6 Rules
1. Trust yourself Dig deep down, who do you really want to be? Not your parents or teachers, but you. 2. Break the rules It is impossible to be a maverick or true original if you don’t break the rules. You have to think outside of the box. 3. Don’t be afraid to fail You can’t always win, but don’t be afraid of making decisions.
Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.
Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded…sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
Or, to look at it from the other end of the telescope: Who, in your life, do you remember most fondly, with the most undeniable feelings of warmth? Those who were kindest to you, I bet.
It’s a little facile, maybe, and certainly hard to implement, but I’d say, as a goal in life, you could do worse than: Try to be kinder.
What’s yours? How will you serve the world? What do they need that your talent can provide? That’s all you have to figure out. As someone who has done what you are about to go do, I can tell you from experience, the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is.
That peace that we’re after, lies somewhere beyond personality, beyond the perception of others, beyond invention and disguise, even beyond effort itself.
3 Stories 1. Connecting the dots He took a calligraphy class at Reed College. 10 years later it all came back to him and used that knowledge in the Mac. It’s impossible to connect the dots looking forward. You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. If you simply do enough things and show curiosity with the ability to learn, eventually they’ll fit together in some fashion.