“If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you.”
— James N. Mattis
Major cheat code for life: Assume good things are still ahead. You are not behind. You are not too late. You are not disqualified by your past. One new season can change the entire story. Keep showing up with belief. The best chapters are often written after the hardest ones.
I’ve met people who barely talk about God but treat others with love, and I’ve met people who never miss church but don’t know how to treat people right.
The older I get, the more I realize you can reinvent yourself as many times as you need. New standards. New habits. New mindsets. New people. New career. It's never too late. You can change. Today, tomorrow, and as many times as it takes to create the life you want.
Major cheat code for life: Become difficult to rush. The world will pressure you to rush into everything. Rushed decisions. Rushed conversations. Rushed relationships. Rushed timelines. There's immense power in rejecting that trend. Slow down. Create space to think clearly.
Give your mind a break. From people. From phones. From the constant hustle of life. Spend some alone time just with yourself. Do nothing. Be bored. Stare at a crack in the wall. Look out the window. Watch how shadows move. Listen to a piece of music that's 300 years old. Read Hegel. Read Aristotle. Read Dostoevsky. The minds that are still relevant today. Slow down enough to experience things deeply again. Don't consume something just because it's trending. Be loyal to your own curiosities. Your own interests. Your own idiosyncrasies. If you want to live a life that feels alive, protect the parts of yourself this world keeps trying to distract you from.
Read books. Read articles. Read research papers. Listen to music. Listen to podcasts. Listen to people who think differently from you. Dance to the songs you love. Go swimming. Go for a walk without carrying your phone. Go hiking. Go for coffee hopping. Buy magazines. Read old newspapers. Sit in a library. Visit a museum. Watch the sunset. Watch the sunrise. Stare at your walls. Stare at the ceiling. Stare at the stars from your terrace. Sit in a garden and observe people passing by. Watch the trees move with the wind. Listen to the birds. Listen to the rain. Sit in silence without feeling the need to fill every second with content. Write things down. Carry a notebook. Journal your thoughts. Sketch badly. Paint something. Learn an instrument. Grow a plant. Cook a meal from scratch. Call an old friend. Travel somewhere nearby. Get lost in a new neighborhood. Visit a bookstore and leave with a book you weren't planning to buy.
this is life all about.