life

If you don’t bring it with you, you won’t find it there.

Poem on pilgrimage (travel)

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

There are a lot of things you don't control.

You don't get to pick your parents.

You don't get to pick the country you are born in.

You don't get to pick your given talent.

You don't get to pick the test.

You don't control where you start, but you can change where you go.

Integrity is a choice.

Kindness is a choice.

Hard work is a choice.

Preparation is a choice.

Consistency is a choice.

Your attitude is a choice.

Your response is a choice.

The people you hang around are a choice.

Changing your trajectory is a choice.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

Life is not just about peaks and valleys, about wins and losses. Life is about the journey. You hear that all the time. You’ve got to absorb that. You’ve got to know that. The journey has to become the destination because there is no true destination. There is no endpoint. There is no goal. All rivers run to the sea and yet the sea is not full. Life goes on; accept what life gives you. The sun rises the morning after you win the championship or lose in the first round.

It's so simple: you spend less than you earn. Invest shrewdly. Avoid toxic people and toxic activities. Try to keep learning all your life. And do a lot of deferred gratification. If you do all those things, you are almost certain to succeed. And if you don't, you'll need a lot of luck. And you don't want to need a lot of luck. You want to go into a game where you're very likely to win without having any unusual luck.

Write your obituary and try to figure out how to live up to it.

Some things are like that—they strike you as repugnant for instinctive reasons, probably having to do with your culture and the way you were raised. The French word “gauche” comes to mind, but I preferred the Hebrew word “treyf.” Literally, it means not kosher, but I also use it to describe things like cars, bars, strip clubs, guns, dogs, rock-n-roll, and football games. Things that are treyf, you avoid, not because you hate them per se, but because in avoiding them you keep yourself from becoming like the people you hate.

Čistim, čistim, čistim.
Bacim metlu, pa mislim.
Mislim, mislim, mislim. 
Uzmem metlu, pa čistim.

When I was young, people would say to me: 'Wait until you're 50; then you'll see.'

I am 50 now. I haven't seen anything.