Compass

Ways of living I follow mostly, and slip on more than you can imagine. This is the compass I’m delicately assembling as I take more space in these big-city arcades 🌊

• Build a high capacity for truth.
• Build a high capacity for confusion.
• Focus. Not everything and everyone is important.
• Build a history of good financial decisions.
• Never let someone make you feel guilty for choosing more money.
• Look good - comfortable pants, best fabric, stand tall, tug that t-shirt in.
• Be useful - power is earned.
• Be dependable - do the thing you said.
• Keep your anger to yourself.
• Loud and funny aren’t the same.
• Only speak the truth in a good spirit.
• Never kill the enthusiasm of a person, even when you know more than they do.
• Enjoy your vices. Mortality is a leverage.
• Don’t be the reason someone goes to bed crying.
• Don’t take credit for someone else’s effort.
• Don’t complain all the time.
• Don’t go to places you aren’t invited to.
• Leave places where you don’t feel respected.
• Don’t eat from a table you didn’t put something on.
• Don’t take from those who have less than you.
• Don’t talk shit about people you don’t know.
• Don’t act like you don’t care when you really do.
• Don’t speak like you know things when you don’t.
• Don’t change your behaviour based on how someone looks.
• Don’t say or do things to a drunk woman you wouldn’t dare to do to a sober one.
• Don’t drink more alcohol than you can handle.
• If it’s not a clear yes, it’s a no.
• Never spit in the eye of serependity. You progress linearly predictably, non-linear change is always a gamble.
• Always be gambling.
• No push-pull. Be Clear. Choose who meets you in the middle.
• No same mistakes twice.
• Never talk to a standing person sitting.
• Hold the door for the person behind and in front of you.
• Push the chair in. All the chairs in.
• If you cancel a plan, it’s your job to make it happen again.
• Don’t shame another competent person. Beat them, move forward immediately. People remember disrespect more than they remember defeat.
• You don’t matter in the grand scheme of events. Evolution kills all identities gradually. Be done when it feels right.
• You can control everything if you control yourself first. More “what’s another way to achieve this” inner monologue than tantrums.
• Optimism is not a bunch of people scratching each other’s backs; optimism is never dismissing heart for mind. Be optimistic.
• Pursue without attachment. There are no pockets in a coffin. If you can’t enjoy the sound of water crashing, the rays of the sun in a shaded corner, the cozy feeling of doing what you like under a lamp, and the adrenaline in crossing lines now and then, it doesn’t matter.
• Quiet is cool. Boring is cool. Healthy is cool. Honest is cool.
• Don’t be uptight. Dance when the room is about that.
• Talk to your family every day.
• Have friends. Few, but those you need no compass to be around.