This is a list of some things that have crossed my mind. Some are half-baked, but still thought they would be interesting to share. Items are placed in reverse chronological order.

• I want to strive to be around more beautiful things. This doesn’t mean spending money. A clean kitchen countertop only costs a minute or two.
• I gravitate toward people who really care about finding their purpose.
• The most beautiful parts of a song can only be experienced when you’re observing and not singing along. Knowing when to stay quiet is important.
• Nothing feels more like a new chapter than an empty apartment.
• How much do you trust yourself? What are some ways you can build that trust?
• It’s not a bad idea to hedge a bet. But if you hedge too strongly, you’re no longer making a bet.
• I feel a deeper sense of empathy for someone when I imagine them as a child. Every adult was a child in the past. It’s an obvious fact, but is an effective antidote for the jaded attitude one can experience after living in a city for a while.
• I’ve started using proper capitalization, punctuation, and grammar in all of my Slack messages. I spend a lot of time writing messages on Slack, so why not use that as an opportunity to become a better writer?
• Heaven isn’t a place, it’s a time — a time when you wouldn’t want to experience anything other than the present moment. If you pay attention, you may find you’re there more often than you realize.
• What makes a meal a meal? Why doesn’t eating a meal-ful of snacks feel like a meal?
• I never want to start a business built on laws or rules I think should change. It creates a conflict of interest between what’s best for me and what I think is best for the world. I always want those two to line up.
• When you’re stuck in traffic, don’t honk. Both literally and figuratively.
• By proactively finding problems and solving them, you’ll put yourself in the top 10% of people your peers have ever worked with. People really notice.
• I’m hesitant to go into management because I imagine my ability to write great code would deteriorate rather quickly.
• I’ve found that I see significantly more beauty in the world as I get older. More experience at life → greater perception of the details → deep gratitude for all that life has to offer.
• I find a lot of fulfillment in being helpful to people. Are we depriving ourselves of this simple pleasure by automating everything away?
• Interesting design is often a result of interesting constraints. Architecture is a great example.
• Beautiful writing often has a very high ratio of meaning to words. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
• Specific criticism accompanied by potential solutions is always better than broad, nebulous criticism.
• It’s never too late to apologize.
• I find it so much easier to try to be the best than to try to be pretty good.
• One of my current goals is to get in the best shape of my life. If not now, when I’m 26, single, and without kids, then when?
• The sound of children playing in the distance never fails to make me happy.
• Why do we always view ambition through the lens of career? The most inspiring people I’ve met are incredibly ambitious about being a great person and living a fulfilling life.
• Declarative programming is just imperative programming hidden behind an abstraction.
• Humanity today is more technically advanced than it’s ever been. Makes the times we’re living through feel significantly more important.
• An easy way to gain leadership experience is by taking charge in situations where nobody else wants to.
• Reading sci-fi gets me so excited about solving hard problems.
• Thoughtfulness is key to building an amazing product. A great feature can be like a great birthday gift — something you didn’t know you really wanted.
• Cool interview question: “What’s a product you really love and why?”
• Self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity. Creativity demands trying something new; self-consciousness will label a new idea as “cringe” or “weird”.
• Learning economics is a great way to prime your brain to consider second-order effects when making a decision — something we often overlook.
• If I had to choose one adjective to aspire to, it would be “inspiring”. “Wise” would probably be a close second.
• It’s healthy to try really hard at something once in a while. Be sure to not let your work ethic atrophy.
• Waiting for the perfect time to do something ensures you’ll never do it.
• So much of being “cool” is knowing the right social norms to break.
• I try to keep myself from chasing status or prestige. It often leads to focusing on things that are shallow and superficial rather than deep and meaningful.
• In programming, naming things is hard because it forces you to really understand what the thing does.
• Isn’t it amazing that you can have exactly what you want and not realize it?
• Making a conscious effort to be more on top of things has had a remarkable effect on my happiness. I find I’m generally much less stressed.
• It’s incredible how well-timed crosswalks are in NYC. Makes walking around the city so much more enjoyable.
• If you’re talking in the sauna/steam room, you’re doing it wrong
• Living in NYC teaches you how to stop caring about what strangers think of you
• The changes in my music taste reflect those in my personality in an interesting way
• I want to write more things down
• Good abstractions make it really easy to do the right thing
• There’s something special about real-time text conversations
• Well-written code clearly expresses intent
• It’s amazing how much happiness I feel from working with people I really enjoy. It makes work so much more fun.
• I want to marry someone who makes me feel at home
• I spend a lot of time thinking about future decisions just to have situations pan out in ways I never saw coming
• Putting effort into keeping in touch with people I care about is one of the most important things I can do
• Taking the time to fill out a customer service survey for a representative who did a great job is a small thing I can do that will really help somebody else.
