Info Last Updated: 5-18-2025
This is an evergrowing log of ideas, thoughts, and small excerpts that have stood out to me over the years. It used to live as a Note on my phone, but there’s some value in imparting it back out to the world. Many of the these revolve around the theme of doing your most authentic and best work and others align with the values I hold dearly. I’ve often come back to this note in search of some words of encouragement or when I’ve felt a little lost.
Various Quotes
“Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.” — Raymond Joseph Teller
“Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.” — Haruki Murakami
“Competence is how good you are when there is something to gain. Character is how good you are when there is nothing to gain. People will reward you for competence. But people will only love you for your character.” — Mark Manson
“You only need to know the direction, not the destination. The direction is enough to make the next choice.”
This quote was an interesting one shared to me by my uncle at a pivotal point in my life. I had just graduated college and in a conversation about how I felt about the next steps of my life I shared an incomplete sentiment about the pressure of all the other goals I hoped to achieve and the pressure bought on by not knowing which path to take in pursuit of them. I’ve always been very clear on many of the personal goals since I was a young child, generally I am always preoccupied mentally by a motivating force which helps direct what I prioritize. One of the biggest goals for me has always been how to achieve financial stability for my parents. The steps until college were quite clear which was to study to be able to secure a good job. But that’s almost like the first step. After college the next steps on how to achieve that aren’t quite defined since there’s a lot of different approaches and ways to get there. eal life was really the ultimate choose your own adventure. Realistically its impossible to know everything about a decision before making it or knowing how something will pan out. For me this can lead to inaction or anxiety, but this quote has helped a lot throughout the years by reminding me that I don’t need perfect information about every step, but rather I just need to take the first step in somewhat of the right direction and ultimately you’ll get to where you want to be. In technical terms like a Machine Learning’s random walk towards an optimal set. A lot of friends throughout the years have shared a similar sentiment of feeling lost and I’ve relayed the same advice “just worry about taking the next step, over time all the steps will make up the full path”.
“Is what I’m about to do a step toward or away from what’s important?”
“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight." — Jim Rohn
“I always entertain the notion that I’m wrong, or that I’ll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.” When you see someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you, ask yourself what the world would have to look like to you for those actions to make sense. — Anthony Bourdain
The most practical skill in life is learning to do things when you don’t feel like doing them. Anyone can do it when it’s easy, but most people drop out the minute easy stops.
“If you really want to quit, you can quit tomorrow, but you can’t quit today.” No one ever quit the next day. The person who is consistent outperforms the person who is intermittent every time. While inconsistent effort works for some things, for the things that really matter you need to be consistent. If you want to be consistent, you need strategies to keep you going when things are hard.
Complexity is like energy. It cannot be created or destroyed, only moved somewhere else.
What I want most is for someone to see my mildew as beautiful. Without the context of what they were born into, and what they went through, a poor person’s life easily looks ugly, failed, worthless. I’d like somebody to enter my empty apartment and understand, without me having to put it in words, that I have a rich inner world. Never owning much to look at has made me sensitive to minds and hearts, and this is how I have best made something of myself, something out of nothing.
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson
“What makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. The battle. The struggle. Even if you don’t win it.”
“Most people write to sound smart when they should write to be useful. Communicating to sound smart lowers your potential for impact. The harder people have to work to understand you, the less they want your input. Writing to be useful means writing what you would want to read. Simple, but not easy.”
The very best don’t have to turn it on. It’s always on. They have to turn it off.
Big ambitions, low expectations, and high standards are a powerful combination for living your best life.
“The cold water doesn’t get warmer if you jump late.” — Unknown
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.” — C. S. Lewis
Ambitions pull you forward when it’s hard. They connect you to something larger. One of my most important ambitions is to be a great father and friend. Another is to leave the world a better place than I found it. You can’t have a meaningful life without a connection to something larger than yourself.
Reality minus expectations = happiness. You will never be happy unless your expectations are exceeded. If you think the world owes you something, you’re going to end up disappointed. The world doesn’t owe you anything. You can’t sit around waiting for the world to come and hand you what you think you deserve. If you want something to happen, you have to take action. Go positive and go first.
High standards - When it gets hard, do not lower your standards. I am not always at my best, but I always give my best. I hold myself to a high bar. I don’t always meet it, but I won’t lower the bar to feel better about myself.
