23 principles
I'm using these to structure my approach to life in the coming months
I just completed my 23rd circle around the sun a few days ago.
What’s 23 like? I’m not really sure honestly. I’m new to this. Considering myself as a 23-year old is weird, and in general, my brief foray into adulthood these past few months has been really strange. Sure there have been moments of joy such as not getting carded at bars anymore (for the most part), but there’s generally also been a lot of confusion and uncertainty. There are so many times I find myself just staring ahead wondering what the fuck I’m doing with my life. I’m starting to realize that’s just an intrinsic part of adulthood and life in general.
In the face of this constant uncertainty, I’m trying to orient my life around mantras, ideas, and principles. They provide ageless wisdom and unbounded inspiration and tend to push the anxiety and existential dread that creeps in so easily away; they help me return to a place of peace and stillness. Here are 23 of them that have been very powerful for me.
1. Freely forgive
Forgiveness can be so powerful. It encourages you not to see people as static entities; to not let their past actions dictate their capacity for virtue in the present and the future.
Michael Singer’s work with prisoners illustrated this beautifully for me. His work involved providing guidance on meditation for people who were currently serving life sentences in maximum security prisons. Eventually, the prisoners began teaching each other and practicing with each other. A beautiful community was built in the midst of such darkness; even while serving their sentences as prescribed by the justice system, they still had the capacity to lead, grow, and develop. I think we all have this capacity no matter what we’ve done in the past, and I think the essence of leadership is being able to unlock that capacity in others.
Regardless of the impact that your forgiveness has on other people, it can also be simply for your own benefit. Bitterness and hatred is such a heavy burden to carry. Forgiveness is choosing to let this go and set yourself free.
2. Detach, detach, detach
We’re taught to believe that the attainment of material success and material objects bring feelings of validation, success, and happiness into our lives. This is a pure fantasy; the pursuit of material objects only builds the desire for more, pushing feelings of validation, success, and happiness further away. It actually works the other way around. Feeling validation, success, and happiness right now allows you to take aligned action with ease, letting all the material things you wanted anyways to flow into your life effortlessly.
Besides, literally everything is temporary. Nothing stays with you forever. So why attach to anything? Attachment generates fear and anxiety of loss. I’d rather just let things flow. I’ll simply enjoy things when they flow into my life, and if they flow out, I’ll respond with some timeless wisdom from my dude Winnie the Pooh:
How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
3. Amor Fati
This is a beautiful Latin phrase which means ‘love of one’s fate’. Basically, a reminder that everything happens FOR you not TO you. For me, this means to not only accept everything that happens, but to embrace it with love and gratitude. Even if it doesn’t make sense right away, eventually I’ll understand why things had to happen the way they did. I can’t control what happens; I can only control how I respond to it. Plus, if everything happened exactly the way I wanted to or expected to all the time, what would be the point of living? The uncertainty and unexpected twists and turns are what makes this journey so exciting and invigorating.
4. Memento Mori
This is another Latin phrase, and this means ‘remember that you must die’. A little morbid, I know. But honestly, I find it beautiful. It’s a reminder that we’re all living on borrowed time, that each breath I take is a gift. So why not live freely and fearlessly, right?
Besides, death is all around us. Each day that passes is a day I won’t get back. In a way, I’ve died many, many times as well. The person I was when I first held an iPod Touch back in the late 2000s is as much a memory as Steve Jobs is. Honestly, I’m not afraid of death anymore. That pre-teen kid had to die for me to become who I am today. And soon enough, the person I am right now as I’m writing this article will be a distant memory. This is how it must be; it’s the cycle of life. Just like how forest fires are actually life-affirming by restoring balance and injecting vitality into forest ecosystems, so too is death necessary for life and growth.
5. Be inspired by your younger self
I honestly feel like I have more to learn from my younger self than from anyone or anything else in the world. I’m so much more inspired by the relentless curiosity, the naive optimism, and the blissful ignorance of ‘how the world works’ that I had back in the day than I am by some of the people who match the contemporary definitions of success. It was so much fun to be alive back then. Someone stole my pencil in elementary school? Who cares, recess is coming up!
It’s funny - every day I’m striving to arm myself with more knowledge and more wisdom for my own growth, but I’ve started to realize that this growth is just an effort to return to the state of effortless bliss and curiosity that we all were born with. Another reminder that everything we seek is inside us.
6. Don't compete against the world, compete against yourself
I grew up participating in competitions pretty much every other weekend, and I loved it. I loved winning. But now, that kind of competition just feels so….empty and boring. Fighting and beating others to try to ‘prove my superiority’ by obtaining things that others can’t (job offers, money, status, etc.) just doesn’t seem all that fun or meaningful. The only true, authentic, fair competition that exists is the competition against myself; to elevate myself mentally, physically, and spiritually and be one step ahead of the person I was yesterday.
