First you document your idea. You should be comprehensive, but that doesn't mean you have to produce a doctoral thesis length plan. Rather you want to make sure you have touched all the different things that have to happen to succeed. Then, you evaluate your approach. The goal here isn't to figure out if your idea is good or bad, but rather to begin to figure out what are some of its weakest elements.
One must be prepared for some surprises in life - some things will work out your way, some won't. You just have to keep working and do things to the best of your ability.
Usually, I use writing as a way to figure out things about me, and I get scared pretty easily about everything. I deal with a lot of depression, so I usually use it as way to find some relief from that.
When I moved to New York, I feel like a lot of things widened within my perspective and as I spend some time here - as everyone does when they're that age or a young person - [you] figure out your own ideals or figure out the way you fit into society a little bit more than you did before.
The problems come when it's time to put our faith in things other than the Lord. There's no doubt that other people can be tricky. But once again, it's all about listening to your heart. That don't mean you should ignore what your head's telling you. But your heart will do a much better job of helping you figure out who's good and who ain't. Who deserves your faith, and who doesn't. If you judge solely by evidence, you could wind up making some big mistakes.
Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.
What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.
What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?
See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.
The biggest fear that everybody has is dying. Not to get too meta on you, but I think every fear that people are trying to work out is really like I'm going to die and no one is going to care, and it doesn't matter because God might not exist. That's what people are trying to figure out. I wish we all had one fear so we could think about it together and figure out a solution, but we're all doing different things.
Men and women are not "equal" if "equal" means "exactly the same." Our many puzzlements and indeed unhappinesses come from trying to figure out what the differences really mean, or should mean, or should not mean.
You can't let yourself be pushed around. You can't live in fear. I mean, some people do live in fear. You can't live in fear. That's no way to live your life.
I don't like the idea that Facebook controls how people express themselves and changes it periodically according to whatever algorithms they use to figure out what they should do or the whim of some programmer or some CEO. That bothers me a great deal.
When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way.
Real education is about genuine understanding and the ability to figure things out on your own; not about making sure every 7th grader has memorized all the facts some bureaucrats have put in the 7th grade curriculum.
I like going to Burning Man, for example. That's an environment where people can try out different things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out what is the effect on society, what's the effect on people, without having to deploy kind of into the normal world.
On tour things go wrong all the time, I mean that's live music, that's what it's all about. I think one of the things I'm learning is that when stuff goes wrong, really brilliant musicians have the ability to turn this into something interesting and unique. I think good people in any sphere of anything know how to deal with problems, how to take it in your stride. We are learning this by touring, by being put in these positions when we need to focus and deal with it.
It is exciting to kind of figure things out in yourself and then use other people to help you figure things out so you can really reach your potential.
The quickest way to defuse fear or insecurity or anger is usually humor. I think comics figure that out quickly, and, once you figure it out, you think, 'Hey, if I can do this and get paid, that would be kind of cool.