“If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they’re not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns, and they spread themselves out. … Greatness isn’t easy to achieve. It requires a lot of time, a lot of sacrifices. It requires a lot of tough choices. It requires your loved ones to sacrifice, too. So you have to have an understanding circle of family and friends. People don’t always understand just how much effort from how many people goes into one person chasing a dream to be great. There’s a fine balance between obsessing about your craft and being there for your family. It’s akin to walking a tightrope. Your legs are shaky, and you’re trying to find your center. Whenever you lean too far in one direction, you correct your course and end up over leaning in the other direction. So you correct by leaning the other way again. That’s the dance. You can’t achieve greatness by walking a straight line.” — Kobe Bryant
“I love metaphors, and for me hustling is the ultimate metaphor for the basic human struggles: the struggle to survive and resist, the struggle to win and to make sense of it all.” — Jay Z
“When you know what needs to be done, inaction increases stress. You feel a lot less stress when you do the things within your control that move you closer to your objective. Action reduces stress.”
“If you survive long enough to see tomorrow, it may bring you the answer that seems so impossible today.”
“Nobody wants to believe happiness is a choice, because that puts responsibility in their hands. It’s the same reason people self-pity: to delay action, to make an outcry to the universe, as though the more they state how bad things are, the more likely it is that someone else will change them." — Brianna Wiest
“Writing is nature’s way of telling us how lousy our thinking is." — Leslie Lamport
Two rules to help you be consistent
- Show up.
- You can quit tomorrow. Repeat.
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn’t stop you from doing anything at all.” — Richard Feynman
“People are always looking for happiness at some future time and in some new thing, or some new set of circumstances, in possession of which they some day expect to find themselves. But the fact is, if happiness is not found now, where we are, and as we are, there is little chance of it ever being found. There is a great deal more happiness around us day by day than we have the sense or the power to seek and find.” — Thomas Mitchell
“Yes, talent matters. I’m not going to stand here and tell you it doesn’t. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit. In tennis, like in life, discipline is also a talent. And so is patience. Trusting yourself is a talent. Embracing the process—loving the process—is a talent. Managing your life, managing yourself. These can be talents, too. Some people are born with them. Everybody has to work at them.” — Roger Federer
One more
The difference between failure and success is often just staying with a problem a little longer. One more rep. One more step. One more minute. One more revision. One more attempt. The difference between average and outstanding is often just one more.
Humility
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”— Epictetus
Humility is the anecdote to arrogance. Humility is a recognition that we don’t know, that we were wrong, that we’re not better than anyone else. Humility keeps you wondering what you’re missing or if someone is working harder than you. And yet when pride and arrogance take over, humility flees and so does our ability to learn, adapt, and build lasting relationships with others. Humility won’t let you take credit for luck. And humility is the voice in your mind that doesn’t let small victories seem larger than they are. Humility is the voice inside your head that says, ‘anyone can do it once, that’s luck. Can you do it consistently?’
Prioritize how to fill your life
A high school science teacher wanted to demonstrate a concept to his students. He takes a large-mouth jar and places several large rocks in it. He then asks the class, “Is it full?” Unanimously, the class replies, “Yes!” The teacher then takes a bucket of gravel and pours it into the jar. The small rocks settle into the spaces between the big rocks. He then asks the class, “Is it full?” This time there are some students holding back, but most reply, “Yes!” The teacher then produces a large can of sand and proceeds to pour it into the jar. The sand fills up the spaces between the gravel. For the third time, the teacher asks, “Is it full?” Most of the students are wary of answering, but again, many reply, “Yes!” Then the teacher brings out a pitcher of water and pours it into the jar. The water saturates the sand. At this point, the teacher asks the class, “What is the point of this demonstration?” One bright young student raises his hand and then responds, “No matter how full one’s schedule is in life, he can always squeeze in more things!” “No,” replies the teacher, “The point is that unless you first place the big rocks into the jar, you are never going to get them in. The big rocks are the important things in your life …your family, your friends, your personal growth. If you fill your life with small things, as demonstrated by the gravel, the sand, and the water…you will never have the time for the important things. So, what are the “Big Rocks” in your life? Spending time with your children, your parents or your spouse? Taking the seminar or class to get the information and perspective you need to succeed? Making the time to set goals, plan or evaluate your progress? When you are hassled because there is no time, remember the story about the Big Rocks and the Jar!”
Expressing ourselves
“We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone- because we have the impulse to explain who we are. Not just how tall we are, or thin… but who we are internally… perhaps even spiritually. There’s something, which impels us to show our inner-souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.” — Maya Angelou