The thing with posting things online is that you never know what will happen to it.
Sometimes I think of something and think, “Wow, this is amazing! I have to share it.” So I frantically journal the idea, explore every inch and carefully put it up here. But it ends up getting no response.
Yet other times, I share something generic and obvious, type it up within five minutes, and expect that people will find it boring. Yet, I soon see that it’s hugely popular.
This likely happens to all creators. When you see something amazing you think, “Jeez, I could never come up with something like that.” But it was probably obvious to the author and you just happened to see it for the first time that way. Everyone has ideas which are quite spectacular to other people.
We’re terrible judges of our work. We should just put it out there and let the world decide.
One book I’ve been looking forward to for a while is Derek Sivers’ How to Live. Every chapter gives one suggestion on how to live and each one quietly resonated with a corner of my being. It’s a spectacular book.
The funny thing is was how conflicting some of these were. You can’t simultaneously do nothing (ch4) and be a famous pioneer (ch12). You can’t think super-long-term (ch5), yet do whatever you want now (ch11). These wants contradict at a fundamental level. But that’s okay – we’re all contradictory in nature.
But my favourite part of the book wasn’t a particular suggestion, it was the ending. I’m sure Derek won’t mind so I’ve put it down below. Don’t underestimate its simplicity.
Credits and congratulations to Derek Sivers for another phenomenal book.
My favourite quote from The Office (US) comes from Andy Bernard when he finally lands his dream job. Upon reflecting on this transition, he says: “The weird thing is, now I’m exactly where I want to be; I’ve got my dream job at Cornell, and I’m still just thinking about my old pals… I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”
A story on arrogance and the dangers of pity, originally published in the Ming Dynasty’s Oceans Stories of Past and Present (海說古今).
One day, King Jian of Zhou was leading a hunting party through Zhongshan (中山) when he came across a wolf. The delighted king frantically took aim with his bow and arrow but missed and hit a nearby stone. The wolf, suddenly aware of its situation, desperately fled for its life with the hunting party in pursuit. As the wolf made its way through the forest, it stumbled upon a traveling Mohist scholar named Mr. Dongguo (東郭先生) and his donkey.
The wolf begged the scholar for help and explained that it would die if left alone. The scholar, who believed in universal love, pitied the wolf and decided to hide it in one of the bags strapped to his donkey. A few moments later, the hunters arrived and questioned Mr. Dongguo, who denied any knowledge of the wolf’s whereabouts. When the hunters left, Mr. Dongguo let the wolf out of his bag.
The wolf now asked the scholar to save his life again, this time from starvation. Mr. Dongguo offered the wolf some pastries, but the wolf smiled and said, “I don’t eat those, I dine solely on meat”. Puzzled, Mr. Dongguo inquired if the wolf intended to eat his donkey to which and the wolf replied, “No, no, donkey meat is no good”. To Mr. Dongguo’s surprise, the hungry wolf pounced on him and announced its intention to eat him. When Mr. Dongguo protested at the wolf’s ingratitude, the wolf argued, “You saved my life once. Why not do it again? Besides, I nearly suffocated while jammed in your little bag and you owe me for that.”
Dongguo and the wolf debated and finally decided to present their case to the judgment of three elders.
The first elder they presented their argument to was an old withering apricot tree. The tree related its own experience to the two on how when it was young, children used to pick its fruits from its branches and the tree would tell them to eat their fill. Now it was about to be chopped down to provide firewood. The tree agreed with the wolf. The wolf was very pleased.
The second elder they presented their argument to was an elderly water buffalo. The buffalo told its story on how it served its masters for many years dutifully providing him with milk and plowing his fields. Now its master wanted to butcher it so he could eat his meat. The buffalo too agreed with the wolf. The wolf grinned and felt even more justified in his request to eat the scholar.
The last elder they presented their argument to was a wise, elderly farmer. The farmer was skeptical and didn’t believe that the wolf could fit into the bag. The wolf scoffed in arrogance and crawled back into the bag to prove his story. Right then, the old farmer tied up the bag and began to beat the wolf with his stick. The farmer bashed the wolf to an inch of his life then untied the bag, dragging the wolf out.
