101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into
Action.
2000. Harvard Business School Press.

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13
101 THINGS 
more worth
THINKING 
about than
WHATEVER’S 
CONSUMING YOU
01. The way it will feel to have the life you want. The place you’ll
live, the clothes you will wear, what you will buy at the
supermarket, how much money you’ll save, what work you’ll
be most proud to have done. What you’ll do with your
weekends, what color your sheets will be, what you’ll take
photos of.
02. The parts of yourself you need to work on, not because
someone else doesn’t love them, but because you don’t.
03. The fact that sometimes, the ultimate expression of self-love
is admitting you don’t like yourself and coming up with steps
to change the things that you know you can and will do better.
04. A list of things that turned out to be very right for you, and
what similar feeling accompanied each of them.
05. The way you will quantify this year. How many books you
want to say you’ve read, how many projects you’ve
completed, how many connections with friends and family
you fostered or rekindled, how you spent your days.
06. The things in the past that you thought you’d never get over,
and how insignificant they seem today.
07. What you will create today, what food you will eat, and who
you will connect with. (These are the only things you carry
with you.)

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08. How you learn best, and how you could possibly integrate
that form of comprehension into your life more often (do
things that are more visual, or listen better, try to experiment
more often, and so on).
09. The fact that you do not need to be exceptionally beautiful or
talented or successful to experience the things that make life
profound: love, knowledge, connection, community, and so
on.
10. The cosmos, and how despite being insignificant specks, we
are all essential to the core patchwork that makes up
humanity, and that without any single one of us, nothing
would exist as it is right now.
11. The proper conjugations for a language you could stand to
speak conversationally.
12. The people you smiled at on the street this morning, the
people whom you text regularly, the family you could stand to
visit more—all the little bits of genuine human connection that
you overlook because they’ve become givens.
13. How you will remember this time in your life 20 years from
now. What you will wish you had done or stopped doing, what
you overlooked, what little things you didn’t realize you should
have appreciated.
14. How few of your days you really remember.
15. How you likely won’t remember this particular day 20 years
from now.
16. Everything you honestly didn’t like about the person you’re no
longer with, now that you’re not emotionally obligated to lie to
yourself about them.
17. A list of all the things you’ve done for yourself recently.
18. Little ways you can improve your quality of day-to-day life,
such as consolidating debt, or learning to cook an easy
signature meal, or cleaning out your closet.

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19. The patterns in your failed relationships, and what degree of
fault you can rightfully hand yourself.
20. What you subconsciously love about the “problems” you
struggle to get over. Nobody holds onto something unless
they think it does something for them (usually keeps them
“safe”).
21. The idea that perhaps the current problem in your life is not
the problem, but that your perception is skewed, or you aren’t
thinking of solutions as much as you are focusing on your
discomfort.
22. The ways you have sincerely failed, and how you can commit
yourself to doing better, not only for yourself but for the
people who love and rely on you.
23. The ways in which your current situation—though perhaps
unplanned or unwanted—could be the path to the place
you’ve actually always wanted to be, if only you’d begin to
think of it that way.
24. Your mortality.
25. How you can more actively take advantage and appreciate
the things that are in front of you while you still have them.
26. What your life looks like to other people. Not because you
should value this more than you value your own feelings, but
because perspective is important.
27. What you have already accomplished in your life.
28. What you want to be defined by when all is said and done.
What kind of person you want to be known as. (Kind?
Intelligent? Giving? Grounded? Helpful?)
29. What you could honestly be defined by at this point, based on
your consistent actions and interactions, and whether or not
that’s what you really want.
30. How your unconscious assumptions about what’s true and
real are shaping the way you think of reality.

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31. What other options exist outside of your default way of
thinking; what would be true if the things you assumed were
not.
32. The details of whatever it is you’re working on right now.
33. How you can possibly put more effort into said work that
deserves your time and attention and energy more than
whatever you become distracted by does.
34. How you can help other people, even just by sitting down to
speak with an old friend, buying someone dinner, sharing an
article or a quote that resonated with you.
35. Other people’s motivations and desires.
36. The fact that you do not think the exact way other people
think, and that perhaps the issues you have with them are not
issues, but lapses in your understanding of them (and theirs
of you).
37. The patterns of the people you know, and what they tell you
about whom they really are.
38. The fact that we assume people are as we imagine them—a
compilation of the emotional experiences we’ve had with
them—as opposed to the patterns they reveal to us in their
behavior. It’s more accurate to sum people up by what they
repeatedly do.
39. What you would say if you could tell every single person in
the world just one thing.
40. What you would say if you could tell your younger self just
one thing.
41. The years of practice it takes to learn to play each instrument
in your favorite song. The power and creativity it takes to
simply come up with a melody, forget a piece of music that
moves you to your core.
42. Where your food comes from.

