☕️ saturday mornings #25
seeking life, getting rich & living with questions
Hi all,
Happy Saturday. I hope you’re having a fantastic start to your weekend.
Below is your edition of “saturday mornings”, a weekly recap of what I’ve been testing, learning and exploring over the past few days.
Thanks for taking the time.
✍️Quote I’ve been thinking about:
“To all of my ‘companions on the path,’ may you be a force for good in this world and see the same in yourselves.
And remember:
What you seek is seeking you.”
― Rumi (13th-century Persian poet)
📰Article I’ve been pondering:
In this article, Naval Ravikant lays out his timeless principles for wealth creation.
He touches on:
Why leverage is your ticket to wealth (and technology enables “infinite leverage”)
Why you should partner with people who are high in energy, intelligence and integrity
Why you should embrace accountability
Naval also explains how the majority of people are not able to get rich by renting out their time because of “lifestyle creep”. As people increase their hourly wage they often upgrade their lifestyle constantly, so they have relatively the same amount of money. If you’re spending is always proportionate to your income, you never really have more money.
This article also covers what skills Naval believes people should focus on in our rapidly developing world.
“If you’re good with computers, if you’re good at basic mathematics, if you’re good at writing, if you’re good at speaking, and if you like reading, you’re set for life.”
For those tight on time, you can check the original “tweetstorm” here or listen to a podcast version of each of the principles here.
✒️Poem that stuck with me:
Live the Questions Now by Rainer Maria Rilke
I came across this poem serendipitously, when I’d been thinking about many of the same ideas.
Instead of rushing to find the answers you’re looking for, and feel frustrated in a state of not knowing, Rainer suggests to “live with the questions” and eventually you will find the answers.
I think a lot of people put so much pressure on themselves, myself included, to figure their life out and control every single variable down to the final detail. But, while there is some advantage to taking control, there is also a lot of pain and struggle involved in the process.
The reality is that many things happen that are out of our control. Events unfold by millions of small chain reactions, and pure chance, luck or bad luck often comes into the mix.
Trying to control everything, or even believing that you can, creates tension and strain that can make life feel like a weight.
From personal experience, I've wasted so much energy wishing things in my life were different or things unfolded differently. I believed that my view of the future was the correct way things should happen, like I have some all-knowing power, and any deviance from that was pure agony. It was a shattering of the reality I has painted. I put all the weight of the future on myself … and it’s a heavy load to carry.
In studying the human experience, so much pain is felt from the inability to accept the current reality and from trying to control the uncontrollable. And then blaming yourself for not having that control.
Rather, as the poem suggests, try to have faith in life and trust the flow of events. Instead of worrying, believe that things will come to you when you need them.
To a more logical person, who I may be losing right about now, I recently read Tribe of Mentors where almost every single massively successful person pointed to their biggest failure, which seemed life ending at the time, as the main catalyst for their eventual success.
Being fired from a job led them to start a company, having a book flop led them to doubling down on writing, being betrayed by a business partner made them more careful of who they surrounded themselves with, etc.
Often, things that can seem like failures now, may be the exact things that need to happen for success. Life often has it’s lessons, difficult as they can be, that come to you at critical times.
I’m not suggesting you should become a Buddhist monk or give up your life to the universe or anything.
The key principle is simple: try to focus only on what you can control, try to embrace the flow of events and put some trust in the innate good of life.
The future is uncertain. I’m trying to get better at sitting with and accepting that uncertainty. Instead of rushing for answers, creating better questions.
Then life opens up and becomes less of a constant push against a brick wall.
In short, the secret often lies in not trying too hard.
“Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.
Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Side note: Michael Singer explores a tangential but similar idea in The Surrender Experiment, which is a fantastic book.
That’s all for this week’s edition of “saturday mornings”.
And, as always, please give me feedback by replying to this email. Which topic above is your favourite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.
Have a lovely weekend.
Much love to you and yours,
Thomas
Really enjoyed the poem, thanks Tom