Seeing the pitiful wolf, the scholar thought that the old farmer was too cruel. Yet right then, a weeping woman came running towards them and screamed at the wolf, explaining how it dragged off her little boy. Mr Dongguo, now no longer pitying the wolf, picked up the stick and landed the final blow to the wolf’s head.
What’s the one thing you mustn’t forget when you leave the house?
It’s not your wallet. It’s not your phone. It’s not even your clothes.
It’s your key. If you forget everything else but have your key, you can go back in to get whatever else. But if you don’t have your key, you’ll be locked out of your place and everything in it.
In anything worth defending – a person, a job, an idea – it’s critical we know what the key is; the thing that will allow us to go back no matter the circumstance. For a person, it might be love. For a job, it might be fulfilment. For an idea, it might be passion. If we lose anything else, our precious possession might be injured, but not broken. Once we lose this critical part, the game is over.
A few days ago, I realised I’ve accumulated a lot of quotes from my note-taking – whether that be from my Kindle or just on Notion. For the sake of organisation, I’m starting a new series on this blog where I find some common threads between quotes and group them together as food for thought.
Today’s theme: happiness.
Robin Sharma, The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari “Alright, the secret of happiness is simple: find out what you truly love to do and then direct all of your energy towards doing it. If you study the happiest, healthiest, most satisfied people of our world, you will see that each and every one of them has found their passion in life, and then spent their days pursuing it. This calling is almost always one that, in some way, serves others. Once you are concentrating your mental power and energy on a pursuit that you love, abundance flows into your life, and all your desires are fulfilled with ease and grace.”
Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning “For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”
Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air “That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”
Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur “Happiness is the real reason you’re doing anything, right? Even if you say it’s for the money, the money is just a means to happiness, isn’t it? But what if it’s proven that after a certain point, money doesn’t create any happiness at all, but only headaches? You may be much happier as a $1 million business than a $1 billion business.”
It’s easy to let a bad habit slide. One unhealthy meal won’t much the scale much. One late night won’t hurt too much the next day. One cigarette won’t hurt you immediately. A single, poor decision is easy to dismiss.
It’s the repeated 1% errors and excuses that compound into toxic results.
From Atomic Habits:
The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imagine you are flying from Los Angeles to New York City. If a pilot leaving from LAX adjusts the headings just 3.5 degrees south, you will land in Washington, D.C., instead of New York. Such a small change is barely noticeable at takeoff – the nose of the airplane moves just a few feet – but when magnified across the entire United States, you end up hundreds of miles apart.
But luckily, the opposite is true. Consistent 1% improvements to your life can lead to a dramatic results in the future. The first step is not giving into that 1% concession.
Here are two examples of how luck has played a quiet but enormous role in my success.
1. Studying abroad in London
In the winter of 2019, I applied to do an intensive subject abroad at University College London (UCL). I thought this would be a great way to travel the world and get credits for my degree at the same time. The problem was, studying abroad is expensive. $8000 more expensive than I had in savings.
I expressed my disappointment at being unable to study abroad to my older sister. After she listened for a while, my sister proposed me an offer: if I could earn a bursary for $4000, she would fund the rest of it. I quickly applied to all the scholarships available and began to wait. After a few weeks, I found that I was accepted for one: the Lin Martin Melbourne Global Scholarship. The amount: $3000. I was happy, but my heart still sank. I still needed $1000 to head to London, and I was sure that all of the others had rejected me. I was devastated and quietly resigned that I was going to spend my winter in Melbourne.
But the day before my study abroad application closed, I received an email.
The day before my application closed, I received a $1000 scholarship for a grant I never even knew about. Anyone applying to study abroad is automatically considered for the Melbourne Global Scholars Award and I happened to be a recipient. This last-minute miracle led to one of the best winters of my life where I travelled around London, Amsterdam and Paris.
The experience from this winter secured me a one-year undergraduate internship at CSL, one of the largest biotechnology companies in Australia. Here, I gained research skills and met some incredible teachers. Easily one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. To top it off, I talked about this CSL experience in my interview for Melbourne Medical School, which got me into medicine.
