3 Bits Of Wisdom From Naval Ravikant To Find Inner Peace On Your Path
3 Bits Of Wisdom From Naval Ravikant To Find Inner Peace On Your Path
Prepare for the coming storm.
It’s coming… I can feel it in the air — a cool breeze picking up, darkening clouds, and an overarching sense of franticness ahead of the change.
What am I talking about?
Rain.
It feels like it hasn’t rained here in months. I’m sure it has a tiny bit, but I can’t remember. And it’s basically June, which is winter in Australia. Now, I dunno where you live, but I’m sure you expect some rain to welcome in winter.
So here I was, getting excited about a potential storm on the horizon when a thought burst into my mind:
“Gutters!”
When was the last time I cleaned out the gutters on my house?
Massive gum trees surround me. They are beautiful trees with a lovely eucalyptus scent but bloody messy. All summer and autumn, you are showered with their excess gum leaves, which block all my gutters, leading to water damage when it rains.
Now, I don’t particularly enjoy cleaning out gutters. How could I make this fun?
A podcast? Yep. That always does the trick.
So I pulled out my phone, and what popped up first?
A replay on The Tim Ferriss Show of an old episode from 2015 with Naval Ravikant.
I quickly remembered this one was one of my favourites from back then.
Next minute, I was on the roof shovelling leaves to the ground with my hands while soaking up Naval’s timeless insights. Naturally, I wanted to share some with you:
3 Bits Of Wisdom From Naval Ravikant
1. What advice would you give to your younger self?
You’re a wise person.
You’ve learned so much over the years.
Do you sometimes wish to magically go back in time and instil some of those nuggets of wisdom into your younger self?
Maybe you made some bad decisions, gave up on a good thing, or betrayed a friend.
But it’s hard to imagine changing every wrong decision. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been built into the person you are today.
So, what did Naval answer to this question?
Chill out
“I spent some time thinking about what is the advice I would give my 30-year-old self. The advice was along the lines of chill out, don’t stress so much, not so much anxiety, everything will be fine and be more yourself. Don’t try and do what you think society wants or needs. Don’t try and live up to other people’s expectations. Self-actualise. Say no to more things.”
— Naval Ravikant
Protect your time
“Protect your time because it’s very precious. On your dying day, you will give everything, everything you have for another day. So the discount rate, the marginal value of that extra day just goes up as you get older. The advice was all along those lines.”
— Naval Ravikant
Be yourself
“It was basically be yourself, don’t listen to other people. Don’t worry about what other people need or want or think or expect from you.”
— Naval Ravikant
We often need to hear the same advice again and again.
“And then I said, what would my 30-year-old self had said to my 20-year-old self? And it turned out to be pretty much the exact, same thing. What would my 20-year-old self have said to my 10-year-old self? Pretty much the exact, same thing. So I think my 50-year-old self is going to say chill out, relax, don’t stress so much, live in the moment. It will all be all right.”
— Naval Ravikant
And a bonus: on love
“Less fear, more love. And love people more. Love is one of those weird things. Everyone wants to be loved; everyone deeply needs to be loved. It’s not something you can buy. No amount of money or power will bring you true, unconditional love.
But it turns out you can give love. It’s free to give. So you can’t necessarily get it, but if you can get in the mindset of I'm just going to give it, eventually in a long enough time scale, you get what you deserve.
The universe kind of sends it back your way.”
— Naval Ravikant
2. Your desires make you unhappy
“One message that really stuck with me when I figured this out is what is desire.
Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
I don't think most of us realise that’s what it is. I think we go about desiring things all day long and then wondering why we’re unhappy.
So I like to stay aware of that because then I can choose my desires very carefully. I try not to have more than one big desire in my life at any given time. And I also recognise that as the axis of my suffering. I realise that that’s where I've chosen to be unhappy.”
— Naval Ravikant
3. You always have three options: accept, change, or leave it.
“In any situation in life, you only have three options. You always have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. Those are your three options.
What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you would leave it but not leaving it, and not accepting it.
So it’s that struggle, that aversion that is responsible for most of our misery. So probably the phrase that I use the most to myself in my head is I just tell myself one word: accept.”
— Naval Ravikant
Reflection
On advice
What advice would you give your younger self?
Take a blank page and spend 15-30 minutes jotting it down. Reflect on how you could apply this advice in your life now.
Could you benefit from Naval’s advice to his younger self. I’ve framed some questions for you:
Where do you need to “chill out” more in your life right now? Are you unnecessarily huffing and puffing, taking things too seriously and not enjoying yourself? Is this causing stress on those around you?
How could you better protect your precious time? What boundaries have been slipping in recent months?
In what domain of life do you feel you aren’t being your whole self? Where are you made to feel less of yourself? What is getting in the way? What does it even mean to “be yourself” in your words? Where are you letting other people’s expectations get the better of you?
What advice do you hear yourself giving others that you know you don’t strictly follow yourself? How can you better implement your own advice?
What does “less fear, more love” mean to you, given your circumstances? How could you start to give the love you want to receive?
On desires
What is your biggest desire in life right now? And how is it making you unhappy? How can you make peace with this reality? There is always suffering on the path to greatness.
On options
Consider the “three options” and apply them to the challenges you currently face:
Where could you benefit from “accepting” the reality and moving forward peacefully?
What situation could you benefit from “leaving”? Maybe you don’t have to be involved, and it isn’t worth the toll on your wellbeing.
Which situation could you change for the better? Take space to reflect on your approach to this challenge. Could you approach it from a new angle? Could you seek help? What lever would relieve the most pressure?
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