I'll be out of the country travelling to India for a wedding for the next two weeks so excuse my shortage of postings, but here's some life lessons to keep you going:
- Continue to read and learn and always be genuinely interested in people. You'll be surprised how fascinating life is when you exchange ideas with others.
- Have the courage to pursue what you want. You've probably heard this one before and probably have thought of it at one point at the other, but its worth re-enforcing The most common regret people have about their careers is about not taking 'that chance.'
- Nothing in the life is useless. That being said, doing menial tasks everyday isn't going to teach you a lot, but if you add some learning to it via some form of media(pop you're headphones in and listen to a podcast or something) you might just become a better person.
And if you see others pursuing things that you might think are useless then remember what Abraham Flexner said, "you merely have to find the catalyst or be the catalyst to the useless to become the useful." - Find an alternative purpose - The most successful and happy people I've met in life are the ones who weren't obsessed with their careers or anything for that matter, but were the ones who always found other interests in hobbies or their family lives to accentuate their primary passions.
That being said, here's something interesting on happiness:
"It is[happiness], in large part, about giving something to the world that makes the world a better place. That could be goods or services or your time or something else. Who knows? But happiness is not merely the pursuit of personal happiness, but providing something to your surroundings that gives other people reason to value your contribution." - Cullen Roche - Friendship is the rum of life, pursue it. It's also a lot different than family relationships because friends are not held by obligations but by shared interests.
- Listen to your parents but take their advice with a grain of salt. Parents want what's good for you, but not what's best for you - they don't understand that sometimes the path to what's best for you is through pain,suffering and self-actualization.
- Write more - you'll be surprised how much more you remember from writing than just by reading or listening.
- Keep Fit - Not only is this good for you're body and will keep your healthcare costs down when you get old(yes, we all get there someday), but it will also be essential to become a leader. Think of you're body as a business - if people observe you and see you as someone who can't even execute their life in order, why would they trust you with a company?
- Always be anti-fragile.
- The world runs on the premise of social proof. Kitty Genovese was murdered in public with 38 witnesses and no one helped her. Society is just like that where people see others and act / don't act based on what others think. Don't succumb to mass-hysteria and make decisions that are independently thought out by you.