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43. What your big objective is. If you don’t know what you
generally want to do with your precious, limited time here,
you’re not going to do much of anything at all.
44. What you’d put in one box if you had to move to the other
side of the country and could only bring that.
45. Getting to inbox 0.
46. How much your pet loves you.
47. How you can adequately and healthfully allow yourself to feel
and express pain when it comes up (as opposed to just
freaking out and trying to get rid of it as fast as possible).
48. Plot twists. The complexities and contradictions of your
favorite characters in your favorite books.
49. Who you would be happy to also live for, if your own desires
and interests were no longer your sole priority.
50. What your future self would think and say about whatever
situation you’re in right now.
51. An upcoming trip, whether it’s booked or not. What you’re
going to do, what you’re going to take pictures of, what you
can explore, who you’ll be with, who you’ll meet.
52. The hardest nights of your life. What you would have done
differently. What you would do if you could re-enter those
hours and advise your past self.
53. The best nights of your life. Not only what you were doing and
who you were with, but what you were thinking and what you
were focusing on.
54. The fact that it is hard to do everything: It’s hard to be in a
relationship, it’s hard not to be in one. It’s hard to have to
perform at a job you love and are emotionally invested in, it’s
hard not to be living your dreams by a certain age. Everything
is hard; it’s just a matter of what you think is worth the effort.
55. What you think is worth that effort. What you are willing to
suffer for.

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56. Aesthetics that you love. The kind of spaces you not only
want to live and work in, but which make you feel most like
yourself.
57. What actions, choices, and behaviors you think could have
saved your parents.
58. Your singular, deepest fear.
59. What your singular, deepest fear tells you about your singular,
deepest desire.
60. The little wonders. The smell of rain when the windows are
open in the summer, your favorite T-shirt, songs you loved as
a kid, your favorite food when you’re hungry.
61. Your stories. The strange and simple and beautiful things
you’ve experienced and how you can better share them with
other people.
62. What you will be motivated by when fear is no longer an
option.
63. What you are motivated to do when fear is no longer an
option.
64. What “enough” means to you. What’s enough money, enough
love, enough productivity. Fulfillment is a product of knowing
what “enough” is—otherwise you will be constantly seeking
more.
65. Your dream moments. Having a birthday party in which all the
people you love attend, or getting on a plane to Thailand, or
losing the weight you’ve always wanted to, or being debt-free,
or renovating a house.
66. What you’d do if you had $1,000 of extra disposable income
each month.
67. What actions you could take to move yourself in the direction
of the life you want—where you could search for networking
opportunities, what friends in neighboring cities you could visit
and explore, how you could get out more.

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68. The feeling of sun on your skin.
69. The smell of spring.
70. What you can do with your minutes, as opposed to your
hours, or days.
71. How much of your self-perception is built by culture, or
expectations, or other people’s opinions.
72. How much of your self-perception is sustained by culture, or
expectations, or other people’s opinions.
73. Who you are when nobody’s around.
74. What you thought you’d be when you were younger. How the
elements of that play into your life now.
75. How you’d behave differently if this entire time-space reality
were in fact a holographic illusion over which you ultimately
have control.
76. How you’d behave differently if your fate were dependent on
the thoughts you think and the actions you take in any given
moment.
77. The basic premise of various ancient philosophies, and which
resonates with you the most soundly.
78. Melodies of songs that haven’t been written yet.
79. The fact that the way to change your life is to change the way
you think, and the way to change the way you think is to
change what you read.
80. What you’d read if you chose books and articles based on
what interested you, not what other people say is “good”
literature.
81. What you’d listen to if you chose music based on what
interested you, not what other people say is “good” music.
82. What genuinely turns you on.
83. What qualities you admire most in other people. (This is what
you most like about yourself.)

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84. What qualities you most dislike in other people. (This is what
you cannot see, or are resisting, in yourself.)
85. How love would save your life, if it were capable of doing
such things. (It is.)
86. How infinite the universe is; how infinitesimal we are; how
perhaps each is a reflection, and extension, of the other.
87. How complicated the questions are; how simple the answers
turn out to be.
88. What “yes” feels like to you. People very often focus on the
warning signs that something is wrong, but not the subtle
signals that something is right.
89. How many random, chance occurrences were involved in
nearly every important advancement in your life.
90. A mantra, or many mantras, all of which work to support your
unwavering conviction that the future will be different, and you
will figure out how to make it so.
91. The fact that the kind of love worth choosing and keeping is
the kind that ever so slightly tilts the axis on which your world
spins, leaving nothing to ever be the same again.
92. How to fight better. How to eloquently communicate your
thoughts and feelings without putting people on the
defensive, and starting an argument where there should just
be a deepening of connection.
93. What you’d live for, if your primary interest was no longer your
own wants and needs.
94. The people who depend on you, and how absolutely
devastated they would be if you were no longer in their lives.
95. Who and where you will be in five years if you carry on as you
are right now.
96. The most important things you’ve learned about life so far.
97. How you came to learn the most important things you’ve
learned so far.

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98. How many people go to bed at night crying, wishing they had
what you have—the job, the love, the apartment, the
education, the friends, and so on.
99. How many times in your life you went to bed crying, wishing
you could have what you have now—the job, the love, the
apartment, the education, the friends, and so on.
100. What you can do to more consistently remind yourself of this.
101. What your most fully realized self is like. How your best self
thinks. What they are grateful for, who they love. The first,
and most important step, to being the person you were
intended to be is to conceive of them. Once you’ve
accomplished that, everything else falls in line.

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14
EXPECTATIONS 
YOU MUST