Three Simple Ideas to Change Your Life

I do not intend these ideas to be "universal" - but just wanted to present these things that have personally worked for me and can maybe benefit someone else. If I slip into direct address and say "you" - I'm really just referring to myself.

Long story short - about two years ago, I hated where I was in life. It was the recognition of these three ideas that kept me going and helped me to turn my life around. I should add that these ideas aren't original, but things that I've come across during that time and paraphrased one way or another.

1. The human being is meant to bear the burden of 24 hours -- no more, no less. 

If you live in the future, you will get anxious; if you live in the past, you will get depressed. Twenty four hours is all that you have to live in. Give up all the other burdens to the universe, to god, to your cat, to whatever - but the burdens of the past are not yours. The burdens of the future aren't yours either. Let them go. 

The day is your material. It's what's in front of you, it's the only thing that you have the power to change or to shape or to use. It's your canvas. It's your material. So use it well.

2. Happiness is not something you can pursue - but instead the byproduct of doing the right thing. 

We get so tripped up thinking that happiness is an end goal -- and then get frustrated when it slips through our fingers. Instead, focus on whatever the right thing is - and happiness will follow. 

Feel like shit at the end of the day? Maybe it's because you ate a tub of ice cream for dinner, forgot to call your mom back, blew off homework to play video games, etc. On the surface, those are all things that should make you "happy" - but I've found that when I'm feeling most depressed, its usually a factor of actions I either did or (more likely) did not do. 

If you're passively waiting for happiness to wash over you like a wave -- it's not going to happen. Instead, take action, do whatever the "right thing" is, and that feeling of warmth and fulfillment will follow of its own accord.

3. The world's idea of success is total shit. 

Don't get sucked into it. On television, on the street, when talking with friends or family - it seems like everyone confuses the concept of rewards with success itself. Whether it's money, fame, recognition, praise, sex, the rewards are not up to you -- they are all dependent on someone else. 

Instead, think of success as sustained effort of will. It begins and ends with YOU, and no one else. Think of any fantasy or goal you may have -- say you've always wanted to be a great artist. Imagine it. What does that look like? I guarantee you're thinking about palling around in Paris with beautiful women and having your art work admired in galleries and being given the Nobel prize - basically you're fantasizing about having been a great artist and not actually making the art. 

That way of thinking can totally mess you up because it once again puts the emphasis on passive recognition over active, sustained effort. The more you shift focus onto your own actions, the more you create sustained effort, and the more likely it is that the rewards will follow.

Lastly, as a bit of an addendum 

It's good to remember the difference between stopping and quitting. This helps me when I'm feeling a bit lost or down on myself -- or during those times when I've just chucked these three ideas to the wind and sat on the couch all day instead. 

If you've ever strayed from what you feel you were supposed to do or who you were supposed to be - remember that everyone has to stop. Whatever it is we're doing, whatever our grand ambitions are in life, we stop. We have to stop. We have to go to bed, or go on vacation, or we have a kid and not have much time to ourselves etc. 

But quitting is stopping without ever beginning again. So as long as you're here, as long as you're alive and pulling air through your lungs, you can begin again. And if you begin again, then you haven't quit. So begin again.

Hope this helps someone out there.

SOURCE

How to Find Happiness

The foundation for almost all marketing is to make us think, at some level, that what we're feeling about things right now isn't okay, and some product will make our lives better. They keep us off balance so we'll buy. This is advertising 101.

Since we're bombarded with messages like this, people get conditioned to think that's what life really is. To work at feeling good and to do whatever it takes to improve the shitty parts of their lives so they can, again, feel good. There's some truth in that, since we experience pain and pleasure for a reason, and they are useful emotions, but they're also very basic emotions. The net effect of these constant messages is that we become reduced to creatures who are basically just looking for the next high.

Encouraging deep personal satisfaction hurts the bottom line or, at the very least, it doesn't sell. And since most of the ideas we live by are filtered through a screen of marketers or have been filtered through that screen long ago, we just don't see ideas that don't sell as often. Its just not common knowledge anymore.

Think about the people you know. The vast majority of them don't think critically enough about information to be able to pick out good ideas and discard bad ones. Lots of people were basically raised by the media, or at least they picked up their mores from the media somehow or another.

Mass marketing, in other words. Ideas that sell. They were raised by parents who were bombarded by mass marketed messages, too. It was more basic back then, but it was still an important influence. So, ideas, even important ones that came through their parents were influenced, to some extent, by manufactured messages that sell.

