Something to Keep
“If you have to convince someone to love you, then they don’t love you. If you have to cajole someone into respecting you, then they don’t respect you. The most precious things in life cannot be bargained with.”
Mark Manson
“A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought — they must be earned.”
Naval Ravikant
A Second Look
One of the biggest misconceptions in the world of self-development is that if you think about something long enough, it’ll become true. I think the path to self-development starts when you accept you’re not special and that you don’t deserve special treatment. For many people, this sounds painful, but I find it liberating.
How much you get out of your short experience on this planet depends on how much you give. What you look like, what you have, and who you’re with tell more about yourself than you think. Whether you want to admit it or not, they’re a reflection of you and your habits.
The people I respect and admire the most have devoted their lives to learning hard skills. They’re the ones willing to have hard conversations. They say no when everyone else agrees. They don’t cut corners. And they do all these things not because they’re worried what others think of them, but because of what they’ll think of themselves.
You can read the best self-development books ever written, but the truth can be condensed to a single sentence: sleep well, exercise often, socialize with the right people, and find something you love and do it with reckless abandon. Save yourself; no one can do it for you.
Something I Liked
As soon as I was done writing the first two sections of this newsletter, Mark Manson released a new video. In it, the best-selling author discusses the risks of using AI. He started talking about this in a general sense, but in the video’s conclusion, he points out the importance of cultivating inconvenience in your life.
The most important authors in the self-development world have talked about this in some way or another (Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and I could go on and on). The goal in life, Manson says, isn’t to chase happiness. The goal is to chase inconvenience because we thrive on it. The only way to grow is through disruption. That’s how we learn stuff, find a partner, and make sense of the world.
The most important things in the world demand stress. I know that’s not a popular thing to say. The kind of stress that kills us is chronic stress, but we have to experience stress every once in a while to grow.
Manson closes his video with something along these lines: “Control your emotions and challenge yourself. Otherwise, AI will take over not just your job, but your life.” I couldn’t have said it better.