Do What Feels Right, Not What‘s Rational

People think of themselves as rational. We’re taught in school to value maths. (I hate maths)

The irony is — people think of our species as rational, but we aren’t. Read Dan Ariely’s books. We’re being tricked and manipulated every day in more ways we can fathom.

It makes sense to save money. It makes sense to go to school and become well-rounded. It makes sense to follow instructions, do what you’re told, sign on the dotted line, take mortgages, buy dogs, houses, cars, TVs, more phones than you need, marry, have kids, and subscribe to Netflix. Most people do those things, and they make sense.

But why would you want to make sense, if there isn’t any sense in life in general?

Life has no plan or mission, and no matter what you achieve — it won’t make a difference. It makes more sense to forget rationality because there isn’t any rationality in the world.

“When there’s no rational reason for you to do something but you still want to do it, that’s how you know it’s the right idea to do.”

Focus on what feels right. Focus on the feelings. Do what you want. And don’t do what you don’t want.

Whenever you think about doing something, consult your emotions and ask yourself what you truly want. Only neurotics do what they should.

You have, on average, 30,000 days on this planet. Probably even less. The trick is to make each day memorable. Rationality is for robots. Being human is about feeling and experiencing. It means to live life as a joyful experience, which it is.

Scientists say that a quark is the smallest thing in the Universe. No. The smallest thing is the regret you’ll feel on your deathbed for not working more.

Be a Road, Not a Destination

I’ve just finished a great book by Matt Haig, The Humans. It’s about an alien coming to Earth to destroy valuable information, who ends up transforming into a human, falling in love and disconnecting from his homeworld. It’s a great novel about the beauty of human existence.

One of my highlights from the book was this:

“You don’t have to be anything. Don’t force it. Feel your way, and don’t stop feeling until something fits. Maybe nothing will. Maybe you’re a road, not a destination. That’s fine. Be a road. But make sure it’s the one with something to look at out of the window.”

For the past four years, I focused on achievement and caused me a lot of stress as a result. Like most ambitious twenty-year-olds, I chased the money and success to hide my insecurities. In the end, I lost friends, made crucial mistakes, lost a great deal of money, and had to move to another country.

But the achievement is overrated. You don’t need to achieve anything. You don’t need to be anything. Your only goal is to live and to make your «road» a memorable experience.

Make Each Day a Saturday

In Humans, the unnamed narrator is astonished by the stupidity of the human species. I agree with him.

We want to be happy, and yet we do everything that moves us farther away from it. We buy things we don’t need and do activities we don’t want, and when we finally do what we love, we feel guilty.

We seem to be unable to enjoy life. And yet, that’s what we seek.

Take the workweek. People work five days a week, fighting traffic and cursing the world, to get two when they can relax. If I think about it, it’s actually one day — Sunday feels too close to Monday to feel like a weekend.

The book narrator jokes, “Call me a mathematical genius, but why don’t humans just switch the days and have five fun days and two working days?”

The best way to live life is to change — inside your head — each day’s name to a Saturday. Forget what day of the week it is, it’s Saturday. Act like it’s Saturday. Feel like it’s Saturday. Relax, do what you love, and start exploring things you enjoy.

Call me young or naive, but I truly believe there’s no point in living any other way. My father’s friend wrote on his blog, “I structure myself in a way that I do only what I love.”

That’s the spirit.

Love In The Broadest Sense

If aliens came to Earth and wanted to experience what it’s like being human, they’d have to learn to love.

It’s the most natural thing.

Love for your parents. For your girlfriends, boyfriends, friends, neighbors, and that nice old lady down the corridor that always says, «Hello.»

But it’s also love for your work. For your life. For beauty. For your planet.

Feeling love and passion are the most human feelings there are. And being with people you care about, and who care about you, while doing what you find meaningful — may be the ultimate recipe to a good life.

Create Art To Discover Yourself

Create art not because you want to express yourself — that’s irrelevant — but rather to discover yourself. Or, as Neil Gaiman says, to “save yourself.”

Whatever happens, make good art.

Being in the flow state feels good. You feel alive. You feel as if you matter, even if your art is created for no one, but you. You change something, even if it’s only one person’s perspective.

As I am writing these words, that’s how I am feeling. And when people ask me, what my “writing strategy” is, they simply don’t get it.

Make your art specific enough, and it will touch the hearts of many.

Art can take many forms: it can be a business, a blog post, a book, a painting, a song, or a podcast. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s honest, original, and yours.

And if bravery is what you do when you face something you’re afraid of, but do it anyway (otherwise, it would have been called «recklessness») — then art is a brave thing to do.

We need more real art — not marketing funnels.

Escape Through Laughter

Whether you know it or not, but laughing suits you.

“Laughter, along with madness, seems to be the only way out, the emergency exit for humans.”

There are too many serious people. The world doesn’t need one more.

The world needs people who can laugh more and make other people laugh with them.

Escape Time With Fiction

I haven’t been reading fiction for the past four years, and I regret it. Like most people my age, I subscribed to the “hustle dogma” and thought, who needs a virtual world when we have a real one that’s stranger than fiction?

That may be true, but fiction is important.

Fiction is an escape from your reality. For self-absorbed egomaniacs like me, fiction is a way to get outside of my head — and life — and to gain perspective on everything. It allows us to look at life through other people’s eyes.

Good fiction can provide a map of our world. It allows you to freeze time and speed it up simultaneously. And it allows you to travel without having to visit places which you couldn’t have visited otherwise.

And contrary to conventional wisdom, fiction is better than the truth.

It’s more than just truth.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Waste Time

The very thing that makes us sad is also the best invention of life. Death. Limited time.

Sunsets wouldn’t have been so beautiful if there weren’t so few of them.

Moments with your loved ones wouldn’t have been so precious if you knew there would be more. We are mortal, and that’s what makes life so valuable.

So don’t waste whatever time you’ve got.

Don’t procrastinate. Don’t worry. If you want to worry, set yourself 30 minutes per week to worry. Feel your way and experience life in the remaining minutes. Embrace the days you’ve got.

Whatever you do, don’t waste time.

Do all of the above instead.