Entelechy

What are the biggest life ideas of the year? I started writing these notes because:

1) I like the idea of thinking about life in four pillars: health, wealth, love, and happiness. 

My life is only as good as the weakest pillar, and I hope to improve them all.

2) I love the idea of entelechy - becoming the best you can become. 

Each of the following ideas was a main realization for the year and helped me improve in one of the four life pillars.

'16

Everything you do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great.

Self-awareness is the most important skill in life.
Enjoy the process.

There are four pillars to the good life: health, wealth, love, and happiness.
Say: "that's not what I thought, but what made you say that?".
Live a life of mad scientist experiments.
It is not the strongest or the fittest that survive, but those that are most adaptable to their environment.

'17

Go to bed better than when you woke up.

It is not greed that drives the world, but envy.

Think in heuristics.

Entelechy: the realization of potential is the meaning of life.

'18

Nobody cares enough about you to form their own opinion of you.

'19

Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Responsibility gives life meaning.

The meaning of life is struggle.

'20

Everything in life is a tradeoff.

'21

Optimize for equanimity, not happiness because equanimity can be converted to happiness at any time and can be forever.
Most of our desires are copied from other people, so we end up in competition.

You are whole before and you are whole after.

Let it go. Relax into everything.

Not wanting something is the same as having it.

'22

The purpose of life is accelerating the heat death of the universe (entropy).

When present in the moment you need next to no stimulation, the details of the world become incredible. It's easier to be present when you love the world and don't waste OS on 'how to control, how to get approval, want to be safe'.

The source of suffering is desire. We construct an identity to get what we want.

The only thing certain in life is change.

If we truly want something, we act right away by being present -> being fully in pain -> doing.

'23

Whatever you feel like you lack in the moment, that’s a signal to give that back to someone else - respect, love, these are things you give not seek. The meaning of life is self-respect. 

All hatred is hatred of self; if you resent a person, you resent something in them that is a part of yourself.

All fear is fear of death.