James Clear on being pleasant and having a good attitude

vutran | Nov. 7, 2021, 9 a.m.

"Being pleasant and having a good attitude is a simple way to become luckier.

Opportunities come through people, and people are more likely to bring opportunities to people they like.

It's hard to win if your attitude adds friction to every interpersonal experience."

— James Clear

James Clear on decisive advantage through delay gratification

vutran | Nov. 7, 2021, 8:58 a.m.

"Most people optimize for the day ahead. A few people optimize for 1-2 years ahead. Almost nobody optimizes for 3-4 years ahead (or longer).

The person who is willing to delay gratification longer than most reduces competition and gains a decisive advantage.

Patience is power."

— James Clear

Shane Parrish on the cost of execution vs ideas

vutran | Nov. 2, 2021, 6:37 a.m.

"Ideas are cheap. Execution is expensive. The ability to execute separates people, not the ability to come up with ideas."

— Shane Parrish

Painter Arshile Gorky on the endless nature of craftsmanship

vutran | Oct. 30, 2021, 8:21 a.m.

"I don't like that word 'finish'. When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while.

I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often.

The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting."

— Arshile Gorky

James Clear on course of action for happiness, meaning and satisfaction

vutran | Oct. 30, 2021, 8:17 a.m.

"We often make choices based on immediate outcomes. What can I do to experience a little joy in the next 30 minutes? What can I accomplish in the next hour? 

But if you always expect to get a little bit of reward for a little bit of effort, then you often overlook actions that lead to greater payoffs down the road. The relationship between input and output is rarely linear. 

The course of action that could provide greater happiness, meaning, or satisfaction in the long run may not make you happy in the next 30 minutes."

— James Clear

Jeff Bezo on Regret Minimization Framework

vutran | Sept. 19, 2021, 8 a.m.

Finding happiness through passion

vutran | Aug. 29, 2021, 9:30 a.m.

3 types of happiness: pleasure, passion, and higher purpose.

1. Pleasure: This type of happiness is about always chasing the next high, very hard to maintain.
2. Passion: Also known as “flow,” where peak performance meets peak engagement, and time flies by.
3. Higher Purpose: This is about being part of something bigger than yourself that has meaning to you.

The happiness that arises from pleasure is highly unsustainable. Once the pleasurable stimulus ceases, or if you habituate to it, then your happiness returns to your default set point. Happiness that arises from flow is much more sustainable and you are far less likely to habituate to it. Happiness arising from higher purpose, is highly sustainable, this form of happiness is very resilient and can last for a very long time, especially if that higher purpose has an altruistic origin.

Interestingly, we instinctively chase after pleasure believing it to be the source of sustainable happiness. Many of us spend most of our time and energy chasing pleasure, sometimes enjoying flow, and once in a while, we think about higher purpose. Happiness insight suggests we should be doing precisely the reverse. We should be spending most of our time and energy working on higher purpose, sometimes enjoying flow, and every now and then, savoring rock-star pleasure. This is the most logical path toward sustainable happiness.

— Chade Meng Tan, Tony Hsieh in Search Inside Yourself

1 path for Passion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai

for Higher Purpose