That's why there are a bunch of poor people voting for Romney. Its why people are chucking phones they bought a year ago to go buy the newest one. It's why the divorce rate is through the roof and rising. The messages people hear are intended to make them chase emotional highs. To sell. When the high wears off, its time to buy something new. Or buy into something new.

You've got people who, their entire lives, have only heard that stuff or things or these really popular ideas or this or that will make them happy. Will change their lives from the outside in. When they buy into products, they experience a thrill and momentary satisfaction that reinforces the belief that x = happiness, but it fades when its newness wears off, but since whatever it is made them feel good, and happiness is feeling good, all we need to do is got get more happiness. The products don't always have to cost money, either. Money isn't the only currency we possess. We've also got time and attention.

So they get their high, then after a while its back to being unsatisfied and trying to figure out how to get that good feeling back. So they buy in again. They pick a side. They keep chasing feelings, running from bad ones, and the cycle repeats.

The biggest problem with all of it isn't necessarily that people are chasing happiness, it's that they don't understand what happiness is not. They're chasing an illusion of happiness strictly defined as a positive feeling. Or unhappiness strictly defined as a negative feeling.

Happiness isn't something the media or anyone else can define for you. It's up to you to figure out what happiness is for yourself. Your idea of happiness may differ from other people's idea of happiness, but you'll know it when you see it. But you can't do that if you're convinced that happiness is this or that or whatever, or that it's at the end of some endless trail and you'll get there eventually if you follow the breadcrumb emotional highs along the way, and if you buy this product or that it'll help you get further along.

I can't tell you what happiness is. I can't tell you what it is for me, even, cause I'm still figuring it out. All I can tell you is that lately, I've been far more interested in pursuing balance than just about anything else, and its helped me gain a perspective I never had the luxury of seeing from. I feel more... myself.

Feelings are weather. Not end states or goal states or happiness or unhappiness. We don't get angry at the world for raining on us even though we might not like it. We might feel better if the sun is shining, but we don't hate it if it's hidden behind some clouds. We don't abandon our lives just to find sunny places. Well, most of the time, anyway. Some people do. Most of us will just take trips every so often (and we should! Its fun!).

But the point is, we live where we live, and the weather is just the weather. We adapt to it, and work with it, we don't stamp our feet at the clouds and yell at them to stop raining. We put on a raincoat. We don't shoot at the sun when we get a sunburn. We wear sunblock. When it rains, we aren't cursing the planet because it rained, even if we might not be happy with it. We recognize it as a fact of life.

You live in your own world, and emotions are your personal weather. They're a fact of life. They come and go. When you see that, when you understand that, you stop trusting them to lead you to happiness, cause your feelings have no idea how to get you there.

How to Find Your Best Life

Know this right up front: it's okay to not have all the answers and it's okay to keep looking for answers.

It's easy to feel inferior in comparison to people based on what they share on social media or even on what they say in person. Keep in mind they're only showing you the highlight reel, not the outtakes and bloopers.
Happiness begins when comparison stops.

This guide might be inspiring: A Brief Guide to World Domination: How to Live a Remarkable Life in a Conventional World (PDF).

You hate your job. Should you quit today?

No. If you have bills, etc., that would be financially irresponsible.

But if you're not happy, you can start making plans. Start saving money, looking for other jobs, thinking places you'd rather live in, etc. Your goal is to build a "freedom fund" that will give you enough to quit your job and move somewhere else to find a better job. Your goal is to build a life more in line with what you want.

The first step: check in with yourself. Do this in a quiet place alone. Traveling by yourself can also do wonders for removing the external voices telling you what to do with your life (parents, family, friends, co-workers, etc.). Just go somewhere by yourself. Like a park or the library.

Ask yourself who you are, what you want, and other big questions like that. These can feel intimidating and difficult, especially if you haven't been alone for a while and have competing voices in your head from the people around you.

Who do you admire? It could be someone you know. It could be a successful person you've read about. Who do you look at that makes you think, "Man, I'd love to do what that person is doing"? Make a list. Keep finding more people who inspire you. If you read interviews of successful people, you'll often find they had an inspiring role model. Sometimes they had a relationship with that "mentor" sometimes not. The important thing was that it gave them a starting point.

Don't make the mistake of being seduced by someone's passion though, and think, "If I do the same job/career/business, I'll be as happy too!" Do you actually like the work itself, without getting interviewed on TV or being on magazine covers? Most people toil in obscurity.

