Some Observations
26 March, 2019
3 minute read
Read, Read, Read
Last week I mentioned I was reading Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear and that I started Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. However, as the week went on I found myself picking up other books. I continued reading 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine, and finished Gratitude by Oliver Sacks. Each of these books is profound in their own way, but I found it odd just how much of what I read this week connected.
Rule 4 of 12 Rules for Life - “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today” is my favorite rule yet. It’s reminiscent of the famous Theodore Roosevelt quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” In today’s world much of what we judge ourselves on is based on other people’s actions (or profiles). Some people even correlate their amount of ‘followers’ or ‘likes’ with success. Impostor syndrome is booming in every field, in every niche job market. This has to do with how connected we are at all times. While Peterson doesn’t cover these topics in particular, he tackles the psychological around why this might be and what we can do about it. One of his main points is “What you aim at determines what you see.” It didn’t take long for me to relate this to Atomic Habits and Think and Grow Rich.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes about the connection between your habits and your own identity:
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
Napoleon Hill reflects on an old William Henley poem in Think and Grow Rich:
“He should have told us that the ether in which this little planet floats, in which we move and have our being, is a form of energy moving at an inconceivably high rate of vibration, and that the ether is filled with a form of universal power which adapts itself to the nature of the thoughts we hold in our minds; and influences us, in natural ways, to transmute our thoughts into their physical equivalent.”
This same idea is summed up by William Durant in The Story of Philosophy when he pieces together some of Aristotle’s thoughts from his Nicomachean Ethics:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
What am I working on?
After completing some moodboards as part of my app’s UI/UX research, I’m moving on to coming up with a logo this week. Are there any design resources you find useful? Tweet at or email me!
What am I reading?
This week I plan on finishing MAKE: Bootstrapper’s Handbook by Pieter Levels. It’s been great to see every step of building a profitable indie startup from scratch. With the design of my own app moving along, I’ll be hoping to bring it to life by the end of this year in the App Store. While I don’t expect it to be monetarily profitable, I know putting into practice what I’ve learned throughout the book from start to finish will be invaluable. Follow me on Indie Hackers if you’re a part of the community and stay tuned for updates on my dev journey! As usual I’ll be reading Atomic Habits, 12 Rules for Life, and Think and Grow Rich.
Quote I’m digging…
“And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself.” ~ Oliver Sacks