Memes

A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Memes on my list are copied from everywhere, as is the definition of a meme.

• Happiness is a choice. There is always something wrong. You decide if you care.

• The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.

• Happiness comes more easily with a healthy body, loving relationships, and positive thoughts.

• The purpose of life is to learn more about the universe. A life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn.

• Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.

• Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

• Progress towards a goal is central to feeling good about life. There is always something to learn.

• If you’re ever confused about what to do, do the right thing.

• Care about making your best effort. Do not worry about the outcome.

• How you spend every day is how you spend your life.

• How you do anything is how you do everything.

• Assume people have good intentions.

• Doing nice things for others is a great way to feel great.

• There is no such thing as a small lapse of integrity.

• Life is not a zero-sum game with a well-defined reward function. Stop acting like it is.

• You are insignificant. The universe is infinite. That’s OK.

• The imagination of the universe is far, far greater than the imagination of humans.

• Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is always limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.

• A thinker without paradox is like a lover without passion.

• Black holes probably exist. If that doesn’t make you humble, nothing will.

• All scientific theories are approximations of the universe.

• What we observe is not reality itself but reality subjected to our method of questioning.

• The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.

• Scientific and technological progress shapes human civilization more than anything else.

• The future is already here; it is just unevenly distributed.

• The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

• History remembers those who got to market first.

• If you weren’t at Los Alamos in 1943, you probably thought nuclear weapons were 20 years away.

• If you told someone in 1400 that the Earth rotates around the sun, they’d ridicule or burn you.

• Always play the long game.

• Useful lasts longer than cool.

• Faster is always better.

• Plan beats no plan, but done beats perfect.

• Most decisions can be changed.

• Ask yourself, “What is inevitable?”. Then act on the answer.

• If the situation is unsustainable, and the options are impossible, the situation will win.

• Are you on the fence about breaking up or leaving your job? You should probably go ahead and do it.

• Risks are less risky than you think. Take as many as you can afford.

• If you’re not failing, you’re not operating at the edge.

• Working on the hardest problems requires an incredible amount of courage. Embrace uncertainty.

• Exponential progress feels slow in the beginning.

• Life is a flywheel. How do you become successful? Gradually, then suddenly.

• Improvement comes in small increments over long periods.

• Good things come to those who iterate.

• Be the sort of person that suggests solutions rather than complains about problems.

• Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.

• Be busy building.

• Always tell the truth. Better to shut up than to lie.

• There is never enough money.

• The marginal cost of happiness is very high.

• Free-market democracy is currently our best option for creating good human living conditions.

• There is never enough time.

• Treat every object as an imposition upon your attention.

• Establish clear rules about when to throw out old junk. Once clear rules are established, the junk will probably cease to be a problem.

• Humans are tool builders, and the computer is the most remarkable tool we've built so far.

• Premature optimization is the root of all evil.

• Achievement requires sacrifices. Everyone has different preferences. Find yours.

• Great success requires great sacrifices. Most do not enjoy either.

• Most people underestimate the power of hard work.

• Hard work beats intelligence when intelligence doesn't work hard.

• Most people underestimate the power of intelligence.

• You cannot imagine what the world looks like for someone with a different intelligence. Telling someone with an 80 IQ to make more effort when presented with an IQ test is like telling a color-blind person to try harder when painting a Monet.

• Intelligence is genetic and cannot be trained.

• You can improve your communication skills and knowledge, not your intelligence.

• Cultivate compassion for those less intelligent than you.

• Life isn’t fair. Genes and geography define your starting point in life.

• Luck, timing, intelligence, and hard work. In that order.

• Luck favors the prepared.

• Be a prolific creator. Write, paint, program. Whatever it is, do a lot of it.

• If you want to have good ideas, you must have many ideas.

• Doing a lot increases the chances of having great timing sometimes.

• Hard-working, prolific optimists appear luckier.

• Writing is recorded thinking. Companies require recordings.

• Talk a lot about your feelings.

• See a therapist.

• Mediate. Trust me; it’s awesome.

• Get medicated if it makes your life better.

• We are frequently wrong about which mistakes we're making.

• Most things are either power-law distributed or normally distributed.

• There is no such thing as a free lunch. Learn about risk-adjusted returns.

• Value comes from scarcity. Find leverage.

• Money is like manure; it's worthless unless spread around, encouraging young things to grow.

• Ask for help, especially when you’re scared of asking for help.

• Ask “why” a lot. When someone tells you a fact, ask, “Oh, why is that?”.

• Do not care about who is right; care about what is right.

• It’s better to be right than consistent. Successful people change their mind a lot.

• A one-in-a-million outcome requires betting and luck.

• The wealthiest people lose the most money.

• The most connected people get rejected the most.

• The most successful people fail the most.

• Reach out. Assume everyone is a potential friend.

• Solitary geniuses are a myth. Smart people learn from other smart people constantly.

• We become the people whose opinions we care about.

• Find great role models and mentors.

• Small people belittle your ambitions, but the great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

• Cherish friends who tell you things that make you angry.

• The less confident people are, the more serious they tend to act.

• Some people create drama out of habit. You can avoid these people.

• Reflect on what you’ve learned regularly. Preferably every day.

• Humans run on stories. Learn to be a great storyteller.

• Humans are emotional. Ask yourself, “How will others feel about this?”.

• Ask, “How do I feel about my top goal?” not “What do I think about my top goal?”

• Allow yourself to be bored sometimes. Ideas will present themselves.

• Build an extensive network that you make time for regularly. Not just when you need it.

• Cultivate a reputation for being dependable. Good reputations are valuable because they’re rare.

• The more you know, the more easily you can see the next steps.

• If you don’t have consistently scheduled time for your top goals, you don’t have top goals.

• Seek ground truth and probe reality.

• Be worried if you haven’t felt awkward recently.

• If there’s something on your mind, write it down and get it out.

• Surround yourself with people with high standards.

• Read books that you enjoy reading, not books you should read.

• Be as specific as possible.

• What are you being a coward about? Be specific!

• What are you ashamed of? Be specific!

• What makes you angry? Be specific!

• Let people tell you no. Don’t decide for them.

• It is never ‘too late.’

• Think about what you enjoy and why you enjoy it.

• If you’re under 90, try new things.

• Change breaks the brittle.

• Long-term relationships are mostly spent just chilling.

• Call your parents when you think of them, and tell your friends when you love them.

• Compliment people. Most have trouble thinking of themselves as smart, pretty, or kind unless told by someone else. You can help them out.

• If a group picks on someone, it’s tempting to join in. Resist this.

• Don’t punish people for trying.

• Remember that many people suffer invisibly.

• Don't punish people for admitting they were wrong; you make it harder for them to improve.

• Stay calm. It’s always better. Always act quickly. Faster is always better. Calm speed is possible.

• You can’t improve what you can’t measure.

• Done is better than perfect. Everything has an MVP.

• Invest in tools. If most of your work is done using a laptop, get a great one. If you’re looking for your good X, you have bad Xs. Throw those out.

• Learn keyboard shortcuts. You’ll get tasks done faster and easier.

• Exercise. It’s not about weight or looks; it’s about mental health.

• Discipline is superior to motivation. The former can be trained; the latter is fleeting. You won’t be able to accomplish great things if you only rely on motivation.

• Sometimes all it takes to succeed is to be the last one standing.

• Remember that you are dying.

• Never give up.

• Don’t die.