we’ve all heard the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
It’s framed in a positive manner assuming we know how we would want to be treated, but the positive is often more blurry than the negative, which tends to be quite clear.
Knowing what not to do is often as valuable as knowing what to do – hence, the silver rule for both treating others and understanding what to do with our time…
The silver rule: “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.”
That is, don’t do the things you don’t want have done to you.
time
We have a limited time here, yet urgency is rare. Few men in the history of men have lived with a real sense of urgency, though we all should.
With each breath, we have fewer left.
With each day, we have one fewer left to live.
With each minute passing, a minute less in the future.
Urgency should give us passion, that enthusiasm and obsession with whatever it is that we’re doing.
Being that time is ticking, our all given to our work and self-improvement should be the only course of action to take.
Yet, it isn’t.
The average life lacks urgency and passion and direction.
We know both not what to do with our time, and we end up doing what we should not be doing (we miss both the golden and the silver rule when applied to our lives).
We wander when we should be hunting.
We dabble when we should aim to conquer.
Time is fleeting yet much of the time we have here is wasted.
what to do. what not to do. how to do it all. how to think.
Every morning have awareness of life’s limit, of time’s ticking. Be in your death, that moment when there are no more moments. Don’t push that death to old age, either. Visualize your death as something within the next 10 years, an end that involves some risk.
Know what not to do. Don’t sleep in, don’t eat crap foods (what not to eat), don’t ever be distracted, don’t get stuck in your phone, and so on…
Know what to do, which is what you set out to do. Do that and nothing that pulls you away from that and you live a great life.
Do it all with passion.
Passion isn’t something you follow, it’s something you are, live with.
Following your passion is horrible career advice, but being passionate about what you’re doing is great advice.
Love without passion is boring.
Work without passion is boring.
Adventure without passion is boring.
Be passionate about whatever you’re doing as a choice, as a point of how to live.
desperation.
Don’t chase.
It sounds like life is to be pursued, as with women, a great career, oppurtunity, and so forth. But it isn’t.
Desperation has a scent to it. It wreaks, scaring off both women and opportunity.
No, you become what you want.
You make yourself irresistible to both success and women and anything else you really want.
Forget, for a second, about the end, and be.
Be better.
Simply put, do what you set out to do, don’t do what you shouldn’t do, and keep going.
Get after it.
