Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly

Forget trying to decide what your life's destiny is. That's too grand. Instead, just figure out what you should do in the next 2 years.

Aim to be effective, but unpredictable. That is, you want to act in a way that AIs have trouble modeling or imitating. That makes you irreplaceable.

Whenever you hug someone, be the last to let go.

Don't save up the good stuff (fancy wine, or china) for that rare occasion that will never happen; instead use them whenever you can.

The best gardening advice: find what you can grow well and grow lots and lots of it.

Never hesitate to invest in yourself - to pay for a class, a course, a new skill. These modest expenditures pay outsized dividends.

Try to define yourself by what you love and embrace, rather than what you hate and refuse.

Read a lot of history so you can understand how weird the past was; that way you will be comfortable with how weird the future will be.

To make a room luxurious, remove things, rather than add things.

Interview your parents while they are still alive. Keep asking questions while you record. You'll learn amazing things. Or hire someone to make their story into an oral history, or documentary, or book. This will be a tremendous gift to them and to your family.

If you think someone is normal, you don't know them very well. Normalcy is a fiction. Your job is to discover their weird genius.

When shopping for anything physical (souvenirs, furniture, books, tools, shoes, equipment), ask yourself: where will this go? Don't buy it unless there is a place it can live. Something may need to leave in order for something else to come in.

You owe everyone a second chance, but not a third.

When someone texts you they are running late, double the time they give you. If they say they'll be there in 5, make that 10; if 10, it'll be 20; if 20, count on 40.

Multitasking is a myth. Don't text while walking, running, biking or driving. Nobody will miss you if you just stop for a minute.

You can become the world's best in something primarily by caring more about it than anyone else.

Asking "what-if?" about your past is a waste of time; asking "what-if?" about your future is tremendously productive.

Try to make the kind of art and things that will inspire others to make art and things.

Once a month take a different route home, enter your house by a different door, and sit in a different chair at dinner. No ruts.

Where you live - what city, what country - has more impact on your well-being than any other factor. Where you live is one of the few things in your life you can choose and change.

Every now and then throw a memorable party. The price will be steep, but long afterwards you will remember the party, whereas you won't remember how much is in your checking account.

Most arguments are not really about the argument, so most arguments can't be won by arguing.

The surest way to be successful is to invent your own definition of success. Shoot your arrows first and then paint a bull's eye around where they land. You're the winner!

When remodeling a home interior use big pieces of cardboard to mock-up your alterations at life size. Seeing things, such as counters, at actual size will change your plans, and it is so much easier to make modifications with duct tape and scissors.

There should be at least one thing in your life you enjoy despite being no good at it. This is your play time, which will keep you young. Never apologize for it.

Changing your mind about important things is not a consequence of stupidity, but a sign of intelligence.

You have 5 minutes to act on a new idea before it disappears from your mind.

What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important. To get the important stuff done, avoid the demands of the urgent.

Three situations where you'll never regret ordering too much: when you are pouring concrete, when you are choosing a battery, and when you are getting ice for a party.

The patience you need for big things, is developed by your patience with the little things.

Don't fear failure. Fear average.

When you are stuck or overwhelmed, focus on the smallest possible thing that moves your project forward.

In a museum you need to spend at least 10 minutes with an artwork to truly see it. Aim to view 5 pieces at 10 minutes each rather than 100 at 30 seconds each.

For steady satisfaction, work on improving your worst days, rather than your best days.

Your decisions will become wiser when you consider these three words: "...and then what?" for each choice.

If possible, every room should be constructed to provide light from two sides. Rooms with light from only one side are used less often, so when you have a choice, go with light from two sides.

Never accept a work meeting until you've seen the agenda and know what decisions need to be made. If no decisions need to be made, skip the meeting.

You have no obligation to like everyone, and you are free to intensely dislike a person. But you owe everyone - even those you dislike - basic respect.

When you find yourself procrastinating, don't resist. Instead lean into it. Procrastinate 100%. Try to do absolutely nothing for 5 minutes. Make it your job. You'll fail. After 5 minutes, you'll be ready and eager to work.

If you want to know how good a surgeon is, don't ask other doctors. Ask the nurses.

There is a profound difference between thinking less of yourself (not useful), and thinking of yourself less (better).

Strong opinions, clearly stated, but loosely held is the recipe for an intellectual life. Always ask yourself: what would change my mind?

