#180: A Toothless Life, Taking Risks & Picking a Passion
3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on Getting What You Want
I. A Toothless Life
The worst outcome is not if you don’t get what you want. The worst outcome is if you haven’t even tried. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre on living a toothless life:
“I have led a toothless life”, he thought, “a toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on — and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone.”
—Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason
II. Taking Risks
What makes people live a toothless life? Among other things, a fear of taking risks. Author Robert Greene makes the case for taking them now to be more adaptable in the future:
You’re afraid of leaving this job that you have because you gotta good paycheck and you don’t want to experiment now and you don’t want to try something that might be more suited for you but god knows where your paycheck is gonna come from.
But I’m telling you that you have more to fear 10 years, 20 years down the line if you’re in a field that doesn’t excite you. Because we live in a world now where things are changing so quickly. Your career path is really altering. You’re not going to be working in at same place for very long.
And once your career changes and there’s shifts going on in the world, you’re going to be screwed. Because you don’t know how to adjust. You’re doing something that you don’t love. You should be afraid of that. That’s what you should be afraid of.
III. Picking a Passion
Famed physicist Richard Feynman put it slightly more positively, urging us to pick a passion and sink our teeth in.
Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world.
Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best.
Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn’t stop you from doing anything at all.
—Richard Feynman
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Happy New Year 2025!
Chris
themindcollection.com
"We are human BEINGS not human DOINGS."