Kareem Mayan's Weblog

"What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do...."

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:51:44 -0700

“What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be – it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous business people for advice.”

- Tim Ferriss in The Four Hour Workweek, via The Rawness

"The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym, and out there..."

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:30:22 -0700

““The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.””

- Muhammad Ali

"Courage overrides self-doubt, but does not end it."

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:09:45 -0700

““Courage overrides self-doubt, but does not end it.””

- Mason Cooley

"It doesn’t matter what we SAY is most important, it’s where we place the bulk of our energy that..."

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:01:46 -0700

“It doesn’t matter what we SAY is most important, it’s where we place the bulk of our energy that speaks to who we really are.”

- Kathy Freston, “Quantom Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness” (via coffeeanddreams)

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the will to act despite the presence of fear."

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:44:15 -0700

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the will to act despite the presence of fear.”

- Unknown

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me..."

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:36:04 -0700

“Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.”

- M. Ghandi via alex bogusky

tedr: The reason I said fuck you facebook last night, and the...

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:04:41 -0700

tedr:

The reason I said fuck you facebook last night, and the reason I don’t like getting an email from Facebook saying ‘Friend X wants to check you in’ is that they default to forcing their users to use a feature. And they are more than happy to send you unlimited emails to ry and do it.

When I log in to Facebook today to block these emails the first thing I saw was he above modal. It again makes me want to say fuck you Facebook, fuck you slowly with a chainsaw. The options they give their users are ‘Accept Now or Decide Later’ they don’t even give an option to ‘Reject Now’. So really it says ‘Accept Now or Accept Later.’ And of course you won’t be surprised to hear that after going through my user account settings I’m still not sure if I’m able to stop getting these emails.

The reason I say fuck you to Facebook is not because it annoys me - even though it does - it’s because they are creating a norm of what Internet users should expect their options to be which is accept now or accept later. People like my mother and sister get steamrolled by these types of options. I know because they ask me ‘do I have to do this’ and ‘why does your brother want me to do this, I don’t want to hurt his feelings by not doing it’. We realize it’s just a viral conversion strategy and can make an independent decision. Most users at the moment think they are hurting a friend’s feelings if they say no.

Sure I can delete my account from Facebook - if I jump through all the hoops - this is not about me. This is about the mindset they are inculcating in 500 million Internet users that you need to do what the website wants. It’s a mini dictatorship done under the guise of having a choice and it’s only going to get more and more aggressive.

"Pressure is nothing more than the shadow of great opportunity."

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:52:04 -0700

“Pressure is nothing more than the shadow of great opportunity.”

- Michael Johnson

In Praise of Quitting Your Job

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:08:59 -0700

In Praise of Quitting Your Job:

As a creative person, you’ve been given the ability to build things from nothing by way of hard work over long periods of time. Creation is a deeply personal and rewarding activity, which means that your Work should also be deeply personal and rewarding. If it’s not, then something is amiss.

One of the best posts I’ve read on why people should enjoy what they do.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:49:43 -0700

““Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.””

- Confucius

"My fear is my only courage."

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:34:03 -0700

“My fear is my only courage.”

- Bob Marley (h/t Kelly)

"A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships were built for."

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:50:30 -0700

““A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships were built for.””

- Admiral Grace Hopper

"A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at."

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:07:39 -0700

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

- Bruce Lee

coffeeanddreams

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:08:30 -0700

coffeeanddreams

"You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don’t think..."

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:35:22 -0700

“You can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don’t think you’re weird, you’re living badly.”

- Paul Graham

"Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find..."

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 20:17:30 -0700

““Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.””

- John Henry Newman

Trust Yourself to Connect the Dots

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:03:26 -0700

Originally posted July 15 to the Find Your Life Purpose newsletter.

—-

I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s 2010 TED talk [1] on revolutionizing education tonight over dinner. It’s brilliant.

Sir Ken’s contention is that we, as a society, obsess over a linear narrative of our lives: go to school, go to university, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, retire, see the world in your golden years, etc.

The problem is that our lives unfold organically, not linearly.

Steve Jobs talks about this in his Stanford commencement speech [2]. He calls it “connecting the dots”. He dropped out of college after 6 months, and hung around for 18 months afterwards. He was poor, returning coke bottles for the 5c deposits, walking 7 miles on Sunday nights for one good meal, and sleeping on friends’ floors. But he loved it, because he was able to explore his interests.

Jobs talks about randomly dropping in on a calligraphy class at the college, which had one of the best calligraphy programs in the world. He learned the ins and outs of typography, just because he was curious. Those typography lessons came to bear 10 years later when he and Steve Wozniak designed the first Mac computer.

Here’s the lesson from the horse’s mouth:

“If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class. And personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

If you accept that our lives evolve organically, and trust that you will be able to look back and connect the dots, it frees you.

It frees you to think about moving from a linear path that no longer serves you, to one that does.

It frees you from the responsibility of telling yourself today what your life will look like 40 years from now (whatever you tell yourself today is, unfortunately, a fairy tale.)

And it frees you to explore your passions in a playful way, with no expectation of outcomes. You’re doing it because it’s fun and engaging.

So ask yourself: am I willing to trust that I’ll be able to connect the dots when I look back? That the passions I’ve explored and will explore will make sense in the narrative of my life?

I’ll leave you with the sage words of 24 year old Charlie Hoehn[3], who says:

“[Herein] lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you.”

Doing things that meaningfully engage you on a regular basis is the first step in finding your life purpose.

Please do more of those things.

And: trust yourself.

—-

1. Sir Ken Robinson’s 2010 TED Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

2. Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

3. Charlie Hoehn:
http://charliehoehn.com/2009/08/29/thoughts-on-tour/

—-

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"Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the..."

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:54:39 -0700

“Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you.”

- Charlie Hoehn

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be..."

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:48:29 -0700

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

- Buddha, via Delivering Happiness

(via dezemeia)

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:46:01 -0700

(via dezemeia)