Eric-Jorgenson The-Almanack-of-Naval-Ravikant indd

EASY CHOICES
,
HARD LIFE
.
HARD CHOICES
,
EASY LIFE
.

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S A V I N G Y O U R S E L F · 157
SAVING YOURSELF
Doctors won’t make you healthy. 
Nutritionists won’t make you slim. 
Teachers won’t make you smart. 
Gurus won’t make you calm. 
Mentors won’t make you rich. 
Trainers won’t make you fit.
Ultimately, you have to take responsibility.
Save yourself.

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158 · T H E A L M A N A C K O F N A V A L R A V I K A N T
CHOOSING TO BE YOURSELF
A lot of what goes on today is what many of you are doing right 
now—beating yourself up and scribbling notes and saying, “I 
need to do this, and I need to do that, and I need to do…” No, 
you don’t need to do anything.
All you should do is what you want to do. If you stop trying to 
figure out how to do things the way other people want you to 
do them, you get to listen to the little voice inside your head 
that wants to do things a certain way. Then, you get to be you.
I never met my greatest mentor. I wanted so much to be like 
him. But his message was the opposite: Be yourself, with 
passionate intensity.
No one in the world is going to beat you at being you. You’re 
never going to be as good at being me as I am. I’m never going 
to be as good at being you as you are. Certainly, listen and 
absorb, but don’t try to emulate. It’s a fool’s errand. Instead, 
each person is uniquely qualified at something. They have 
some specific knowledge, capability, and desire nobody else 
in the world does, purely from the combinatorics of human 
DNA and development.
The combinatorics of human DNA and experience are 
staggering. You will never meet any two humans who are 
substitutable for each other.

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S A V I N G Y O U R S E L F · 159
Your goal in life is to find the people, business, project, or art 
that needs you the most. There is something out there just for 
you. What you don’t want to do is build checklists and deci-
sion frameworks built on what other people are doing. You’re 
never going to be them. You’ll never be good at being somebody 
else. [4]

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160 · T H E A L M A N A C K O F N A V A L R A V I K A N T
To make an original contribution, you have to be irrationally 
obsessed with something.

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S A V I N G Y O U R S E L F · 161
CHOOSING TO CARE FOR YOURSELF
My number one priority in life, above my happiness, above 
my family, above my work, is my own health. It starts with 
my physical health. Second, it’s my mental health. Third, it’s 
my spiritual health. Then, it’s my family’s health. Then, it’s my 
family’s wellbeing. After that, I can go out and do whatever I 
need to do with the rest of the world. [4]
Nothing like a health problem to turn up the contrast dial for 
the rest of life.