The most fascinating part about this competition is that it really isn’t about adding more to myself. It’s more about chipping away at the lies, the ego, the expectations, the fear, etc. that prevent my authentic self from shining through. It’s like Michelangelo’s approach to sculpting:
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
Michelangelo had it easy though. The block never changed. The same can’t be said for ourselves. You can go to town chipping away at something and making a huge step forward only to find out that it’s grown back much bigger and uglier the next day. Like what the fuck? It’s maddening. But that’s okay! This is a lifelong process. I will never attain the level of perfection of the statue of David, but I’m finding purpose in the process.
7. Let your curiosity guide you
I feel like the mental model that exists is that utility, money, and status frame the things we decide to invest our time into; they determine the things that are worth being curious about. Why do you think so many people are jumping into the NFT/web3 game? Because there’s loads of money to be made in it. The money generated the curiosity, not the other way around.
That is so backwards. Regardless of how I think this mental model is probably bad for society (let’s keep throwing money, talent, and resources towards B2C tech because that’s where all the money and cool people are while our education system, infrastructure, and climate crumble!), it’s also just boring and conformist. It results in everyone trying to do the same thing. What’s the fun in that?
I want my intrinsic curiosity to lead, and most of the time, following my intrinsic curiosity has brought material affluence into my life in a much more fulfilling way.
8. Compassion before comprehension
I think we’ve been fooled into thinking that we need to fully understand the context of other people’s situation and truly comprehend what they’re feeling in order to be able to support them.
I think this misses the fact that compassion should always come first. I don’t think anyone needs any specific knowledge to want other people to feel safe and secure and loved and cared for. Part of me thinks that the constant emphasis on guilt and comprehension is a capitalist trap to sell more books, documentaries, and trainings, but who knows. Either way, genuine compassion will always result in a more authentic effort to learn and act, way more than guilt ever will. Guilt doesn’t inspire; compassion does.
(This concept is taken from Alok Vaid-Menon in a podcast episode with Justin Baldoni. Give it a listen because they explain it so beautifully and powerfully!)
9. Don't let your progress become pride
Any growth and progress is not for status or achievement or social credit; it’s for myself, so I can better serve my own purpose. Pride and vanity are forms of attachment to a version of myself, but I’m always going to be an unfinished product. In that way, pride and vanity work against me and push personal growth further away. I want to grow for the sake of growing, not to turn around and wear it as a badge.
10. Habits before goals
People tend to bundle habits and goals together, turning habits into a means to achieve the goals. I think they’re completely separate; the goals can provide directional guidance on our actions, but our habits and systems are tools to cultivate greater mental clarity and presence.
Everyone knows that there are sets of healthy habits to cultivate (building an exercise routine, having a routine sleep schedule, having good habits surrounding device usage, get out in nature, etc.), but the struggle is that those habits are too closely tied to goals. Either you have a strong goal and abandon the habits because the goal hasn’t manifested quick enough, or you don’t even try building good habits because you’re too busy trying to find a goal or something to work towards that makes the effort of building good habits worth it. Can you see the danger in tying goals and habits together?
I think habits should always come first, and instead of expecting to get something out of them, you should do them simply because they feel good. And maintaining good habits typically has the side effect of better crystallizing the kinds of goals that we want to set for ourselves. For me, I’m going to start directing much more of my attention towards maintaining and cultivating the systems in my life than ‘chasing’ the goals and dreams that I have. I know that action towards my goals will flow with ease if I maintain a commitment to my systems and habits.
11. Journey before destination
The final sentence of everyone’s story has been written since the day we were born. The destination is the same. The only thing unique about our story is the decisions we make along the way. The precious moments we experience. The journey.
I think sometimes we get so fixated on intermediate destinations that we want to reach on our path that we get too caught up trying to take the right step. The perfect step. The optimal step. But in his novel Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson taught me that the most important step that you can take in your life is simply the next one:
The question is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.
A journey will have pain and failure. It is not only the steps forward that we must accept. It is the stumbles. The trials. The knowledge that we will fail. That we will hurt those around us. But if we stop, if we accept the person we are when we fall, the journey ends. That failure becomes our destination. To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.
It’s like building a puzzle without having a picture for guidance. We won’t know what we’re creating until all the pieces come together, but all we can do right now is fit one piece into the next and trust that the final creation will be more beautiful than we could ever have imagined.
12. Revisit old works that inspired you
Revisiting old works is like going through a time portal. It’s a never ending reservoir of inspiration and nostalgia. Rereading books and rewatching movies that I loved in the past has always made me feel so grounded and inspired. It’s my connection to my past self.
