How To Live

Summary

In this book Derek Sivers tries to answer the question of how to best live life. The funny thing is that each answer is contradictory to the previous ones, highlighting the absurdity of the question and also giving a glimpse into all the different approaches one could take to life in the first place.

This makes the bug very fun and engaging to read, because it makes you think about how different aspects of life are contrasted to one another and how they can be combined in a way that makes sense to you. Because in the end of the day, this is the most important bit of life. It's something deeply personal, and people are different, hence their approaches to life will be different as well. People's fundamental values differ. Hence they will have different answers as to how much of each of the answers will resonate with them. Something else I have learned about life is that no matter which approach you choose, when you are maximizing just a single aspect of life, there are costs associated with this. No matter which value you choose to live your life around, you are going to miss out in one way or another and you have to find a way to be okay with that. There's no silver bullet and there never will be.

Detailed Notes

Chapter 1 - Be Independent

Cut all ties. Become lose of everything. Never commit. Automate business. Don't take responsibility. Don't stay. Move, explore, try out. Live off grid, don't follow societies norms, rules or anything.

Have no home at all. When you have no home, the whole world is your home. Be a nomadic minimalist to break dependencies on stuff. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors thrived by carrying nothing, then finding or making what they needed.

Chapter 2 - Commit

Take things seriously. Build communities, a home, family, friends, rituals, routine. The things you do. Cut off other options. Decide. Marry. Settle down. There's freedom in commitment.

You’ve been looking for the best person, place, or career. But seeking the best is the problem. No choice is inherently the best. What makes something the best choice? You. You make it the best through your commitment to it. Your dedication and actions make any choice great.

Choose your home. Stay there for good.

Once you decide what’s important to you, you know how your ideal self will act and what your ideal day will be. So why not act that way and live that day every day?

If it’s not important, never do it. If it’s important, do it every day.

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love is harder. Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.

Chapter 3 - Fill Your Senses

Consume. Maximize input. All of it, all the time, all at once. There is too much too experience, try experiencing it all. Frantically. Paying for it - travel writer, harder than it looks, or sales. If you can sell stuff money is a solved problem.

See it all. Touch it all. Hear it all. Taste it all. Do it all. Appreciate this wonderful physical world.

Life is short. How to experience it all? Here’s the key: Here’s your mission: Nothing twice.

How amazing that everything you’re doing is both the first and last time. The thrill of the first. The sentimentality of the last.

But after decades of this, you’ll need something radically new. Stay in one place. Be with one person. Buy a home. Raise a baby. It’s terrifying, but if you don’t, it will be the one experience you never had.

Chapter 4 - Do Nothing

Be still. No thoughts. No actions. Silence. Tranquility. Peace. Create emotions directly, without the actions. You don't need the action, just the emotion suffices. Internal world > external world. Meditate.

All actions are optional. You don’t have to act or react. You don’t have to do anything.

There’s no deeper happiness than wanting nothing. Desire is the opposite of peace.

Silence is precious. Silence is the one thing that all religions have in common. Silence is the only way to hear quiet wisdom.

Junk may reach your senses, but don’t let it reach your mind.

The unintelligent jump to conclusions. The wise just observe.

Doing nothing is the ultimate minimalism.

Thought: It's also equal to death. It's not possible to do nothing at all. Decisions have to be made because reality happens with or without deciding. Withering away because you don't eat, you don't move is a sign of depression and it would ultimately kill you. Unless one really believes in Enlightenment and Buddhism in which case the mind is all there is and dying in such a way but with a reprogrammed mind that accepts this as perception is the way out. Literal Nirvana.

Everything seems more important while you’re thinking of it.

Chapter 5 - Think Super-Long- Term

Compounding is insane. Create a fund with small money that only can be "opened" after 200 years.

Actions amplify through time to have a massive impact on the future.

Never spend, only invest. The earlier you start, the better, since time is the multiplier.

We treat the future like a garbage dump. We dump our debts, pollution, junk, and responsibilities on the future, as if it’s a problem solved. It’s the most psychopathically inconsiderate thing we do to our children, since it’s their world, not ours.

Chapter 6 - Intertwine with the World

People are closely related. But cultures are different. Explore them, become part of them. Then try again. With a different culture.

People who are weird like you are spread out everywhere.

From Brazil, learn to live in the present, and embrace every stranger as a friend. Leave before you forget about the future. From Germany, learn rationality and directly honest communication. Leave before you start scolding strangers. From Japan, learn deep consideration for others, social harmony, and intrinsic perfection. Leave before you get so considerate that you can’t express yourself or take action. From China, learn pragmatism and the multi-generational mindset. Leave before you get superstitious or prioritize social status. From France, learn idealism and resistance. Leave before you oppose everything in theory. From America, learn expressive rebellious individualism. Leave before thinking you’re the center of the world. From India, learn to improvise and thrive in complexity. Leave before feeling a divide between what’s inside versus outside your circle.

When you die, you leave behind your genes and ideas. The atoms in your cells will disassemble and become plants, animals, dirt, and oceans.

Chapter 7 - Make Memories

Do epic things. Projects. Adventures. Things that are memorable. Record them. Journal. Video it.

If you can’t remember something, it’s like it never happened.

Turn your experiences into stories. A story is the remains of an experience. Make your stories entertaining, so people like to hear them.

Memory can change, the way that we tell ourselves stories changes how we remember the events that happened.

Without memories, you have no sense of self.

Chapter 8 - Master Something

Be a monomaniac on a mission to be truly great at something difficult. Pick one thing and spend the rest of your life getting deeper into it.

Mastery is hard to attain, impossible to truly fake.

Mastery is the ultimate status.

Things get more interesting the closer you look. Everything has indefinite amounts to be learned. There's always more to discover. Pick one and follow where the road leads.

If you haven’t decided what to master, pick anything that scares you, fascinates you, or infuriates you. Don’t ask, “Is this the real me?” or “Is this my passion?” Those questions lead to endless searching and disappointment. People don’t fail by choosing the wrong path — they fail by not choosing. Make your choice, then make a lifetime commitment to constant improvement. The passion comes after you start getting good.

Goals are about taking actions now. Good goals make you act, bad goals don't. The beginning of the path to mastery is easy. But deliberate practice over infinite time frames is really difficult. That's why so little people stick with it and pursue mastery in anything.

Focus means head down. Big picture means head up. The more you’re doing of one, the less you’re doing of the other. If you’ve been head-down on a task for too long, lift your head up to make sure you’re going the right way. Don’t do well what you shouldn’t do at all.

Don’t live somewhere pleasant surrounded by normal people. Live among your fellow freaks, where obsession is normal and ambition is rewarded. You don’t get extreme results without extreme actions. If you do what most people do, you’ll get what most people get. Don’t be normal. Society’s guidelines are for the lost — not for you. You don’t need a spouse or kids. You don’t need to hang out, make small talk, or join in common rituals. You don’t need to sleep at normal hours, keep a tidy home, or even relax. Be sharply focused, not well-rounded.

Thought: This sharp contrast of performance and hustle culture shows how toxic it is. You don't need to live because you sacrifice life into a furnace of desire to be good at something. It's literally the stuff of fables and those never end well. Burnout is a thing. Mastery needs well roundedness.

Chapter 9 - Let Randomness Rule

We think we see patterns and causes. Really there are none. We think events are meaningful. Really they’re just coincidence. We’re not used to the logic of probability. Life is more random than it seems.

Things are also more predictable than they seem. People behave in particular ways, because of upbringing and genetics. Break free of it, use a random number generator for everything.

Choose a life where you choose nothing.

You’ll be living a lesson that everyone should learn. Random stuff happens. All you can control is your response. Every day, you’ll practice how to react to chaos: with dignity, poise, and grace.

Thought: There is something between the lines of all of those ways to live. It's about doing none and all of them at the same time. You need randomness, you need mastery, you need goals, you need commitment, you need freedom and all of them are often mutually exclusive. You can't have it all, eat your cake and have it too. There's only a fine balance. Eating some of your cake, while saving some for later. And putting things in such hard clear cut diamond words, cuts through the issues, exposing any of these ideas for the flawed things they really are. Anything as a philosophy of life is flawed and wrong. Because it's not adaptive to its own biases.

Chapter 10 - Pursue Pain

Pain improves our circumstances. It's a tool for growth.

If you avoid pain, you avoid what you really want.

People say they’re not doing the work because it’s hard. But it’s hard because they’re not doing the work.

Pain’s power relies on surprise. If you expect it, it’s weaker. If you choose it, it’s gone.

Necessity is the best teacher. But it hurts.

Going out of your comfort zone is painful, but your comfort zone grows and eventually once painful things cease to be painful. Then you need to spin the wheel again.

Happiness isn’t everlasting tranquility. Happiness is solving good problems.

Chapter 11 - Do Whatever You Want Now

Life happens now. There's no past, no future, just a seemingly endless streams of moments. just a seemingly endless streams of moments.

When people ask the meaning of life, they’re looking for a story. But there is no story. Life is a billion little moments. They’re not a part of anything.

If you want to do something, do it now. If you don’t want to do it now, then you don’t want to do it at all, so let it go.

Chapter 12 - Be A Famous Pioneer

Do things that are impossible so that others can dream even bigger.

Pioneers have a massive impact on the world because their stories help people do things they wouldn’t have dreamed of otherwise.

Show what can be done.

Thought: This is akin to the mastery chapter. If you truly master something you also become a pioneer, almost automatically and by the definition of the word. There's always levels of mastery that have not been reached yet. Reach them and you not only progressed your mastery but became a pioneer.

Your final act of generosity is your absence. It leaves a void for others to step into.

You can write out and live a story, planned in advance. Creating fame, by planning how to live a life that makes a great story. Treating the whole affair as a business. Then using the fame and money that it generates to fuel the fire of even bigger adventures.

Chapter 13 - Chase the Future

Living on the edge of what's only just begun. New music, new technology, new art, new culture. Chase after it.

Every year, visit Singapore, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Lagos, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City, and Silicon Valley. Each is creating the future in very different ways.

Chapter 14 - Value Only What Has Endured

New things have some benefits but deeper downsides like addiction, pollution, scattered focus, or wasted time.

Ignore all marketing and advertising. Nobody is pushing what really matters. Friendships, nature, family, learning, community. The best things in life aren’t things.

Technology advances faster than wisdom. It’s smarter to move at wisdom’s pace.

Things that have endured are better and you don't constantly have to relearn them. There is a permanence, something valuable, in things that have stood the test of time. They will stick around, even long after we have gone out.

Chapter 15 - Learn

Learning is underrated. People wonder why they’re not living their ideal life. Maybe they never learned how.

Most misery comes from not learning.

If you’re not embarrassed by what you thought last year, you need to learn more and faster.

When you’re really learning, you’ll feel stupid and vulnerable — like a hermit crab between shells.

Whatever scares you, go do it. Then it won’t scare you anymore. Whatever you hate, get to know it. Then you won’t hate it anymore.

In other words, seek pain, it's a signal for learning.

Learning leaves a trail of little deaths.

Use spaced repetition. Take notes. Don't forget.

If you can’t explain it yourself, you don’t know it.

Teaching and learning are telepathy. We can connect across oceans and centuries. Words written by someone long ago and far away can penetrate your mind.

Chapter 16 - Follow the Great Book

The great book can be 7 Habits or the Bhagavad Gita.

Read metaphorically, and apply it to your modern life.

Rules are to save you from deciding. That’s why hard rules are easier to keep.

Discipline turns intentions into action. Discipline means no procrastination. Discipline means now. Choose the pain of discipline, not the pain of regret.

Rules sometimes stop you from doing certain things, but in so doing they keep you safe. Without constraints it's easier to fail miserably. But still they constrain, so true heights need the breaking and recasting of rules. True understanding to remodel and remake the rules, only better and adapted to the situation.

Define a good life as more than shallow pleasure. A good life is contribution. A good life is resisting temptation. A good life is being the best you can be.

Chapter 17 - Laugh at Life

Humor is the necessary ingredient to a good life.

No matter what you need to do, there’s a playful, creative way to do it. Playing gives you personal autonomy and power.

Time belittles anything by showing it’s not as bad as it seemed. Humor does that instantly.

Chapter 18 - Prepare for the Worst

Now are good times. Times could be much worse. Prepare for those.

Expecting life to be wonderful is disappointing. Expecting life to be disappointing is wonderful.

To appreciate something fully, picture losing it.

Thought: Memento Mori and the whole stoic patterns of thoughts are based on similar insights. Prepare for the worst and imagine it, but then be happy when it doesn't happen as bad as you thought it could have been.

Befriend discomfort so that you’ll never fear it.

Own as little as possible. When you realize you’re dependent on something, get rid of it to prove you don’t need it. The less you have, the less you have to lose.

Visit your favorite places. Listen to your favorite music. Taste your favorite food. Touch your favorite people. This might be the last time you do all these things, so appreciate each moment fully.

Chapter 19 - For Others

Helping others is a better path to happiness than helping only yourself.

Allow silence. Don’t fill it. Silence gives space to think, and an invitation to contribute without pressure.

Assume everyone is just as smart and deep as you. Assume their temperament is just their nature, and not their fault. Don’t be mad at them for being that way, for the same reason you can’t be mad at someone for being tall.

This chapter summarizes how to relate to other people. It's insanely concise. Be interested. Genuinely. Friends are made. Ask open ended questions. Don't assume bad things. Help. Treat people like it was their last day on earth. Be compassionate.

Confidence attracts. Vulnerability endears.

Whenever you’re thinking something nice about someone, tell them.

Business, when done right, is generous and focused on others.

Your caring should grow until it reaches past your community, past your country, past your generation, and past your species. Care about strangers across the world as much as you do your family. Care about all forms of life as much as you do humans.

Chapter 20 - Get Rich

Money is necessary. And learning how to make it is like learning any other skill. Making money is about providing value to people. The more value you provide, the more money you make.

Money is as neutral as math. Because it’s neutral, people have projected all kinds of meaning onto it.

The world is full of money. There’s no shortage. So capture the value you create. Charge for what you do. It’s unsustainable to create value without asking anything in return. Remember that many people like to pay.

If you aim to be comfortable, you won’t get rich.

Thought: Again this connects to the chapter on pain. Many things in life are not comfortable and you have to endure some amount of stress to get them. Money is among those things. Unless, the thing that makes you money is enjoyable to you. Then money making can be a game. Something you play, but where other people value your play so much that they pay you for it.

Think bigger.

The world needs more boldness. Refuse the comfortable addiction of a steady paycheck. Boldly jump on opportunities. Take risky action.

Ideas are worth almost nothing. Execution is everything. The world is filled with ideas, yet so few take action and make them happen.

Thought: Be one of those few.

Instead of fighting to split an existing dollar, inventing creates a dollar out of thin air.

In other words: play positive sum games. Create a bigger pie.

Sell your business before you have to. Sell before it peaks. The fun is in creating a business, not maintaining it.

Invest extra money. Not via feeling. Simple strategy, mathematically correct, follow it.

It's a matter of math, not mood.

Investing is easy unless you try to beat the market. Settle for average.

Speculating is not investing. Never speculate. Never predict. Be humble, not arrogant. Never think for one second that you know the future. Remind yourself over and over again that nobody knows the future. Ignore anyone that says they do.

Thought This is entirely what John Bogle the inventor of index funds advised too. Mathematically markets are a zero sum endeavor. Beating it requires that you outsmart everybody else. There's one caveat. New technology that opens new markets, i.e. if you have enough money to invest into something truly novel that enriches the ecosystem, then you can beat the market by creating part of the future. In other words, building companies is an investment strategy.

When rich, don't become attached to money. Be rich, yet frugal, not spending.

The less you buy, the more you’re in control. Forget lifestyle. Forget yourself. Stay 100% focused on creating value. Everything else is a corrupting distraction.

Chapter 21 - Reinvent Yourself Regularly

Definitions are just your old responses to past situations. What you call your personality is just a past tendency.

You don't have to abide by any of it. All of these impulses are just excuses. Rationalizations of behavior that you could choose to do differently, just as well.

Your identity. Your meanings. Your trauma. They’re all based on the core idea that you’re in a continuum, living a story. But there is no line between moments in time. There is no story. There is no plot.

Again.

There is no line between moments in time.

Except physics. And if you have a brain tumor sort of stuff... But how free is free will that we have? How much of it isn't just story? What happens if you decide to follow this advice of this chapter? Furthermore, what does this chapter do to the inner workings of your brain in case you really do start to "reinvent" yourself?

You’re an ongoing event — a daily improvisation — responding to the situation of the moment.

Chapter 22 - Love

You choose to love something or someone. You can love anything or anyone you decide to love.

Paying very close attention to the small details of a thing is an expression, a form of love.

Actively listen to people. When they’re succinct, ask them to elaborate. People aren’t used to someone being sincerely interested, so they’ll need some coaxing to continue. But never try to fix them. When someone tells you what’s broken, they want you to love the brokenness, not try to eliminate it.

Admit what you’re really feeling, even when it’s uncomfortable.

If you have feelings for someone, and you don’t let that person know, you’re lying with your silence. Be direct. It saves so much trouble and regret.

Chapter 23 - Create

All that matters is what you’ve launched. Make finishing your top priority.

Too many ideas are never realized. People dying before they did the things they have always thought about. Half finished, broken wrecks of projects. So so many.

Suspend all judgment when creating the first draft. Just get to the end. It’s better to create something bad than nothing at all. You can improve something bad. You can’t improve nothing.

Only creating makes you creative.

Originality just means hiding your sources.

When you’re gone, your work shows who you were. Not your intentions. Not what you took in. Only what you put out.

Chapter 24 - Don't Die

Don’t try to be more right. Just be less wrong.

Most of eating healthy is just avoiding bad food.

Avoid the bad. Don't pursue the good. Fix things and reduce risks. No accidents. No heart disease. Avoiding the downsides.

Keep your eye on death. Avoid the mistakes that end life. Avoid the negatives that wreck life. Avoid the time-wasting that brings death sooner.

Chapter 25 - Make a Million Mistakes

Try absolutely everything, all the time, expecting everything to fail. Just make sure that you capture the lessons from each experience. And never make the same mistake twice.

This advice is so goddamn hard to put into practice. In general, a lot of these things from the book are easily digested in words but really really hard to put into practice. Not doing a mistake twice would be an ultimate learning machine. Think what this would mean for a piano player.

Take on big challenges. Start a company in Silicon Valley. Ask investors for millions. Audition for Hollywood movies. Invite your dream date to dinner. While everyone else is nervously preparing, you jump right in, unafraid to fail.

Not just make mistakes. Record them, share them, learn from them.

Chapter 26 - Make Change

The world doesn’t need more audience. The world needs changing. What’s broken needs fixing. What’s OK needs improving. What’s harmful needs destroying.

All progress comes from those who ignore the boundaries, break the rules, or make a whole new game.

Don’t worship your heroes. Surpass them.

When you change something, some people are mad. If the bad people are mad, your change was good. If you made a difference, that's good. Difference means you changed something.

Chapter 27 - Balance Everything

Too much of a specific strength is a weakness.

Virtue is in the balance between the extremes.

This book has been chapter after chapter of extremes. It's fitting that this last chapter is an extreme of its own. That of balancing everything said before.

Balance input and output, consumption and creation, stability and adventure, body and spirit.

What other continuums are there to balance?

Schedule everything to balance things out in time.

The world’s greatest achievements were squeezed into existence by deadlines.

Conclusion

Is this a duck or a bunny? No. This is a duck and bunny. This is an orchestra. You are the composer and conductor.