• Imagine how boring life would be if every decision had an obviously right choice.
• It’s incredible how I can learn by having conversations with myself. Not through new information, but through processing and applying information I already “knew”.
• I’m so much happier when I give life the benefit of the doubt
• Text conversations with professional connections feel so much more genuine than email conversations
• While walking Leo I passed a car with a paw-shaped bumper sticker that read “Who rescued who?” One of the most wholesome things I’ve seen in a while.
• I get really excited about finding better ways to do things
• Any of the first four letters of the alphabet can be followed by a “J” and become a common name
• Nature was not made for humans, humans were made for nature
• A huge benefit of using a popular third party library over an esoteric one is that it’s way less likely that you’ll hit Day 0 bugs
• I want to spend less time thinking about decisions whose outcomes depend on future information
• Life has no independent variables
• We have more control over the people we become than we realize
• It’s important not to conflate your current ability with your potential
• I get really excited about finding ways to build software more efficiently
• Dogs are an immediate mutual friend
• The mental benefits of knowing you’re taking vitamins that are healthy for you is totally underrated
• I imagine that “click to sign” signatures (along with most existing authentication methods) will soon be completely replaced by biometric verification.
• I’m so glad to live in an era where I can consistently find new, good music.
• I’m weirdly productive while working at airports. Maybe this has to do with the constant bustle of people around me? idk
• I wish the Christmas season lasted all winter instead of the first few weeks of December
• "Eh, I'll do it in the morning" is one of the worst pieces of advice I routinely give myself
• Having a high bar for concluding you "understand" something is critical to gaining deep knowledge. "It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."
• It's amazing how "The odds are good but the goods are odd" just reverses words and makes perfect sense (and applies to a lot of situations!). Language is crazy sometimes
• Working hard for something and having it turn out exactly as you hoped is one of the most satisfying things
• If God created man in his own image, does our use for artificial intelligence reflect God's use for us?
• A small con of wearing glasses is that you can't fall face-first onto your bed without forethought
• Don't accept a gift that someone feels obligated to give you, but always accept a gift that someone wants to give you
• I find I often think in absolutes
• I’m less picky when I’m eating with a purpose (eg Bulking)
• Learning vim keybindings has made me so much more productive
• I feel so much better when I drink a lot of water.
• Being reasonable is having many voices in your head rather than one taking fully control of what you think. I often challenge myself on my opinions.
• Friends are valuable because they want what is best for you, and often don’t have direct consequences based on your actions, so can give fully unbiased advice.
• Maybe we shouldn't always share the things we care most about. For the possibility of sharing and receiving an underwhelming response may diminish the value of things we find most valuable.
• It’s so much easier to be a good person when you’re surrounded by people showing you how it’s done
• A parent's job is not to protect their kids from the world, but introduce them to the world
• If you want to build a habit, implement it into a routine
• People care way less than you think they do
• People love to feel like they are a good person
• Creating a successful product relies not on correctness about what people should do, but what people will do.
• Something Explo does incredibly well with is customer satisfaction. Constantly prioritizing direct customer requests has dramatically improved customer's opinions on Explo as well as the likelihood they'll refer someone to us. And by requests, I mean the problems they encounter, not the solutions the suggest.
• Memory doesn’t exist to remember the past, but help you make sure bad things you’ve experienced don’t happen again in the future
• I really hate stopping a song before it’s finished. Drives me nuts
• I sometimes view the thoughts I have like the code I write - I need to develop them locally (in my head) before pushing up to main (telling someone else)
• I made a Spotify playlist called "Dreaming" and the song suggestions for the first song of the playlist are spot on
• I should group my Spotify playlists by mood
• I won't regret not wearing expensive clothing, but I might regret not wearing clothing that makes me feel like I look good.
• I think that "Here Comes the Sun" might be the happiest song of all time. It's so pure in all of its elements. The guitar, the melody, the lyrics, the drums, and even the background vocals. It's so blissful.
• I should be more certain about things that are backed by logical reasoning rather than memory. The memory can be wrong sometimes.
• I need to care less about what people think. If I can eliminate all the activities I do solely for the purpose of impressing others, I'll have so much more time to focus on the things that I truly value.
• I don't think that cooking is how most families will eat in the future. It takes way too much time and prep work. I'm not sure if services like Blue Apron or Freshly are the answer, but I know it's definitely not planning out recipes and preparing a ton of stuff yourself. Prep work is absolutely miserable.
• I should apply computer science fundamentals to my everyday life. I think taking a more algorithmic approach could be beneficial. Right now, the biggest constraint in my life is time. Given a list of things that I want to fit into my life, how can I do that optimally?