Beyond just grounding yourself and reconnecting yourself to the ways you felt in the past, revisiting increases your depths of understanding of the work. Different parts will resonate, and seeing how the work impacts you differently now versus in the past is such a beautiful way to see how you’ve changed and grown. The work is dynamic in that way. It’s like what the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said:
No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
13. Micro before macro
It’s so deeply admired these days to have ‘big dreams’ and massive ambitions and aim to be transformational. That’s good and all, but I feel like it’s gotten to the point where things are only worth pursuing or doing if they’re part of these big dreams, if they’re part of a bigger plan to scale something and change the world.
I feel like what’s missing in the world are smaller acts of compassion, kindness, love, and service. Not as part of a grander design to make a ‘huge impact’, but simply for the sake of it. Focusing on the magnitude and scale of something dilutes the intention of the action (turning it into an act of ego instead of an act of service), and it also induces paralysis because you decide certain things are just not worth doing.
I want to focus on the micro; the small ways in which I can serve my family and my community. Sure these actions might not change the world, but they can change someone’s world, and that’s enough.
14. You decide the meaning of everything
There are two layers to everything that happens. First is the objective event that happens (i.e. a car just cut me off on the road), and second is the story you tell yourself about the event (i.e. the car cut me off because the driver is an asshole and has no sense of respect for me).
You might not have a ton of control over the objective things that happen, but you have complete control of the stories you tell yourself about it i.e. the meaning that you attach to the event. In this way, taking something personally or getting upset about something is a choice. If you want, you can change the meaning of the event. Or you can simply accept that there is no meaning and it just is what it is. Nothing has to be that deep. No single emotional reaction or story about an event is inevitable; it’s all within your control if you choose to exercise that power.
15. Peace before pleasure
‘Pursuit of happiness’ is such an interesting phrase. If you think about it, it emphasizes the fact that happiness is external to you and must be pursued. That’s how I view pleasure; it always comes from outside us, emphasizing the lack of something within. And the pursuit of pleasure typically leads you towards addiction, indulgence, and emptiness. The dopamine hits you get never last and only build the craving for more.
Instead, I want to focus on cultivating peace in my life. With peace, there’s no pursuit. It’s always with me. It’s a choice, and no one can take it away from me. And from a place of peace and stillness, I can fully enjoy the things in my life that give me pleasure without building an attachment or reliance to them.
16. Treat everything as an end, not as a means to an end
If you treat everything as a means to an end, as an object of utility, nothing will ever make you feel whole or fulfilled. The state of fulfillment then exists outside of you from the attainment of whatever end you’re seeking. If you treat work as a means to an end for financial abundance, then you’ll never feel financially abundant because you’re training yourself to see that as something that exists outside of you. You’ll always just want more.
Instead, with everything in my life, I want to treat everything as an end. Enjoying everything for what is is. Doing something for the sake of doing it instead of hoping that it will lead to something else.
17. You don't need to conquer to rise
The way schooling has been set up is psychologically damaging in a lot of ways, one of which is the idea of scarcity. Regardless of how intelligent or talented we are as an educational cohort, there’s only so many spots reserved in Stanford’s incoming Freshman class. It’s a zero-sum game in which we’re always competing against one another in a race for the best grades, awards, etc. It’s a breeding ground for intense peer-to-peer competition, usually causing us to work against one another instead of with one another.
I don’t really think that’s desirable anymore. Not only is it exhausting fighting your way to the top, but the king of the hill is always a precarious position to be in. Instead of shoving other people down to prove my superiority, I want to just be the best I can be. My confidence and self belief isn’t based on my position relative to others anymore; it comes from within, from my own sense of purpose and capability. I don’t want to be like Michael Jordan who had such a massive chip on his shoulder that he spent his Hall of Fame speech calling out his haters even though he was already the undisputed greatest athlete of all time at that point. After all he accomplished, why did he still feel the need to prove and justify himself?
I have nothing to prove to anyone. I don’t want to live with any chips on my shoulder. That’s such a shallow way to live. I’m totally content with focusing on myself and my own improvement, and I know that I’ll naturally rise without having to fight my way up.
18. This is enough
The concept of ‘enough’ is such a fascinating one. These days it’s almost a natural state of being to feel like you’re not enough or that your life isn’t exciting enough. I’ve started to believe that ‘enough’ isn’t a state of being or an encapsulation of all your possessions. Instead, it’s a choice. You’re enough when you decide that you’re enough. For me, when making that choice for myself, I’m free to engage with the world with no expectation or desire for more. I’m free to simply experience it for what it is.
Whenever I get a sense of anxiety or uncertainty or unease, I’ve started to tell myself that this is enough. This present moment is enough. Who I am right now is enough. It’s a great reminder that my sense of fulfillment is a choice, and that gives me so much peace.
