Excellent Advice for Living

Excellent Advice for Living compiles over 400 short bits of hard-won advice learned by Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine, in 70 years of life.

Generally, Kelly believes the passage of time is on your side. Timing, however, is more fickle.

Here are his 7 best ideas around timing:

Everyone thinks life was best when they were 10 years old. Live cheaply when you are young so you’ll never be afraid of the worst-case scenario later. “Figure out what time of day you are most productive and protect that time period.” Let your 20s inspire the rest of your life. Front-load all the odd, crazy, and risky stuff so you can make smarter decisions later. “The foolish person winds up doing at the end what the smart person does at the beginning.” You’re always either late or early to things, but you can choose which one it will be. “About 99% of the time the right time is right now.”

And here are 7 more around the passage of time:

You need more focus, not more time, because how much time you’ll have is already determined (or at least out of your control). “You are what you do. Not what you say not what you believe not how you vote but what you spend your time on.” The only way to truly get more time is to buy someone else’s with money. “If you repeated what you did today 365 more times will you be where you want to be next year?” When you feel like quitting, do five more. You’ll either keep going or at least end while you’re ahead. “You are only as young as the last time you changed your mind.” Bad things can happen fast but almost all good things happen slowly.”

Time is your friend, timing is tricky. Find the right things to work on, then keep doing them until time sends you the rewards.

Kelly’s advice on retirement echoes his attitude towards time: The best way to invest is to buy and hold, because “average returns, maintained for above-average periods of time will yield extraordinary results” — “but no one wants to get rich slow.” Beyond that, Kelly mostly believes money is overrated both before… Breakthroughs rarely require money. Being young, scrappy, and hungry is better than being rich and complacent. That’s because… “A problem that can easily be solved with money is not really a problem because its solution is obvious.” Therefore, you should “focus on problems with non-obvious solutions.” “To succeed, get other people to pay you; to become wealthy, help other people to succeed.” …and after you have it: “The rich have money. The wealthy have time. It is easier…