Things I believe

I should live deliberately.

a.      Life is short, and it is precious. We should live it the best we can.

b.     Living the best we can requires identifying what we want to optimize for and then optimizing for it. The best way to optimize is to approach the problem deliberately.

c.      Living deliberately involves living in a prioritized way. We should identify what is most important to us, and then invest our resources towards those priorities in amounts relative to their importance.

d.     One useful metaphor is to treat our life as a structure: first we must build a foundation. Then we build successive supporting layers on top of that foundation, each layer serving as a foundation for all layers above it.

 Living is an art, one that requires constant learning.

a.      We can learn a lot from others before us and around us, but we should also pay attention to our own unique needs, strengths, and weaknesses.

b.     Reading and having meaningful conversations with others are among the best ways to learn about others.

c.      Self-reflection, journaling, and practicing mindfulness are a great way to learn about oneself.

      If there’s one thing to optimize for in life, it’s happiness (or more broadly, psychological fulfillment).

a.      Optimizing happiness requires optimizing many other variables in balance. Those variables include: purpose, gratitude, awe, love, significance, fun, mindfulness, wisdom, health, contribution, and others.

b.     Most of my happiness is within my control. I should always seek ways to change myself before seeking to change others.

c.      The final stage of the good life is the transcendent life. This means transcending the self by changing one's self-identity or by living in the service of something beyond oneself.

      I should serve both my present and my future self.

a.      Most of the time, it is better to think of myself as an entity persisting over time.

b.     But sometimes it is good to acknowledge that this sense of identity exists only in my mind (and in others’), and in reality I am a constructed concept.

      It is more beneficial to focus on the process than the outcome.

a.      Good processes ensure good outcomes.

b.     Process-orientation allows one to stay focused on the present, which is better because we live only in the present.

c.      Outcome-orientation is often the result of seeking superficial objects, like status or wealth, and inaccurately predicts how much happiness we will gain from attaining those goals.

d.     The best way to live a process-oriented life is to build good habits and to pay attention more to the present than to the past or future.

      We have the capacity to change.

a.      We can manipulate our thoughts, desires, and beliefs.

b.     Each individual is the best agent for changing himself.

c.      We should use neuroplasticity to our advantage, in a way that best allows us to achieve our goals.

      Certainty is impossible.

a.      The only imperatives that one can reliably know are hypothetical imperatives. In other words, knowledge about what we should do can exist only in the context of a stated goal.

b.     Because certainty is impossible, having a pragmatic approach towards life is more often better than having an idealistic one.

c.      But where one does have certainty, one should exercise idealism. Sacrificing for one’s beliefs is an act of integrity and of service to those beliefs.