A fun exercise is to imagine a future scenario of your perfect day. Let's say it's five years from now. There's a great quote by Bill Gates that goes like, "We overestimate what we can accomplish in one day, but underestimate how much we can accomplish in one year." So in five years you could go far.

The key thing is to let your imagination go wild, and silence the doubting voice that says, "That will never happen." Think of it like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.

What's your perfect day?

• You wake up. What kind of place do you live in? Log cabin in the forest? Modern loft in the middle of a bustling city? Villa by the beach? Where is your home? What city?
• You go to work. Where's your office? Maybe it's downtown, or maybe it's down the hall from your bedroom?
• There are photos on your office wall. Who are in the pictures with you? Friends? Family? Celebrities? Leaders in your industry? Attractive girlfriends? (or boyfriends, I'm not judging).
• There are photos of places you've been. Where are they? Cities? Jungles? Art galleries? Bungee jumping? Wine tasting? What experiences have you had you that you wanted to remember? (as your future self, not now).
• You check your e-mail. What kind of e-mails are in your inbox that make you smile? Happy customers who love your product? Fan letters saying how much they love your book/music/other creations?
• You get phone calls. Who's on the other end of the line? A businessperson with a multimillion-dollar deal to offer you? A reporter to interview you about your new project? A hot sexy person asking you out on a date? The answers are for your eyes only, and you get to decide how it's rated :)
• What do you do at work? Writing a book? Writing a business plan? Doing a Skype call with a big shot? Leading a meeting?

The next thing would be to start working backward. What steps did you take to get to that perfect day? For example, I did this exercise with a friend who's a writer. His novel is about a character running in a marathon.

• Perfect day: seeing the title of his novel on The New York Times bestseller list in the newspaper.

Starting to work backward, what things would have led to that moment?

• He was interviewed on national TV about his book. Gave him instant wide publicity and boosted sales.
• He had earlier been mentioned in a national newspaper article about running. A TV producer read the article, thought it was an interesting angle for a story, and called him up to fly to Burbank for an interview.
• My friend had set up Google Alerts to notify of him of any news stories about running. He built a list of reporters who'd written articles on the topic. He also signed up for Help A Reporter Out (HARO), where journalists seek sources for their articles.

Whenever he saw a chance to relate his novel to an upcoming story, he'd get in touch and offer himself as a source or someone who could provide some quotes. Most were not interested, but he kept trying. Eventually, he answered a posting on HARO by a reporter who was looking for people to interview for a story about running. He sent an e-mail as soon as he saw the posting, and then they e-mailed questions and answers back and forth, and used some of his quotes in the article. That started the ball rolling.

Another option is to make a set of lists of the things you want.

Use these categories to set your goals:

Have
Material things: Mansion, sports car, etc. Maybe the things you want are way cheaper. What matters is that you want it, not what you're told to want. Hint: go for tools that will help you with your hobbies, which will lead to . . .

Do
Occupation and hobbies: Write a novel, paint art, fly in a wingsuit (that shit is so badass!)

Be
A good friend, a donor to worthy causes, a supporter for things you believe in, a volunteer to improve other people's lives somehow, etc.

We'd all like to believe we're high-minded, evolved beings and jump straight to the "Be" goals, but you really need all three to be happy. Don't feel guilty about having desires. This is for you, so it's okay to be a bit selfish.

A similar way to think about these are

• pleasure (have)
• passion (do) 
• purpose (be) 

Once you have your list, get on Google and do the most fun research you'll ever do. What resources are out there that can help you get those things?

If you'd like to do a similar exercise, but with a video of someone guiding you along the way, you can watch this:

The 3 Most Important Questions to Ask Yourself

More resources:

'follow your passion' is wrong: Cal Newport speaks at World Domination Summit 2012 (Video)

Also good: Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation. What things make people happy while working? Pink breaks it down.

If you want to dive deep: The Overjustification Effect. Does getting paid to do what you love make you happy? Not necessarily, as this article explains.

The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor is a great book. He makes a convincing case that it's not "you become successful, then get happy." Instead, it's the reverse: you get happy, then become successful. He backs it with a lot of research and studies.

SOURCE

Happiness

A significant part of a person's unhappiness is caused by them constantly thinking only of themselves. The repetitive focus on self and their own unhappiness keeps that unhappiness vibrant. It's like a constant negative drumbeat inside them. But if they didn't think of themselves at all, how could they be unhappy?

Unhappiness is separate from problems, because everyone has problems and pains, but not everyone is unhappy.