You can not truly become yourself, by yourself. Becoming one-of-a-kind is not a solo job. Paradoxically you need everyone else in the world to help make you unique.

If you need emergency help from a bystander, command them what to do. By giving them an assignment, you transform them from bewildered bystander to a responsible assistant.

The most common mistake we make is to do a great job on an unimportant task.

Don't work for a company you would not invest money in, because when you are working you are investing the most valuable thing you have: your time.

Fail fast. Fail often. Fail forward. Failing is not a disgrace if you keep failing better.

Doing good is its own reward. When you do good, people will question your motive, and any good you accomplish will soon be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Best sleep aid: first, get really tired.

For every success there is a corresponding non-monetary tax of some kind. To maintain success you have to gladly pay these taxes.

Do not cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

For small tasks the best way to get ready is to do it immediately.

If someone is calling you to alert you to fraud, nine out of ten times they are themselves the fraudster. Hang up. Call the source yourself if concerned.

When you try to accomplish something difficult, surround yourself with friends.

You should be willing to look foolish at first, in order to look like a genius later.

Think in terms of decades, and act in terms of days.

The most selfish thing in the world you can do is to be generous. Your generosity will return you tenfold.

Discover people whom you love doing "nothing" with, and do nothing with them on a regular basis. The longer you can maintain those relationships, the longer you will live.

Forget diamonds; explore the worlds hidden in pebbles. Seek the things that everyone else ignores.

Write your own obituary, the one you'd like to have, and then everyday work towards making it true.

Avoid making any kind of important decision when you are either hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT). Just halt when you are HALT.

What others want from you is mostly to be seen. Let others know you see them.

Working differently is usually more productive than working harder.

When you try something new, don't think of it as a matter of success / failure, but as success / learning to succeed.

If you have a good "why" to live for, no "how" will stop you.

If you are out of ideas, go for a walk. A good walk empties the mind - and then refills it with new stuff.

The highest form of wealth is deciding you have enough.

Education is overly expensive. Gladly pay for it anyway, because ignorance is even more expensive.

The cheapest therapy is to spend time with people who make you laugh.

Always be radically honest, but use your honesty as a gift not as a weapon. Your honesty should benefit others.

A good sign that you are doing the kind of work you should be doing is that you enjoy the tedious parts that other people find tortuous.

Being envious is a toxin. Instead take joy in the success of others and treat their success as your gain. Celebrating the success of others costs you nothing, and increases the happiness of everyone, including you.

The more persistent you are, the more chances you get to be lucky.

To tell a good story, you must reveal a surprise; otherwise it is just a report.

Small steps matter more when you play a long game because a long horizon allows you to compound small advances into quite large achievements.

If you are more fortunate than others, build a longer table rather than a taller fence.

Many fail to finish, but many more fail to start. The hardest work in any work is to start. You can't finish until you start, so get good at starting.

Work on your tone. Often ideas are rejected because of the tone of voice they are wrapped in. Humility covers many blemishes.

When you are right, you are learning nothing.

Very small things accumulate until they define your larger life. Carefully choose your everyday things.

It is impossible to be curious and furious at the same time, so avoid furious.

College is not about grades. No one cares what grades you got in college. College is about exploring. Just try stuff.

Weird but true: If you continually give, you will continually have.

To clean up your city, sweep your doorstep first.

Decisions like to present themselves as irreversible, like a one-way door. But most deciding points are two-way. Don't get bogged down by decisions. You can usually back up if needed.

Every mistake is an opportunity to improvise.

You'll never meet a very successful pessimistic person. If you want to be remarkable, get better at being optimistic.

You can't call it charity unless no one is watching.

When you think of someone easy to despise - a tyrant, a murderer, a torturer - don't wish them harm. Wish that they welcome orphans into their home, and share their food with the hungry. Wish them goodness, and by this compassion you will increase your own happiness.

Get good at being corrected without being offended.

The week between Christmas and New Years was invented to give you the perfect time to sharpen your kitchen knives, vacuum your car, and tidy the folders on your desktop.

There is no formula for success, but there are two formulas for failure: not trying and not persisting.

We tend to overrate the value of intelligence. You need to pair your IQ with other virtues. The most important things in life can not be attained through logic only.

If you are impressed with someone's work, you should tell them, but even better, tell their boss.

In matters of the heart, one moment of patience can save you years of regret.

Humility is mostly about being very honest about how much you owe to luck.

Slow progress is still a million times better than no progress.

