety is fine. Being scared is fine. Your secrets are fine. You’re well-meaning. You’re intelligent. You’re blowing it out of proportion. You’re fine.
11. Stop ignoring the fact that other people have unique perspectives and positions. Start approaching people more thoughtfully. People will appreciate you for deliberately trying to conceive their own perspective and position in the world. It not only creates a basis for empathy and respect, it also primes people to be more open and generous with you.
12. Stop seeking approval so hard. Approach people with the belief that you’re a good person. It’s normal to want the people around you to like you. But it becomes a self-imposed burden when almost all your behavior toward certain people is designed to constantly reassure you of their approval.
13. Stop considering the same things you’ve always done as the only options there are. It’s unlikely that one of the things you’ll regret when you’re older is not having consumed enough beer in your 20s, or not having bought enough $5 lattes, or not having gone out to brunch enough times, or not having spent enough time on the internet. Fear of missing out is a real, toxic thing. You’ve figured out drinking and going out. You’ve experimented enough. You’ve gotten your fill of internet memes. Figure something else out.
14. Stop rejecting the potential to feel pain. Suffering is a universal constant for sentient beings. It is not unnatural to suffer. Being in a constant state of suffering is bad. But it is often hard to appreciate happiness when there’s nothing to compare it to. Rejecting the potential to suffer is unsustainable and unrealistic.
15. Stop approaching adverse situations with anger and frustration. You will always deal with people who want things that seem counter to your interests. There will always be people who threaten to prevent you from getting what you want by trying to get what they want. This is naturally frustrating. Realize that the person you’re dealing with is in the same position as you — by seeking out your own interests, you threaten to thwart theirs. It isn’t personal — you’re both just focused on getting different things that happen to seem mutually exclusive. Approach situations like these with reason. Be calm. Don’t start off mad, it’ll only make things more tense.
16. Stop meeting anger with anger. People will make you mad. Your reaction to this might be to try and make them mad. This is something of a first-order reaction. That is, it isn’t very thoughtful — it may be the first thing you’re inclined to do. Try to suppress this reaction. Be thoughtful. Imagine your response said aloud before you say it. If you don’t have to respond immediately, don’t.
17. Stop agreeing to do things that you know you’ll never actually do. It doesn’t help anyone. To a certain extent, it’s a social norm to be granted a ‘free pass’ when you don’t do something for someone that you said you were going to do. People notice when you don’t follow through, though, especially if it’s above 50% of the time.
18. Stop ‘buying’ things you know you’ll throw away. Invest in friendships that aren’t parasitic. Spend your time on things that aren’t distractions. Put your stock in fleeting opportunity. Focus on the important.
19. Stop being afraid.
Written by Brandon Gorrell for ThoughtCatalog
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