How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion

Striving makes you happy. Pursuit is the opposite of depression. People at the end of their life, who said they were the happiest with their life, were the ones who had spent the most time in the flow of fascinating work.

Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work.

Information doesn’t stick without emotion. You learn better when you’re having fun.

Success in business comes from helping people — bringing the most happiness to the most people.

Life is determined not by causes, but by randomness and odds.

The biggest obstacle to learning is assuming you already know. Confidence is usually ignorance.

Since you can’t avoid problems, just find good problems. Happiness isn’t everlasting tranquility. Happiness is solving good problems.

Go make memories. Do memorable things. Experience the unusual. Pursue novelty. Replace your routines. Live in different places. Change your career every few years. These unique events will become anchors for your memories.

Things are going to get harder. The future will test your strength. So far, you’ve lived in a time of prosperity. You haven’t experienced massive devastation, but you probably will.

You have different sides to your personality, with conflicting needs. Instead of ignoring one, make sure you balance them. Balance time with others and time alone. Balance your need for stability with your need for surprise. Balance input and output, consumption and creation, stability and adventure, body and spirit. Your opposing needs become each other’s remedy.

Here’s how to live: Make memories.

So try to be wrong. Try to disprove your beliefs. Never believe something on faith. Prove it or disprove it. While other people have one idea that they think might work, you will have thousands you can prove didn’t work, and one you couldn’t make fail.

Jump into action without hesitation or worry. You’ll be faster and do more than everyone else. What takes them a month will take you an hour, so you can do it ten times a day.

Avoid Europe and anywhere that lives in the past. Places that resist change have no vision, only memories. Yesterday is gone for good.

Every year, visit Singapore, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Lagos, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City, and Silicon Valley. Each is creating the future in very different ways.

The future is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Picture all the things that could go wrong. Prepare for each, so they won’t surprise or hurt you.

Your whole experience of life is in your mind. Focus on your internal world, not external world.

When a problem is bothering you, it feels like you need to do something about it. Instead, identify what belief is really the source of your trouble. Replace that belief with one that doesn’t bother you. Then the problem is solved. Most problems are really just situations.

So if you want to help humanity while having the most exciting life, then the way to live is to be a famous pioneer.

A famous pioneer does more for human progress than a billion others who live a normal life.

Pain’s power relies on surprise. If you expect it, it’s weaker. If you choose it, it’s gone.

Making money is proof you’re adding value to people’s lives. Aiming to get rich is aiming to be useful to the world. It’s striving to do more for others. Serving more. Sharing more. Contributing more. The world rewards you for creating value. Pursue wealth because it’s moral, good, and unlimited. Money is social. It was invented to transfer value between people. One job pays way more than another because it has more social value. To get rich, don’t think about what’s valuable to you. Think about what’s valuable to others.

Let the random generator decide what you do, where you go, and who you meet. It’ll scramble your habits. It’ll break the myth of causality. It’ll guide you to see places you’d never ordinarily see, and do what you never would have done.

How long will it take you to become a master? It doesn’t matter. Imagine getting to a mountaintop after a long hike through a gorgeous forest. Achieving your goal would feel like taking off your backpack. That’s all. You do it for the journey, not the destination.

Your biggest obstacle to getting rich is the harmful meaning you’ve attached to it. Your biggest advantage can be projecting a helpful meaning onto it.

Everything good comes from some kind of pain. Muscle fatigue makes you healthy and strong. The pain of practice leads to mastery. Difficult conversations save your relationships. But if you avoid pain, you avoid improvement. Avoid embarrassment, and you avoid success. Avoid risk, and you avoid reward.

Nothing twice. Never eat the same food twice. Never go to the same place twice. Never hear the same thing twice. Everything only once.

Ask open-ended questions, asking people’s thoughts. Ask them to elaborate on whatever they’ve said. Show that you’re interested. Allow silence.

The past? That’s what we call our memories. The future? That’s what we call our imagination. Neither exists outside of your mind. The only real time is this moment. So live accordingly. Whatever benefits you right now is the right choice.

We overestimate what we can do in one year. We underestimate what we can do in ten years.