Recipe for greatness: expect much of yourself and little of others.

The very best way to win a friend is to be one.

Recipe for success: under promise and over deliver.

We are unconsciously distracted by seeing our reflection. You can alleviate a lot of the fatigue of teleconferencing all day if you turn off your self-view.

Listening well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them "Is there more?" until there is no more.

The more you are interested in others the more interesting they'll find you. To be interesting, be interested.

If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.

Your ideal partner is not someone you never disagree with but someone you are glad to disagree with.

To get your message across follow this formula used by ad writers everywhere: simplify, simplify, simplify, then exaggerate.

Don't ever work for someone you don't want to become.

Keep showing up. 99% of success is just showing up. In fact, most success is just persistence.

Draw to discover what you see. Write to discover what you think.

A good question to ask yourself today is "What might I be wrong about?" This is the only worry worth having.

Learn how to learn from those you disagree with or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.

The real test of your character is not how much you deal with adversity - although that will teach you much. The real test is how you deal with power. The only cure for power is humility and the admission that your power comes from luck. The small person believes they are superior; the superior person knows they are lucky.

You need teachers, parents customers, fans, and friends because they will see who you are becoming before you will.

Your golden ticket is being able to see things from other people's point of view. This shift enables heartfelt empathy. It also allows you to persuade others and it is the key to great design. Mastering the view through the eyes of others will unlock so many doors.

A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.

If you ask for someone's feedback you'll get a critic. But if instead you ask for advice you'll get a partner.

The end is almost always the beginning of something better.

Contemplating the weaknesses of others is easy; contemplating the weaknesses in yourself is hard but it pays a much higher reward.

When you are looking for a job, remember that somewhere an employer is desperately hunting for someone like you especially if you are unconventional. Your real job is to make that match happen and it is worth whatever time it takes.

You lead by letting others know what you expect of them which may exceed what they themselves expect. Provide them a reputation that they can step up to.

Separate the processes of creating from improving. You can't write and edit or sculpt and polish or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don't select. While you sketch, don't inspect. While you write the first draft, don't reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.

For maximum results focus on your biggest opportunities not your biggest problems.

Half the skill of being educated is learning what you can ignore.

Shorten your to-do list by asking yourself "What is the worst that will happen if this does not get done?" Eliminate all but the disasters.

A wise man said: Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates. At the first gate, ask yourself, "Is it true?" At the second gate ask, "Is it necessary?" At the third gate ask, "Is it kind?"

A superpower worth cultivating is learning from people you don't like. It is called humility. This is the courage to let dumb, stupid, hateful, crazy, mean people teach you something because despite their character flaws they each know something you don't.

Generally, say less than necessary.

Each time you connect to people bring them a blessing; then they'll be happy to see you when you bring them a problem.

Your growth as a mature being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have.

Rule of 7 in research: You can find out anything if you are willing to go seven levels. If the first source you ask doesn't know ask them who you should ask next and so on down the line. If you are willing to go to the seventh source you'll almost always get your answer.

Anger is not the proper response to anger. When you see someone angry you are seeing their pain. Compassion is the proper response to anger.

When you forgive others they may not notice but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.

A proper apology consists of conveying the 3 Rs: regret (genuine empathy with the other) responsibility (not blaming someone else) and remedy (your willingness to fix it).

To keep young kids behaving well on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite unwrapped candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. Miraculous things can be accomplished if you give it 10 years.

Before you are old attend as many funerals as you can bear and listen. Nobody talks about the departed's achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

Looking ahead, focus on direction rather than destinations.Maintain the right direction and you'll arrive at where you want to go.

Your goal is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself.

Don't reserve you kindest praise for a person until their eulogy. Tell them while they are alive when it makes a difference to them Write it in a letter they can keep.

It's possible that a not-so-smart person who can communicate well can do much better than a super-smart person who can't communicate well.That is good news because it is much easier to improve your communication skills than your intelligence.

Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them; they are waiting for you to send them an email; they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

For every good thing you love ask yourself what your proper dose is.

A vacation + a disaster = an adventure.

Your passions should fit you exactly but your purpose in life should exceed you. Work for something much larger than yourself.

Explore or optimize? Do you optimize what you know will sell or explore with something new? Do you order a restaurant dish you are sure is great (optimize) or do you try something new? Do you keep dating new folks (explore) or try to commit to someone you met? The ideal balance for exploring new things vs. optimizing those already found is ?. Spend ? of your time on exploring and ? on optimizing and deepening. As you mature it is harder to devote time to exploring because it seems unproductive but aim for ?.