19. Be open to synchronicity
Synchronicity is simply a meaningful coincidence, like when things just randomly end up working out. A very small example of this is a few days ago when I forgot to unwrap my protein bar on my way back from the gym. I was a little annoyed immediately because I love eating my bar on the drive home and then hopping into the shower immediately, so I was hoping I’d hit the next red light so I’d have some time to unwrap my bar. Lo and behold, I hit this red light even though it’s usually always green. Miraculous!
I’ve really started to believe that the world works for us in subtle ways through synchronicities, and for me, this is a reminder to always be present and engaged in every moment so I can see and appreciate all the ways in which things seem to just naturally fall into place. It makes the world feel so much brighter and full of hope.
20. Set your intention to service
Accumulating things for yourself is a really unnatural state of being. Your body gives instant feedback on this; hoarding, protecting, and clinging to things generates fear and anxiety.
Instead, I want to set my intention to service and what I can give. Not only does this feel good (you feel so LIGHT after doing a spring cleaning and donating a bunch of old possessions), but everything you give (money, love, time, compassion, energy, etc.) is always returned in abundance. It’s the natural flow of life.
21. Art before content
Content seeks to answer questions and tell you how you should act and feel. It’s always trying to sell something. Art prompts you to ask questions and reflect. It doesn’t seek to answer anything; it only seeks to inspire thought and curiosity. It’s not fixed to a single form either; it can take on many forms - paintings, books, poetry, photography, and more.
I’m making it a mission of mine to avoid content like the plague. Well, as much as I can. News, ultra-generic advice, life hacks - it’s all empty noise. It’s numbing. It never sticks with you; can you remember the 5 biggest news stories of last week? It all just uses the same formula filled with over-the-top headlines and boundless promises in an effort to get you to smash that like and subscribe button. Instead, I want to focus on consuming and producing art. The stuff that actually inspires thought, inspires curiosity, and inspires action.
This certainly begs the question of whether I’m being a complete hypocrite right now by pushing what could be seen as ‘content’ on a platform that throws around the ‘like’ and ‘share’ button everywhere. Am I being a hypocrite? I don’t really know. I’d like to think this isn’t just mindless content; I’ve genuinely tried to write from a place of artistic intent. But I guess that’s up to you to decide.
22. Joyous work before hard work
Viewing any kind of work has ‘hard’ is honestly dangerous. It leads you to seek out a reward or pleasure after completing it.
I saw this firsthand in my senior year of college. Any and all work seemed hard that year, so I routinely ended most of my days consuming several beers to reward myself for like 15 minutes of clicking around on my laptop. That ‘reward’ felt nice in the moment, but I ended up gaining 20 pounds and a beer belly 6 months later. Nice job boss, you played yourself.
In another world, I would’ve avoided viewing that work as hard or viewing my effort as hard. Whenever I felt tired or faced some resistance, I would’ve said ‘Hey, nice job making progress on your work! I’m a little burned out now, so let’s do something that energizes me like exercise, going for a walk, or calling my grandma’. Imagine how badass that person would’ve been.
Regardless, I want to make it a point to avoid viewing anything in my life as hard. With the intention of love and service, no work will ever be hard. Life’s so much more fun that way.
23. Be intentional about the game you're playing
In a way, life is just a game. We decide our own rules and parameters and how we want to play it.
One game you can play is by viewing life as a ladder and seeing how high you can get. The book Tao Te Ching summarizes my thoughts on playing this game really well:
What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.
I played the ladder game for a while, and it honestly wasn’t that fun. Sometimes the view from up high on the ladder was nice, but instead of enjoying and appreciating that view, I could only see just how many rungs there were ahead of me to climb.
Now I’m trying to play a different game. I want to explore how deeply I can feel. I want to explore how I can be more present and alive every day. I want to explore how I can express myself more meaningfully and authentically.
I like this game so much more than the ladder game.
I know that these aren’t really 23 completely different principles and ideas. They’re all built on top of the same few fundamental concepts, and I’m okay with this. Sometimes some ideas just hit different when they take on a slightly different form.
I also know that some of these are probably a little contradictory. I’m okay with this as well because nothing is meant to be followed in the absolute. Life is a series of paradoxes, and identifying the nuance and navigating the grey areas is the most challenging and engaging part.
More than anything, I’m excited to come back to this post in the future and refine these principles with additional nuance that I’ve learned through experience. Who knows how I’m going to change based on the experiences that life throws at me? Maybe I’ll come back to this post and be proud of what I wrote. Maybe I’ll come back to this post and find out that I completely disagree with some of the things I said. Maybe I’ll read this and think ‘Wow, 23-year old dmeth was such an idiot, thank god I’m not that guy anymore’.
Either way, building a life around these principles has left me feeling not only prepared, but excited and energized to face the headwinds of uncertainty in the future.
A perfect and beautiful read for my 23rd birthday - much love xo