Some of these key life lessons include: 

1. Resolve all conflicts before you go

People carry so much baggage, unnecessarily, all through their life only wanting to drop it at the very end of their journey. The trick lies not in not having conflicts but in resolving them as soon as one can,

2. Simplicity is the truth of life

People stop eating indulgent food when they know they are going to go. The understanding that dawns on many people in their final days is that they should’ve lived a simple life. They regret that the most.

3. Filter out people’s bad traits

If you focus on the good qualities though, you spend that time getting to know them better or, maybe even, loving them.

4. Be willing to seek help from others

We must help others, but more importantly, have the courage to seek help when we’re in need. Every person in the world knows more than us in some respect. And their knowledge can help us, only if we’re open to it.

5. Find beauty in simple things

Pause to appreciate small things and find beauty in them. If minds are pre-occupied with “seemingly” more important things,  it is hard to find joy in small things.

6. Acceptance is liberation

Accept the situation so you are free to think what you want to do about it and how. Acceptance will liberate you and empower you.

7. Accepting everyone as the same makes service easier

The day you treat everyone the same is the day you breathe light and worry less about who might feel offended or not. Make your job easier.

8. If/When you find your purpose, do something about it

Take action on what truly matters.

9. Habits become values

Building good habits happens over time, with practice. “It’s like building a muscle; you have to keep at it everyday.”

10. Choose what you want to learn

The key lesson here is to be mindful of choosing what you deeply feel will be of value to you.

11. You don’t break ties with people; you break ties with the thought they produce

The divorce is with the thought and never with the person. To understand that is to unburden yourself from being bitter and revengeful.

12. 10 percent of what you earn should be kept aside for dharma

keep 10 percent of your income for goodwill.

/via @Project_Fuel (Source)

We want to understand “life means for us constantly to transform into light and flame all that we are or meet with” we are “one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions”. We want to know that little things are little and big things big and realize that fast. We want to see things now as they seem forever –“in the light of eternity”. “To be a philosopher “ said Thoreau “is not merely to have subtle thoughts , nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity independence magnanimity and trust”. Bacon admonishes “Seek ye first the god things of the mind”. Truth will not make us rich but will make us free.

“There is nothing so absurd but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers” said Cicero. Doubtless some philosophers have had all sorts of wisdom except common sense. Science seems to always advance but philosophy seems to lose ground. Every science begins as a philosophy and ends as an art. It arises in hypothesis and ends in achievement. Philosophy is the hypothetical interpretation of the unknown it’s the front trench in the siege of truth. It seems to stand still perplexed but only because it leaves the fruits of victory to science and passes on divinely content to the uncertain and unexplored.

Philosophy means and includes five fields of study and discourse: logic, esthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphysics. Logic is the study of ideal method in thought and research, observation and introspection, deduction and induction, hypothesis and experiment, analysis and synthesis. Esthetics is the study of ideal form or beauty. It’s the philosophy of art. Ethics is study of ideal conduct the highest knowledge said Socrates is the knowledge of good and evil the knowledge of the wisdom of life. Politics is the study f ideal social organization; monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, socialism, anarchism, and feminism-these are the dramatis personae of political philosophy. And lastly metaphysics is study of the ultimate reality of all things of the real and the unreal and final nature of “matter” of “mind” and the interrelation of mind and matter in the process of perception and knowledge.

So let us just listen to these men, ready to forgive them their passing errors and eager to learn the lessons which they are so eager to teach. “Do you then be reasonable and do not mind whether teachers of philosophy are good or bad but think only of philosophy. Try to examine it well and truly and if its evil seek to turn away all men from it but if it is what I believe it is then follow it and be of good cheer” said Socrates to Crito.

• Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

I’ve long enjoyed his detailed notes from reading 200+ books but found new found respect when he tried to distill knowledge + wisdom he gained into a set of directives through his latest post. Thank you Derek!

Reproducing it as a cheatsheet for my easy reference: 

How to be useful to others

1. Get famous. The more people you reach, the more useful you are. 2. Get rich. Getting rich is double-useful, you add value + spend it in useful ways 3. Share strong opinions. People will either adopt or aruge against you. 4. Be expensive. People will value it more and get more use of it.

How to get rich

1. Live where luck strikes. Be right in the middle of everything. 2. Say yes to everything. Nothing is too small. Do it all. Like lottery tickets. 3. Learn the multiplying skills. Skills that multiply the success of your main pursuit. 4. Pursue market value not personal value. Follow the money. It tells you where you’re most valuable. 5. Shamelessly imitate success. Get great at executing other people’s ideas as well as your own. 6. Be the owner, not just inventor. To get rich, be the owner. Own as close to 100% as possible. 7. Benefit from human nature. Just learn the game, then play it

How to thrive in an unknowable future

1. Prepare for the worst. Just prepare, then carry on appreciating the good times. 2. Expect disaster. Expect it all to disappear. 3. Own as little as possible. The less you own, the less you’re affected by disaster. 4. Choose opportunity, not loyalty. Have loyalty for only your most important human relationships. 5. Choose the plan with the most options. That lets you change your plans. 6. Avoid planning. Wait until the last moment to make each decision.

How to like people

1. Assume it’s their last day. Treat them accordingly. 2. Be who you’d be when alone. When in a crowd, be the same person you’d be when alone. 3. Assume men and women are the same. Counteract your tendency to exaggerate the differences. 4. Always make new friends. Let go of people that don’t welcome and encourage your change. 5. Avoid harming the relationship. It’s more effective than seeking the positive. 6. Act calm and kind. Regardless of how you feel. 7. Don’t try to change them. Don’t teach a lesson… unless they asked you to. 8. Find wisdom in your opponents. Engage those who think opposite of you. 9. Purge the vampires. Get rid of people that drain you.

What to do when you get successful

1. Change yes to “Hell yeah!” or no. Now say no to anything that makes you say anything less than “Hell yeah!” 2. Keep momentum. If you stop that forward motion you can never get it back.

How to stop being rich and happy

1. Prioritize lifestyle design. Make your immediate gratification the most important thing. 2. Chase that comparison moment. Do it! Be happy for a week. After, seek happiness from another new thing. 3. Buy, not rent. 4. Internalize your new status. 5. Be a connoisseur. 6. Get to know your possessions. 7. Acclimate to comfort.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.           - Emerson, self reliance essay

*I may be numberless, I may be innocent I may know many things, I may be ignorant Or I could ride with kings and conquer many lands Or win this world at cards and let it slip my hands *

Thanks to Sting, for their ‘A Thousand Years’ song.

if you do not travel, if you do not read, If you do not listen to the sounds of life, If you do not appreciate yourself.

You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;When you do not let others help you.

You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits, Walking everyday on the same paths…If you do not change your routine, If you do not wear different colors
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.

You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And it’s turbulent emotions;Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love, or with  your surroundings.If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain, If you do not go after a dream, If you do not allow yourself, At least once in your lifetime, To run away from sensible advice…

~ Pablo Neruda

Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.

So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?

The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all, or not with tangible goals, anyway. It would take reams of paper to develop this subject to fulfillment. God only knows how many books have been written on “the meaning of man” and that sort of thing, and god only knows how many people have pondered the subject. (I use the term “god only knows” purely as an expression.)* There’s very little sense in my trying to give it up to you in the proverbial nutshell, because I’m the first to admit my absolute lack of qualifications for reducing the meaning of life to one or two paragraphs.

• Hunter S. Thompson