Naval's Insights on Life
Hey friend!
Yesterday I posted a new video on Naval's insight about life that is non-obvious to other people.
Here is all the written content I produced (in a nice format)…
✍️ Quotes
"The selfish reason to be humble is that the more seriously you take yourself, the unhappier you’re going to be." - Naval Ravikant
"All your seriousness is about sandcastles. And you yourself will leave them one day, trampling them down, and you will not look back. The people who take it seriously miss the beauty of playfulness." - Osho
"The whole secret of existence, is to have no fear" - Swami Vivekananda
“You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”
- Richard Feyman
👨 People
Naval Ravikant
Naval is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList.
📝 Notes
Question: What insight about life have you acquired that seems obvious to you, but may not seem obvious to everyone else?
- No Fear of Death
* A lot of life's struggle comes from a deep fear of death.
* Abandon the quest for immortality (in all forms)
** quest for immortality == Building something that will last after you die
- The Universe
* In comparison to the Universe...
** We are insignificant
** We exist for an extremely short period of time.
current age of the universe = 13.8billion years
estimated lifespan of the universe = 50billion years
70years / 50billion years = 0,0000000014
Our natural-default state is to be dead!
A human is alive an estimated 0,00000014% of the universe life time.
** Anything we do will eventually fade away.
- Realizations...
Reflecting on the Universe and our death can help us realize how precious life is.
* Don't waste your life being unhappy. (No excuse to suffer)
* See life as a Game
* Enjoy yourself
* Sleep Well at night
* Behave morally correct
* Help others (but... without making yourself miserable)
* Don't take yourself so seriously
"The selfish reason to be humble is that the more seriously you take yourself, the unhappier you’re going to be." - Naval Ravikant
"All your seriousness is about sandcastles. And you yourself will leave them one day, trampling them down, and you will not look back. The people who take it seriously miss the beauty of playfulness." - Osho
- Potential sources of meaning in life...
* To keep growing and Learning.
* To seek truth.
* To accept things the way they are. Accept reality.
* * Avoid wishful thinking.
“You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”
- Richard Feyman
** Be in harmony with Reality
📝 Reflections
"The whole secret of existence, is to have no fear" - Swami Vivekananda
Reflections on overcoming Fear...
In short words, what is being very helpful to me is to believe that all pain that I might experience in any future moment, is necessary (supportive for my personal growth) and bearable (is not going to kill me). This is just wisdom from the Buddha, but Nassim Taleb exposes exactly the same thing through his concept of "Post-Traumatic-Growth" (I made a video of this concept).
I'm a believer...
I'm learning to be more eager to *believe*, given that I'm increasingly realizing its importance and necessity for one's life. To believe in something, is what gives us the strength to execute on our life's mission consistently, and to make something beautiful from this life. Because if we were 100% rational beings, we wouldn't have a north or destination to follow.
Link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0quCpejQfds&ab_channel=PickingNuggets
💭My Latest Reflections
Quick thought: Dealing with Uncertainty (and Certainty)
I feel scared and anxious when thinking about the huge uncertainty component of the projects I'm working on (and life in general as well).
So, to get rid of these uncomfortable feelings, I try to break down and analyze these uncertainty factors in an attempt to make them more certain.
If I absolutely succeed in my attempt and somehow kill all the uncertainty in a specific project (or probably just temporarily blind myself on a very optimistic view), I actually end up feeling worse! I feel like what's the point if now everything is so certain and predictable. Where is the adventure and emotion that implicitly comes from exploring your full potential? When you are certain, by definition you can't be exploring anything (the path is laid out).
In conclusion, what serves me the best when I feel these sometimes overwhelming feelings (from being too uncertain or too certain), I try to only focus on what I can control fully (stoic thinking): my motivation, my effort, my character. Anything else has a component of randomness, which I try to accept and flow with it, rather than trying to control its outcomes. Just be at peace with whatever the outcome is, learn from it, and incorporate the lessons in what you actually control fully: your willingness and disciplined effort.
"If you know, in the morning, what your day looks like with any precision, you are a little bit dead – the more precision, the more dead you are."
- Nassim Taleb
"Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty" - Tim Ferris
“You have a calibrated life when most of what you fear has the titillating prospect of adventure.” - Nassim Taleb
"Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. They who work selfishly for results are miserable." - Bhagavad Gita
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Until next time,
Julio xx