Your time and space are limited. Remove, give away, throw out anything that no longer gives you joy in order to make room for those that do.

A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can't believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.

The foundation of maturity: Just because it's not your fault doesn't mean it's not your responsibility.

Art is in what you leave out.

Don't be in haste. When you are in a hurry you are more easily conned or manipulated.

You are as big as the things that make you angry.

Most overnight successes - in fact, any significant successes - take at least 5 years. Budget your life accordingly.

See that old person taking forever in line? That is the future you. Have patience.

Art is whatever you can get away with.

If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. Hang out with, and learn from people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.

Don't treat people as bad as they are. Treat them as good as you are.

The best way to advise young people is to find out what they really want to do and then advise them to do it.

Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do friends can do better. In so many ways, a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.

You see only 2% of another person and they see only 2% of you. Attune yourself to the hidden 98%.

Tend to the small things. More people are defeated by blisters than by mountains.

90% of everything is crap. If you think you don't like opera, romance novels, TikTok, country music, vegan food NFTs, keep trying to see if you can find the 10% that is not crap.

Promptness is a sign of respect.

Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it's more fun and useful to them. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce.

Pros make as many mistakes as amateurs; they've just learned how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.

To move through a place you may not be permitted, act like you belong there.

The real test of your character is not how you deal with adversity - although that will teach you much. The real test is how you deal with power. The only cure for power is humility and the admission that your power comes from luck. The small person believes they are superior; the superior person knows they are lucky.

The purpose of listening is not to reply, but to hear what is not being said.

You should demand extraordinary evidence in order to believe extraordinary claims.

Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make progress by making habits. Don't focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout.

Compliment people behind their back. It'll come back to you.

The very best thing you can do for your kids is to love your spouse.

The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it.

The perfect kind of art to display in your home are odd pieces that a child is unlikely to forget.

Write it in a letter they can keep.

Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others the more you'll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

Commit to doing no work no business no income one day a week. Call it a sabbath (or not). Use that day for resting, recharging, and cultivating the most important things in life. Counterintuitively, this sabbath will prove to be your most productive act all week.

If you want something to get done ask a busy person to do it.

Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

Even if you don't say anything if you listen carefully people will consider you a great conversationalist.

If we all threw our troubles into a big pile and we saw everyone else's problems we would immediately grab ours back.

Don't take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later. It's amazing how often a second try works.

To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just redo it redo it, redo it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

Keep showing up. 99% of success is just showing up.

Treating a person to a meal never fails and is so easy to do. It's powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends.

When speaking to an audience pause frequently. Pause before you say something in a new way pause after you have said something you believe is important and pause as a relief to let listeners absorb details.

If you repeated what you did today 365 more times will you be where you want to be next year? The best time to negotiate your salary

Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets. Unwavering honesty will help seal in trust.

You can reduce the annoyance of someone's stupid belief by increasing your understanding of why they believe it.

The greatest rewards come from working on something that nobody has words for. If you possibly can work where there are no names for what you do.

Anything real begins with the fiction of what could be. Imagination is therefore the most potent force in the universe. And you can get better at it. It's the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everyone else knows.

You can't reason someone out of a notion that they didn't reason themselves into.

Looking ahead, focus on direction rather than destinations. Maintain the right direction and you'll arrive at where you want to go.

Your best job will be one that you were unqualified for because it stretches you. In fact, only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.

Don't let your email inbox become your to-do list run by others.

You don't need more time because you already have all the time that you will ever get; you need more focus.

Fear is fueled by a lack of imagination. The antidote to fear is not bravery; it looks more like imagination.

When someone is nasty, hateful, or mean toward you treat their behavior like an affliction or illness they have. That makes it easier to have empathy toward them which can soften the conflict.

You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.

Instead of asking your child what they learned today, ask them who they helped today.

Embrace pronoia which is the opposite of paranoia. Choose to believe that the entire universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success.

Every person you meet knows an amazing lot about something you know virtually nothing about. It won't be obvious and your job is to discover what it is.

Don't be the best. Be the only.

The stronger your beliefs, the stronger your reasons to question them regularly. Don't simply believe everything you think you believe.

To cultivate a habit switch your language from "I can or can't do" to "I do or don't do." You shift the weight from a wavering choice to an unwavering identity.