You'll regret it if you get married, you'll regret it if you don't get married. You'll regret it if you have kids and you'll regret it if you don't. Kierkegaard said this 200 years ago as follows - whatever you choose, you'll regret it, because the problem isn't in your choices, it's in romanticizing your life. A person always finds an untravelled path alluring and mysterious. That's why the issue isn't making the right choice. It's choosing and deciding which regret you'll live with. In life, we must choose our regret.
A mistake that cost me 5 years: Thinking preparation was progress. Reading every book. Taking every course. Planning every detail. Meanwhile, someone dumber than me started badly and figured it out. Preparation feels productive but it's often just fear dressed up as strategy. You learn to swim by getting in
the water, not by studying water.
there is something intoxicating about a person who is deeply occupied with something they are passionate about. the most attractive people are usually the hardest to reach. not because they are playing games. not because they think they’re better than everyone else. but because their mind is already occupied by something bigger than attention. they are building something. mastering something. obsessed with something. and that obsession gives them a kind of energy you cannot fake. people can feel when someone’s entire life revolves around being noticed. it makes them predictable, too available, too easy to read. but the people who stay in your mind for years are different. they have depth. mystery. a private world you cannot fully access. they disappear into their craft instead of disappearing into validation. they don’t wait around for texts all day because they are too busy becoming someone they are proud of. and the craziest part? the less they need attention, the more magnetic they become. because “nothing is more alluring than someone who has somewhere else to be, even if that place is internal.”
actually, that's the only right way to live.
But as Machiavelli said: Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.
This reminds me of Jensen Huang talk at Stanford, where he said:
“Greatness does not come out of intelligence, it comes from character. Character is not formed out of smart people, it is formed out of people who have suffered.”