• Imagine a service that translates books into simpler English language. Reading books would be so much faster. But then again, readers would lose exposure to more advanced English language, and precise words make language so great. Maybe not a great idea after all.
• If you think of a great company idea to solve a problem you have, look it up, find that it already exists and is done well, and don't use the product, it was never the right problem for you to solve in the first place.
• The idea of being able to remember everything should not be idolized. Imagine your memory being fogged with millions of useless dinners you had, things you said, etc. Not very appealing if you ask me.
• Standard monitoring and logging solutions like Datadog feel overwhelming for a startup
• Changing your mind in the presence of new information is open-mindedness. Changing your mind in the absence of new information is indecisiveness.
• Pay attention to the content that you consume. The phrase "You are what you eat" applies to the brain as well as the body.
• I want to focus on ensuring I keep every promise I make. I want people to feel completely at ease when I say I will see something through.
• I would rather believe that humans are fundamentally good than fundamentally bad. Makes for a much brighter future.
• I think I like engineering and building things more than I give it credit for. Easy to focus on the product portion, but the tech is super cool too.
• At this point in time, lack of testability shouldn't be a limiting factor for a design pattern. What if there were a framework that allowed functionality to easily be tested no matter how it's written? What would that look like? What are the big problems in the software testing space right now?
• Talking to people allows me to access thoughts and memories I wouldn't ever access by myself
• Starting a journal was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
• Experiencing tragedy and having a solid support network reminds me of how much people care
• An important factor of a book is how I feel after reading it, not just the knowledge I gained.
• The Google home display is great in the kitchen for viewing multiple cooking timers at once.
• Raising money from a great investor provides you with not just money, but an influential group/individual having a vested interest in the success of your company.
• Whenever messaging someone at work and referring to a document (e.g. design doc, pull request) always send a link with it. It save the recipient the time of trying to find the referenced item.
• It's a good idea to work for the money-earning portion of the company. The company will hold itself to a higher bar than, say, internal tools, that don't have as high of an ROI. More money = more reason to build high-quality software.
• There are too many valuable things to learn to waste time learning things that are not valuable
• It is absolutely mind-boggling how big and influential the large tech companies are
• I should use the internet to get opinions on personal questions (e.g. what should I be considering in this scenario, does my thinking make sense)
• Happiness is when you can view the present the same way you view a fond memory.
• It's crazy how people can feel so differently in some ways (e.g. frugality), yet some things are more fundamental (e.g. heartbreak or losing a loved one)
• I am so ignorant of my privilege sometimes
• Anything can be beautiful in the right lighting
• "Maturing" is actually an enjoyable process if you embrace it instead of fight it.
• I only say "buh-bye" over the phone. Especially if it's with a stranger (like a customer service representative)
• It's hard for me to have insightful or creative thoughts when sitting idly - my brain tends to think about all of the things that I should be doing instead of sitting down and thinking. But when I'm performing a menial task (showering, washing the dishes), that part of my brain turns off and allows for more unbound thinking.
• The only difference between a bad life and a good life is perspective.
• We often think we have 2 choices when making a decision. Too many people forget about the third option (door #3), which is to collect more information before making a decision.
• It is important to be able to cringe when looking back at things you did/said. It shows that you can be critical of your own behavior, and looking back at actions you regret is a good way to prevent behavior like that from surfacing again.
• I'm the happiest when I have a plan and feel like my life is in order.
• Don't shy away from doing the hard things. At some point you'll have to face the music.
• You'll never have more time left in your life than you do right now.
• Journaling allows you to take a snapshot of your mental state at a given moment in time. This provides a solid reference point, as it can often be hard to recall exactly what we were thinking or how we were feeling in the past.
• Being observant allows you to learn so much more about the world.
• There's almost no better feeling than a fresh start.
• Breaking up with somebody who did nothing wrong is one of the hardest things to do. I would assume the same goes for laying off an employee, though I've never done it.
• I hate listening to music all the time. Sometimes silence is a good thing.
• Being in my early twenties, I am more self-aware of my own faults than ever before.
• If you feel like you need help, ask for it. You almost certainly won't regret it.
• Whether something is morally sound and whether it should be legal are two separate questions that may not have the same answer.
• Fulfillment and pleasure are almost always at odds with each other.
• It makes sense that most successful businesses were built by teams rather than individuals. Interdependence allows teams to stay motivated despite encountered setbacks — something much harder to do alone.
• You will see true growth when you learn to love stepping outside your comfort zone.
• Gratitude is a precursor to happiness.
• Let people do nice things for you. Don't fight it, be grateful instead. It's a win for both parties.
• Who you spend your time around has an enormous effect on who you are. Try to surround yourself with people who inspire you.