#70: meaningful life

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Growing up, we often saw him doing what he called “winning the daily private victory” early in the morning by meditating, reading his scriptures, and exercising.

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Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy—very busy—without being very effective.

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Habit 3: Put First Things First

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically—to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.”

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Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.

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Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

The principle of influence is governed by mutual understanding born of the commitment of at least one person to deep listening first.

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Habit 6: Synergize

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity.

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Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we “see” ourselves—our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people. It becomes our map of the basic nature of mankind.

Moving from one goal to another in search of happiness sets you on a hedonic treadmill.

Not feeling grateful for what we have and expressing dissatisfaction over what we don’t sets us on a hedonic treadmill—we keep craving the happiness boost that comes with achieving something but neither does it last long nor is it as intense as we had imagined.

Start with why. Knowing the purpose of doing something and connecting it to the meaning and purpose of your life is in itself a source of joy.

Attempts to find meaning in life seek to transcend the limits of an individual life…For a life to have meaning, it must connect with other things, with some things or values beyond itself.

Everything that causes us to find our lives meaningful takes us beyond our narrow limits and connects us to something else. Children, relationships with other persons, helping others, advancing justice, continuing and transmitting a tradition, pursuing truth, beauty, world betterment—these and the rest link you to something wider than yourself.

Each of these pushes us outside of ourselves and towards others. In the language of the Stoics, they are ways to express our rational and social nature. The world is a single organic whole. Any part which remains preoccupied with itself isn’t fulfilling its nature. It is, in a real sense, not as significant or meaningful. What makes life meaningful? Transcendence.

A full life of courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom, is a meaningful one. By focusing on these transcendent goals, instead of insignificant ones, we set ourselves up for a happy life.

I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to note-taking apps.

I used to use Craft and tried my best to ignore all the shiny new toys that launch every day. But recently I gave Reflect a try, and I have to say, I'm loving it.

It's similar to Roam, Obsidian, and Logseq, but they seem to have taken the best features of those apps and added a few unique ones of their own. Alongside Notion, Reflect is helping me stay on top of what's important and keeping me organized.