18 Quotes That Changed My Worldview

In honor of 2023 coming to a close, here are some quotes that have shaped my life.

Please read to the end as I have an important update for So What Now?

Life Advice

Most urgency is manufactured - Jack Butcher

Most successful people are just a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity - Andrew Wilkinson

The greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredom. - James Clear

Paying attention is more important to reliability than moving slowly. Because he pays close attention, a Navy pilot can land a 40,000 lb. aircraft at 140 miles per hour on a pitching carrier deck, at night, more safely than the average teenager can cut a bagel. - Paul Graham

If you don’t like small talk it means you’re not good at listening. The purpose of small talk is to test boundaries, slowly build trust, and pick up details to carefully broaden the conversation. - Sherry Ning

Most people don’t have energy to exercise because they don’t exercise - Dan Go

We have a saying on the psych ward - when all else fails, tell the truth - Joel Leong

The reason why purpose exists outside the bounds of money is because no one’s purpose on this earth is to make money. - Lawerence Yeoh

No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. - Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

Taking a few months to see the world won’t hinder your career, but never taking time to explore will starve your soul. - Jack Raines

Writing

People don’t remember books, they remember sentences. - Morgan Housel

Everyone should write for an hour a day. If you don’t have the time, you should be writing for 2 hours a day. - Dickie Bush

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. - Ernest Hemingway

We write to remember and to forget - Naval Ravikant

If you want to ensure your writing is read in the future, see if it would be read in the past. - Nassim Taleb

My favorite TV show, movie, and comic book quotes

In our pursuit of great, we failed to do good. We have to make it right. - Viktor, Arcane

There are no two words more dangerous in the English language than ‘good job’ - Fletcher, Whiplash

Becoming an adult is the dumbest thing one can do - Bill Waterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Thank you to Georg Bulmer, Anna Kogan Nasser, & CansaFis Foote for their feedback

I will be pausing my posts on So What Now indefinitely. I have one more post scheduled for the end of the year (my 2023 annual review) and then I will be putting So What Now on hold.

Why?

I’m working on something else that requires my full attention. I love writing, the fact that I started writing online has been magical. I’ve had more fun and made new friends in the craziest ways. I’ve written about ideas that are exciting to me and hopefully, they’ve been exciting to you. But I want to dig into this new thing and to make it work, I can’t split my focus. 

I do plan on coming back to So What Now at some point. I’ve received lots of encouragement on the pieces I write and for that, I’m immensely grateful. But my priorities have shifted. I realized that I’ve been doing this a little bit backward - I need to unshackle myself from other commitments (time and money) so that I can be fully present. 

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I write for myself, so the fact that anyone reads it besides me is incredible. I love to hear from people. If you’ve enjoyed my writing, please reply to this email - it means the world to me. 

Godspeed,

Derek