I can’t control who my siblings are and what scholarships exist. But if I didn’t have a great sister and didn’t automatically apply for the Melbourne Global Scholars Award, I wouldn’t have studied abroad in London, wouldn’t have worked at CSL, and might not have gotten into medicine.
Pure luck.
2. Meeting my partner
The first week of medical school, like most new courses, started off with an orientation week. Over these few days there’s a lot of meeting new people, ice-breakers and administrative lectures.
On the fourth day of orientation, I was chatting to one of my new tutorial classmates for the semester when a voice caught my attention.
“Excuse me?”
I turned around to face a well-dressed Asian girl with glasses and the shiniest eyes I’d ever seen. She told me she couldn’t find her group and was wondering if I knew where they were. After some discussion, I realised I knew some students of her group, called them and got their location. As I passed this information to her, she asked for my name.
“I’m Eric.” “Nice to meet you. I’m Lynn.”
We shook hands and I added her on Facebook the next day.
A few weeks later, I decided to post my first YouTube video on Books I’ve Loved. The video is terrible, but Lynn liked it enough to comment on my Facebook post. I thought this was encouraging enough to message her where we started talking about books. Turns out, she’s an avid reader as well. Soon, we met up in person. A few months later, she became my girlfriend.
It was entirely a stroke of luck that Lynn asked directions from me. But if she never did, we wouldn’t be Facebook friends and she never would’ve seen my video, given we had no classes together. And I wouldn’t have met the most extraordinary girl in my life.
Pure luck.
I read somewhere that all success dialled back enough can be attributed entirely to luck. I’m still wrestling with that idea but in many ways, it’s very true.
If I was born into a different socioeconomic status and culture, I’d be a very different person. If I had a less caring family, I wouldn’t have half the opportunities that I do now. Same goes for anyone I’ve met, really. There’s an infinite number of variables that could’ve completely changed the reality I live in. But it so happens that this is the one that played out.
Five tips I wish I knew when I was in high school:
1. Have a strong filter
If you don’t like a book past the first chapter, drop it. If you insist on finishing every book you begin, reading will quickly become a chore. The majority of books are: a) adequately summarised in the first chapter, b) not for you, or c) not for anyone. If you grind your way through a bad book, you won’t be willing to read again in the future.
You would never drag yourself into a relationship with someone you don’t like. Do the same with what you read.
2. Prioritise
If your reason for reading books is because you don’t have time, I wonder if you’d read a book if I paid you $1 million dollars to do it. Most people probably would.
A lack of time means a lack of priorities. If you believe in the transformative power of books, you will make time for it. If you don’t believe in books, I hope you will consider changing your mind. My suggestion for prioritising books is to do it in the moments of the day you can control: before you sleep, and when you wake up. If you like it enough, you’ll begin reading during your busy day too.
3. Be flexible
Reading books doesn’t have to be with a paperback under a lamp. The activity of reading has transformed immensely over the last few years such as audiobooks and the Kindle. Listening to War and Peace on your phone is no inferior to pouring through it with a beautiful hardcopy. The main thing is to start.
I highly recommend listening to audiobooks – Audible is a great way to do that. If there are mindless activities throughout your day, listening to a book can transform your experience. I genuinely look forward to buying groceries, washing the dishes or riding to Uni now because of this. You can easily get through a book a month with this “while-I’m-doing-that” method.
4. Do it with others
It’s amazing to read books with a community, whether that be family, your partner or book clubs. Not only does it hold you accountable to keep reading, you have the opportunity to both clarify your takeaways and hear other people’s lessons. These conversations can utterly transform the way you view your book.
My partner is currently reading War and Peace and it’s great talking to her about it. I find myself seeing scenes and characters in completely new ways which elevates my experience of the book – despite finishing it over a month ago.
5. Be patient
This has two meanings: be patient while reading and be patient while searching.
While reading, don’t rush. What’s the point of saying you read a book a week if you don’t remember or appreciate anything? Be patient; talk to the author in your head and if possible, try and step into their shoes. You will take much more away.
While searching for a new book, have faith. Trust that there is a book out there for you. If you were forced to read books that didn’t resonate with you, I’m sorry. But don’t let that ruin literature as a whole.
There is a book out there, waiting just for you. Be patient.
