Principles to live by …
By: Promeet Mansata
Tags: Life Lessons, Growth Mindset, Principles, Life Hacking

As I mentioned in the prior edition of Dozen Worthy Reads, this final 2020 edition will be a set of principles that I try to apply to my daily life. 2020 has been a hard year and more so than ever, if anything growth, success, and happiness are more important than so many things. Each week I meet with a couple of very good friends and we discuss these in one way, form, or shape — this has helped with not only clarity but a frequent reminder. I hope you like them and wish you all a very happy holiday season and see you back in Jan.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions; not asking questions results only in your loss.

Walk away; every battle is not worth fighting and you won’t win the war.

Identify and cut off hazardous relationships. You are better off.

Read. Read. Read. Read all the time.

Take a risk: Start a company; take a risk; don’t be afraid (like me).

Learn how not to give a f***. You’ll be way better off in the long run.

Live under your means; things wont give you any happiness. Learn the art of compounding.

Invest in yourself; expect no one else to and don’t be pissed off when they don’t.

Know you’re close friends; and it’s likely no more than 3–5. Your close friends are those who’ll ask you how you are and help you selflessly with no questions asked when things are bad.

Be happy with the things you have rather than unhappy with the things you don’t; tangentially don’t buy things to impress other people buy them for yourself.

Karma will get you so whatever you do to others remember it will come back to you.

When someone tells you that “you can’t” politely tell them to f*** off.

Learn how to handle your emotions. Don’t take the anger you have on one person out on another person.

Let what you eat be your medicine. Nature may not have the cure but it sure does have the prevention.

Try to piece together second and third order consequences and use principles such as this list.

Do what you say you’re going to do.

Don’t take other people’s time for granted.

Seek long-term games with long-term people (Naval Ravikant) .

If you do choose to do something, put your heart into it with no expectations.

Assume ignorance, not malice — give people the benefit of the doubt. Envy, hatred, jealousy, anger are simply acids that eat away at the container they’re kept in.

The only things that matter are health, family, friends, work, community service, spiritual development, personal development,

Be very aware of who/what brings or detracts energy.

Quality > Quantity — whether in things, thoughts, relationships, etc. (minus buffets)

Long, uninterrupted periods of time are key to make progress in challenging pursuits. Find a way to focus on things that will help you progress.

Richard Hamming’s Trifecta — what are the most important problems in your field? Are you working on them? If not, why not? What can you do about it?

Simply doing the hard work upfront is actually less work than trying to find ways around it. In the same vein, face your problems head on.

Sharing knowledge compounds it and teaching helps you learn it even better.

Writing clearly = thinking clearly (Paul Graham). Try to write more.

You never know what someone is battling — let this thought lead you by the hand towards patience and empathy .

Find and pursue your IKIGAI like your life depends on it. Your life does depend on it.

Problems are easy to find; solutions are harder. It’s easy to find flaws in someone’s solution but hard to come up with a better solution.

Intelligence is not knowing everything. Its knowing that you don’t know everything , acknowledging it, and learning.

Most people don’t give a sh*t what you do. So do what you need to do.

Not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured”