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Also from Theodore Roosevelt (Man in the Arena is his speech): Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever

Also from Theodore Roosevelt (Man in the Arena is his speech): Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action. Scholars have interpreted this quote, and Teddy's overall crazed drive as his way of staving off depression. And from his counsin, FDR: There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still. A few others that I've collected off of HN comments: Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which way works better. - John Carmack Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. - this, or some variation of this, was used in advertising for Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition

icpmacdo 12y ago
Paul Graham's lecture recently really cemented the idea of having a good life is just work on things that interest you and maybe something comes from it but it doesn't matter because you are still doing what you enjoy.
- goldfeld 12y ago
  Exactly! People want things to come from it so they can finally do all they wanted. Why not do it now? Then adjust your priorities, lifestyle and consuming patterns as to lower both your needs and expectations, and you're less likely to feel let down by life. Does not work for power-hungry needs, of course.
- pjmorris 12y ago
  Along those lines, I was inspired by pg quoting Richard Hamming's three questions [1]: 1) What are the most important problems in your field? 2) Are you working on one of them? 3) Why not? [1] http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html

icpmacdo 12y ago

Paul Graham's lecture recently really cemented the idea of having a good life is just work on things that interest you and maybe something comes from it but it doesn't matter because you are still doing what you enjoy.

goldfeld 12y ago
Exactly! People want things to come from it so they can finally do all they wanted. Why not do it now? Then adjust your priorities, lifestyle and consuming patterns as to lower both your needs and expectations, and you're less likely to feel let down by life. Does not work for power-hungry needs, of course.
pjmorris 12y ago
Along those lines, I was inspired by pg quoting Richard Hamming's three questions [1]: 1) What are the most important problems in your field? 2) Are you working on one of them? 3) Why not? [1] http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html