Time Capsule #163
On envy and selflessness.
Hello everyone,
Today I have a short and relatively unstructured essay on selflessness and the importance of altruism in our modern world.
The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.
—James A. Michener
✏️ What goes around comes around
What you put out in the world comes back to you. Eventually.
Perhaps it’s just another cliché…but its a cliché that I find to be more and more true as I grow older — and experience it myself.
I am naturally quite a competitive and judgemental person. I often catch myself comparing my progress, qualities, accomplishments, and values with those of others (which I interpret as me looking for some sort of validation that I’m doing things “right”). I’ve come to accept this as part of my personality, and not necessarily a character flaw (although it can become one); I also believe it is, to some extent, a natural human tendency. But, having learned this about myself, and understanding the importance of tempering its intrusion, I have begun to notice how often I can obtain my desired outcome by acting in contrast to this impulse.
The more selfless your thoughts and actions become, the more you actually gain. One of the qualities I admire most about one of my mentors is his dedication to building those around him. It’s an attitude that I have tried to adopt with my own students — not only because I admire this about him and wish to emulate it, but I think it to be the rightful attitude of a mentor and academic. For some people, this can be difficult to do, especially when one holds reservations about their accomplishments or worth in the world. But I have found that when I act in such a way, I usually benefit two-fold: their rise lifts my tide as well; and I get the additional, and immense, satisfaction of helping someone along their life journey.
Having such an attitude towards life and work — a spirit of collaboration, a willingness to sacrifice one’s own priorities in service of another — is how the greatest teams, products, and outcomes are generated. And people can sense when you honestly and truly celebrate their wins and wish them the best.
In such a hyper-competitive and materialistic world, fighting the natural human urges of jealousy and envy and adopting an attitude of altruism will make you an uncommon example of greatness and humanity in the world — and help you get what you want in the process.
scientia potentia est
Knowledge is power
💡 Food for Thought
Optimal improvement occurs when you stop focusing on others and focus solely on yourself.
🔗 Sunday Best
The Virtue of Focusing on Yourself
By Sam Sager
To face our challenges, we need to be a collection of people capable of this combination of gritty confidence and resilience. We need to each evaluate, understand, and communicate our own “values, purposes, and beliefs” so that we contribute to a shared vision worth striving for.
Blitzscaling 18: Brian Chesky on Launching Airbnb and the Challenges of Scale
A great talk about the humble beginnings of Airbnb and the challenges of scaling a start-up.
Credentials Don’t Matter
Disagree with the title, agree with the sentiment
Capable people don’t let themselves be pidgeon-holed into one definition.
Good literature is distinguished by the complexity of its moral situations: it breaks down our natural urges to divide ourselves from our opponents and hold ourselves superior to them.
—Robert Heilman
That’s it.
See you next week!
AT