1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.
  2. Do nothing for prestige or status or money or approval alone.
  3. Be generous.
  4. Build pockets of stillness into your life. Sleep.
  5. When people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them.
  6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity.
  7. “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.”
  8. Seek out what magnifies your spirit.
  9. Don’t be afraid to be an idealist.

by Maria Popova (Brain Pickings)

Brain Pickings is a site I wish I could be able to read more. I check it often to see new content, but to be frank you have to dedicate some serious time to read and absorb the particular posts.

Founded in 2006 as a weekly email that went out to seven friends and eventually brought online, Brain Pickings is now read by several million readers. Maria Popova, the founder and editor of the popular blog, calls it a “human-powered discovery engine for interestingness”. Popova reads 12 to 15 books a week about culture, art, design or philosophy and writes about enduring ideas that give some insight into what it means to live a meaningful life.

“In October of 2013, as Brain Pickings turned seven, I marked the occasion by looking back on the seven most important things I learned from the thousands of hours spent reading, writing, and living during those first seven years. I shared those reflections not as any sort of universal advice on how a life is to be lived, but as centering truths that have emerged and recurred in the course of how this life has been lived; insights that might, just maybe, prove useful or assuring for others.”

Now, as Brain Pickings turns nine, Popova continues to stand by these reflections, and she adds two more. Read the whole article: 9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings