August 4, 2024

This will be a continuous work in progress. But here’s what I have right now.

I recently came across a thread on a message board where a person in their 20s was seeking advice from those with more life experience. As I began to reply, I realized that such valuable insights should not be confined to a remote corner of the internet. Therefore, I have decided to share my thoughts here. The following is a list of advice or rules I would offer to someone in their 20s, or anyone for that matter. Also I feel compelled to note that I am not so arrogant as to believe that I don’t need to follow my own advice; writing this has served as a helpful reminder for me as well. These points are listed in no particular order of importance:

1. Be impatient about taking action on the things you want. This includes marriage/kids.
2. Don’t wait for permission.
3. Think long-term, but act short-term.
4. Engage in activities that have a compounding effect.
5. Consider the opportunity costs. You can have anything you want, but you can’t have it all.
6. Lift weights. You want to be fit when you’re old? You’re not even fit now!
7. Dress well.
8. Twenty somethings: take more calculated risks. Thoughtful risks not negligent risks.
9. Build and maintain social capital.
10. Network effects play a significant role in shaping your life. Actively seek out and engage with high-value networks.
11. Read more old books than new ones.
12. Newer doesn’t always mean better. Don’t be a chronological snob!
13. Define what you want and actively pursue those goals. At the very least, define what you don’t want and avoid those things.
14. How you spend your days is how you spend your life (Days Build Life). Small things aren’t insignificant.
15. Determine when to keep exploring new opportunities/ideas and when to exploit existing ones.
16. Take more actions that have asymmetrical returns, such as sending cold messages or simply asking for things.
17. Broadcast your desires to the world. Put yourself out there. Make it easy for luck to find you.
18. But remember you’re more than your desires.
19. Care deeply about your endeavors, both big and small.
20. Don’t evade duty; embrace it.
21. Cultivate humility.
22. Seek commitments worthy of your sacrifice and dedication
23. When feeling down, remember that things could always be worse.
24. Aim to be useful.
25. Adopting a mindset of radical responsibility is likely a good heuristic.
26. Mental models, heuristics, and rules of thumb are underrated tools.
27. Be cautious of assumptions; reason from first principles.
28. Consider the secondary and tertiary consequences of your actions.
29. Love is a conscious creation, not a chance discovery.
30. The modern idea that a job needs to be a passion, is bad. Work funds life, it doesn’t define it.
31. Filter modern ideas and practices through the lens of evolutionary skepticism, traditional wisdom, and the Lindy effect.
32. Limits cultivate freedom. Freedom flourishes within the frame of limits.
33. Be a snob. Snobbery is just a term for passionately pursuing quality.
34. Commitment = Sacrifice