One solution to unhappiness is to volunteer somewhere where people are suffering and need help -- like a hospital. Working for others in any kind of real way will interrupt the flow of repetitive negative self-talk and create room for love and compassion for others again, and happiness will then have room to flower.

Failure and Success:a Primer

The terms failure and success are extremely binary and give the world a black and white perspective. There's only success, or its opposite - failure, right? Maybe, but maybe not.
Think about taking an exam. Come test day you're excited because you studied hard and you're ready to try your hardest to get that A you've been dreaming of. Let's explore the idea of you failing. Should you be upset that you failed? Maybe, but you gave it your all. You failed in arguably the best way possible.

Let's take the example of you failing, again. This time you didn't study, and you did even worse than in the case above. You're going to be upset that you failed, but let's be honest, we both know that you were unprepared. You didn't challenge yourself and you didn't aim to be your best. Even if you had passed the exam, you still failed yourself.

Let's look at that example now; you passed, but you got lucky and didn't study. Sure you can give yourself an imaginary pat on the back or brag to your friends, "I got an A and I didn't even open the book!" but when it comes time to apply that knowledge, you'll be sorry that you didn't study. If there's a cumulative final, then you're going to have to spend extra nights completely relearning that material because you might not be so lucky next time.

This last example is obviously the favorite. You passed and you worked damn hard to do it. You're proud, you're happy, you did it! All of those hours cramming made it so worthwhile and now you've got this rockin' GPA along with the material (somewhat) fresh in your memory. Come finals time you'll be able to knock it out of the park.

Now, in these examples, this is the most common ranking list:

1. Tried your hardest, passed.
2. Didn't try, passed.
3. Tried your hardest, failed.
4. Didn't try, failed.

But that's because the "didn't try" option can still theoretically yield passing results in that example. Let's take another example, asking somone out. The listing changes to:

1. Asked him/her out (tried), got number
2. Asked him/her out (tried), got rejected
3. Didn't ask him/her out (didn't try), live with regret

In the test example, trying leaves you with either with the best outcome, or the 3rd best.

In the asking out example, trying leaves you with either the best or 2nd best outcome.

In almost any example, not trying is going to leave you with possibly the worst outcome.

Therefore you shouldn't focus on succeeding or failing, but trying. You should always aim to do your best possible and outdo your former self. If you're constantly outdoing yourself then eventually you won't even have to worry about failing, you'll only have to worry about not being better than who you once were.

On Owning a Home

Having a house in the suburbs which generates no income or food is a manufactured idea. It is manufactured to make wage slaves. You are not middle class if you own one of these money pits and you don't have at least several million in money generating assets. You are getting paid by your masters to pay for your: car(s), house, medical bills, food, incidentals, taxes, children's education, and inflation. Oh, and you get to keep the rest.

The people who were sold these purported investments were swindled. They were swindled right out of their happiness, health, and money generating skills. Now all they have is a building which is under a mountain of debt. It might as well be a pile of dirt, wood, and stone. Oh wait, it is. These poor souls are dependent on the infrastructure around them to continue functioning. They are not free, they think they are free. They think they are free because there are no chains on their feet or bars on their windows.

Astonishingly enough they are held with nothing more than a promise. This promise is shown to them on every TV, in every magazine ad, and in every supermarket. It is the American dream of a house in the suburbs and a college degree which has been sold to untold millions. Everyone knows how the housing bubble turned out for so many of these families.

The status quo will not change because we live in a sea of passivity, nothing matters because there are no problems knocking at our doors. Everything is an ocean away and there is no need to get upset because everything will be alright in the end. Be happy that you get to watch your movies and TV shows and play your video games. If you don't like your life just escape into something when you come home. Facing reality is tough.

If your current life making you happy? We are an isolated, depressed, and enslaved people. Just think about what I am saying as you live your daily life. Check out Open Source Ecology. They will free your soul, real freedom is so close. Don't let them take it from you.

Are you happy? Truly? What would you be happiest doing? Hint: It's not a yacht, helicopter, hookers, and blow. Money does not bring happiness.

Every day we have a choice, what are you going to do with your day? If it is not the thing you wish to do, then why in the fuck are you doing it? You are going to die. If you have some shit you want to do you better hurry the fuck up.

The world is happening to you. Do you want your control back? You are going to have to fight for it, and it will be uncomfortable and difficult. Do you think all of your forefathers who fought for their freedom got to sit on their couches? You come from a long line of awesomely savage creatures and your lineage stretches back to the dawn of life on earth. Act like it.