One of your best posts in my opinion! You should consider applying to give a TED talk on this topic!

Great post, Tynan!

When you write "Fundamentally, I think life is about taking action," do you mean that life for everyone is (or should be) about taking action, or "life is about ___________" and anyone can fill in the blank with whatever they think life is about?  Another person may think "life is about learning", or "life is about having great kids", or "life is about being happy".


For example, as you write your post and I read it, life is about taking action for you (writing the post) but for me it's about being interested in what you have to say, and therefore taking the time to read your post.  That would mean that in that moment, you're fulfilling what you think life is about, but because I am passively consuming your post, I am not!  Unless, that is, life is about something different for everyone.

PS, I'm curious: Does reading a literary classic count as being passive?

Some thoughts based on a great post!

DROdio

On that note, have you considered doing Startup Chile? Free $40k to pursue SETT in Chile for 6 months, win win. If things go well I'll be heading down end of June. startupchile.org

Wow, I think this is a really significant post. I love this formulation - talking about the opportunity quality that motivates us to act. I wonder if there's research about this - I haven't seen anything that addresses this directly in the behavioral econ stuff I've been reading. But maybe in books like Jonah Lehrer's "How We Decide"? (I haven't read it, so I don't know.)

I mean, the flip-side formulation is, what are we measuring the opportunity against? It's fear, right, in a catch-all sort of way, the opportunity has to be exciting or motivating enough to push us past fear. And inertia, too, procrastination.

I know for me a huge part of it is deliberately deciding to look honestly and openly at these decisions from a bunch of angles to try to make sure I'm being as rational as possible. What's the downside of taking the opportunity? The upside? The downside of not? The upside? And then look honestly at the feelings about doing it or not doing it. Like when I see something I want to buy, I'll stop and visualize that I already own it and see how that feels, and most of the time that helps me see that I won't really care about the thing as soon as it's mine, and so I don't buy it. Or I consider an opportunity like doing some risky physical thing and I'll stop and visualize, let's say I don't do it, will I regret it?

I really like the framing of action vs. inaction. It's kind of existential - like, doing a mundane day job and then watching TV is "inaction" because it's all just going with the flow and not making any hard decisions.

Yeah, as I think about it I realize this is a topic I see discussed a ton, all the time, but I think this formulation is a really novel way of looking at it & is the most motivating and incisive one I've seen.

Re-reading the post, here's another way of thinking about it that just occurred to me: treat every moment as a choice. Treat everything as an action. This is kind of turning your "watching TV and working a mundane job is inaction" on its head, and saying - no, think of that as action! When you wake up, say, I'm choosing to go to work. When you sit on your couch, say I'm choosing to watch TV instead of doing something else.

It's the unconscious that kills, that dawning sense of "whoa, what have I been doing for the last two days / two weeks / two years / entire lifetime??"

We have to realize that working the day job is not "no choice", it's a choice - a choice to spend that portion of your limited life doing that day job instead of taking every other opportunity you have for spending that time differently.

Good post tynan. 
Reading, I have the "feeling" (the way it is posted) that opportunity is sort of magical, it happens from the sky.
It couldn't be farther from the truth.
Opportunities, you see them if you have information to connect, period.
In fact, I mean, we are in the most prosperous period ever, in the most prosperous country ever.
If you aren't a millionaire, or aren't taking action to become one, you just don't want it.(btw, what makes you really happy isn't just being a millionaire, it's doing productive work that engages you and you like. Doing nothing is good for the dead)
It's not lack of information, not lack of opportunity. It's lack of initiative.
Becoming a millionaire is not a magical power endowed to certain person (hey, there are millions of them in america, they aren't even rare!) . It's just a skill, it's learnable (have something people want, promote it, save&invest you profit, basically),  just a series of actions to take, without being to concerned if you succeed or fail in one given iteration. Nothing more, nothing else.
Most people are zombies. It's the fucking truth. I mean, the average person reads 1 book a year(maybe less). The average person don't sleep enough to use his brain, nor exercise enough to be healthy, eat the worst food available in the whole history of evolution (not even mentioning toxic substances).He is 25lbs overweight. and watch 4-7(not certain) hours of TV a day, and do horrible work on a meaningless job(prison) to buy stuff he doesn't care about, or need. He is not living, merely existing.
I fear more being average than I fear just about anything, especially failure.

Oh, I think I would walk across russia, seems fun, nice way to visit russia.

BTW, nice work on sett. It's a bit slow on my machine, but definitely cool. And you theme is class.
Sorry for the mistake, I am not a native english speaker.

Any chance you want to hang out tomorrow, Sunday the 15th, before you head to Texas? By the time you're back I'll be in Thailand

I have to agree with everything you said. Doesn't matter about the quality of the action, I've noticed that any seemingly insignificant action you take towards your dreams make them very real. Although I do think that the action has be driven from passion.