Judgment and wisdom matter a great deal. To acquire them, and to be creative, it’s important to slow down enough at times to notice what is going on around you.

You can’t both create space to let your mind wander and intensely focus at the same time. You need to use your judgment to figure out what’s right for you at a given time in your life.

Judgements

To be happy, you need to pay attention to who you are, what you want, and how you feel, versus staying busy just doing ’stuff,’ or doing what other people want or expect you to do. This requires both self awareness and introspection: if you pay attention to how you feel, what you like and what you want (as well as what makes you feel sad, angry, fearful and confused), the world is likely to look quite different. Many people are afraid of being introspective because they feel vulnerable. But without a willingness to open up, you won’t understand yourself and you can’t ultimately be truly happy.

Know Yourself

Simply understanding how you feel and what you want is vital, but insufficient. Progress depends on action. If your goal is to help other people, but you never do anything about it, you’ll be unsatisfied. The same is true if you want to start a business, write a book, invent some new device, learn to play an instrument, get better at a sport, or be a good parent. Remember: take small steps. They work. Big steps often don’t. Over time, small steps add up, and you end up in a different place.

Act On That Knowledge

Life doesn’t come easily most of the time to most of us. Even if you have no major issues in your life, eventually you will. The way to succeed amidst obstacles is to not give up. Perseverance matters. I don’t know anyone who has succeeded over time in any field or significant endeavor without it.

Persevere

Change happens whether you like it or not, both in our personal lives and in our world more broadly. With technology and globalization, the rate of change in society is accelerating. Being able to accept and manage change is an essential skill.

Manage Change

If you don’t take good care of yourself physically and psychologically, you won’t be able to enjoy your life. And if you don’t care about others, you at least will be missing one of the great joys of being alive.

 Care

Focus is important because time is limited and you can’t do everything, let alone do everything well.

Focus

Without true friends, most of us wouldn’t enjoy our lives. To be happy, it’s vitally important to be connected to other human beings whom you care about and who, in turn, care about you.

Make Friends

We’re all going to be dead anyway some day. So while you should try your hardest to make the most of your life, when something funny happens, when you make a mistake, or even (and perhaps especially) when bad things happen, it’s easier if you can laugh about yourself and the world.

Laugh

It’s incredibly hard to have a dispassionate view of the world, even if you try your hardest. Humans are emotional animals, and we all come at the world with our own point of view based on our experience. It’s impossible in many ways to get outside that frame of reference, although with diverse experience, a lot of reading, honest self-reflection on your failures, and some thinking, it’s possible to stretch our perspective. Data and patterns matter, and you should pay close attention to them. But they’re not enough to deeply understand the world, since history doesn’t repeat itself exactly.

Observe

These ideas are so simple and easy to implement in our life.

Life is short. You can, if you work hard and are lucky, get more of almost anything, but you can't get more time. Time only goes one way. The average American has a lifespan of less than 30,000 days. So how you choose to live matters. That's the topic of this book. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I'm still learning every day, and many of the good ideas here I've picked up from other people either directly or by reading. But this is what's worked for me. Like life, this book is short. Many books I read could communicate their ideas in fewer pages. So I've tried to be brief in line with the wise person who noted: "If I'd had more time I would have written a shorter letter". I don't think brevity implies lack of content. The concepts here have improved the quality of my life, and I hope they're useful to you as well. Using these concepts, I have created a life I love. My job doesn't feel like work. I love and respect the people with whom I spend time. And I'm also passionate about my life outside work. I've learned how to create a balance that makes me happy between work and other interests, including my family, friends and exercise. Sadly I think that's rare. And yet, while I know I'm lucky, most people can work towards those goals in their own lives. My interest in making the most of my life began when I was just starting college, but when I was in my mid-thirties a boss I admired died of cancer. He was young. He had a great wife; he had three young children; he had a fantastic career -- he had everything in life. He just didn't have enough time. So, while I'd often thought about how to get the most out of life, the death of someone so young and vital increased my sense of urgency to act on it. One of the things I've always wanted to do was to work for myself. As a result, I left an exciting job at Microsoft in 2001 amidst the Internet bust to found the investing firm I now run. It was hard to do, both financially and emotionally. When I left Microsoft, many people - friends, family, and even some of the press - thought I was deluding myself to start a fund focused on Internet-related companies during a market crash. A press quote from the time said: "Call him a little crazy. Call him a little nuts." I'd never seen that type of coverage before. And, in a sense, the press was right; the business wasn't easy to start. Fortunately, from a vantage point of ten years down the road, it's worked out quite well. A key part of my job is reading and thinking about a broad variety of topics. So writing this book was relatively easy. It's even easier to read. But, like many things in life, actually executing each day on these concepts is extremely difficult. With thanks to Thomas Edison, life is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Even so, I hope you have fun perspiring. Peter Atkins Seattle, WA December, 2010

Act On That Knowledge

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