#Life

Writing on happiness seems hubris in the face of COVID, 2020 generally, and the possible existence of spiteful Greek gods, but even in the face of setbacks people often ask me why I’m happy, so a post on how that came to be seems topical in these times of needed resilience. It wasn’t always this way.

One of my life goals isn’t “to be happy”. You could argue I have an unstated meta-goal for me not be unhappy, but I’ve always thought being uncomfortable, frustrated, feeling stupid, unappreciated, or upset at times is unavoidable if you want an interesting life. Which is one of my goals. More on those later.

It’s New Year’s Resolution time. Yes, they don’t work for a lot of people, but that’s generally a problem with execution rather than intent. This is what worked for me in 2019 and the keystone habits and strategies that made the past year better.

Sure, I get it. New Year’s is just a date and you can pick any Day 0 date and start to change, but there is something a little easier about picking Jan 1 (or the day after Chinese New Year, as I’ve done some years to hack a slow January return to reality.).

Aspire to be a mensch. Be afraid to die until you’ve won at least a few small victories for humanity.

I was surprised when I migrated my blog and was looking over posts I’d written over the years to find I’d never actually written about one of my core goal principles every year: be more mensch.

Guy Kawasaki’s 2006 post How to be a Mensch articulated something I’d always felt but never translated well into words. It ended up informing a lot of my thinking about the type of person I wanted to be and legacy I want to leave, both in my life and in the lives and places I touch.

Stunning spoken word video with some great imagery and music mixed in by Jason Silva on The Biological Advantage of Being Awestruck .

Definitely one of those full screen, dim the lights and turn the volume way up kinda of things. Some very cool sentiment on what it means to be human and awestruck.

(though personally don’t know if I would have gone for the Hubble as the penultimate written expression of awe, though “mainlining the whole of time through the optic nerve” is definitely something I’m filing away for future conversational use at a swanky cocktail party… =] ).