LIFE ADVICE — Lessons Learned
Our Timeless discoveries of the week 28/01
One week ago, we put on our Timeless glasses and dove into the realm of Life Advice. I kicked things off with my 5 favorite articles, podcasts & clips on this broad subject.
Yup, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Then again, we also knew it could be worthwhile: How cool would it be to have an epic collection of “bite-sized” wisdom to give to every young person on their 18th birthday? Or 25th?
Well, we’re not there yet.
- Still too much noise, not enough signal.
=> You can help by Rating a piece on the Life Advice page. - There are still a ton of gems out there that we don’t know about.
=> You can help by Uploading a small piece of wisdom.
But we have learned… And that’s why I’m doing it personally.
Thanks to everyone for contributing! As always:
“Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.”
What have we learned?
1. Relationships
As a single, somewhat egoistic introvert, I only associated Life Advice with enriching myself. In came FJHendrix with a clear statement (and an awesome piece to back it up):
“Relationships are at the core of what you achieve in life. A partner can be a source of motivation or a source of misery. Don’t underestimate how this impacts all other aspects of your life.”
- 1.500 Peope give all the Relationship Advice You’ll ever need (Mark Manson, 2016)
2. Career
“You have about 80.000 hours in your career.” Auwtch. On a dull Friday afternoon, that sounds like a whole fucking lot. On the other hand, it’s actually not that much… How do I make the most of it? It’s a question we’re all struggling with… Thank you laurensdp for providing some guidance!
- 80.000 hours career guide: Find a fulfilling career that does good. (80.000 hours, 2015)
- What makes an interesting life interesting? (Cal Newport, 2007) Simple and to the point. Cal Newport is wisdom incorporated.
3. Happiness Science
I like being happy. I like a scientific approach to things. This could be a great marriage!
- Neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy. (Erik Barker, 2016) Thank you Julie Rufaro!
- The Surprising Science of Happiness (Dan Gilbert, 2004). Amazing how some simple experiments can provide counterintuitive solutions. Weird but mindblowing talk.
4. Rules! Short — but powerful ones!
The shorter the advice — the more likely it is to stick. Let’s not make things overly complicated! Cheers to Big Boss for these contributions.
- 17 Brilliant Life Lessons From Jeff Bridges (Airows, 2016). LISTEN TO THE DUDE!!
- 21 Suggestions for Success (H. Jackson Brown, 2006). Damn this is powerful. 2-minute fucking read baby.
Conclusion
We’re not there yet. I’m not claiming to have even a fraction of the wisdom of some of the people mentioned here. That will take a lifetime of trying and failing. :)
But, it’s definitely fun to gather a lot of opinions and store them in one place. That’s basically what we’re doing at Timeless. I would really love for all of you to join in and give us some food for thought!
=> Check out the Life Advice page to have an overview of all classics on Life!
Adios?
Most certainly not. Next week, we’ll dive into the topic of Entrepreneurship: we’ll be looking for advice for first-time founders; people looking to build something value; intrapreneurs; etc. etc.
To kick things off, we’ll hear about the best pieces from an actual founder who is going through the hustle at the moment.
I’m looking forward!!
Your fellow Timeless geeks,
Gilles & Thomas
Why Timeless?
As you may know, we’re trying to find and preserve truly valuable content on the web. The first blog post gives some more context on the idea of an open database of “wisdom”. In short: we’re trying to separate the signal from the noise on the web. We’re not looking for the next hype or trend; we’re looking for principles that can be applied in many different circumstances.
Gameplan
First and most crucial step: find the wisdom. On today’s over-crowded internet, ruled by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other hype-machines… this could prove hard enough.
Here’s the plan:
- Every week, I start things off with my 5 all-time classics on a certain theme.
- Productivity, Decision Making, Health, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Relationships, … y mucho más!
- If you have great material on this subject, you can upload it into the database. Sharing is caring!
- We check out each other’s favorites and rate them on their timeless value.
- Subject by subject, we build up “hit-lists” of wisdom to preserve and expand.
- Maybe most importantly, we all learn a shit ton of each other in the process.
