Hello,
Here is your weekly dose of wisdom for smarter living. If you are new here, check out the archive for all the essays and tools for learning. To support my work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $9 per month or $60 for an entire year. There’s so much more for paid subscribers in 2026.
Author and finance writer Morgan Housel on money lifestyle
“If we have the same assets and I can earn an 8% annual returns, and you can earn 12% annual returns, but I need half as much money to be happy while your lifestyle compounds as fast as your assets, I’m better off than you are. I’m getting more benefit from my investments despite lower returns. Think about that in the context of how much time and effort goes into achieving 0.1% of annual outperformance in this business – millions of hours of research, tens of billions of dollars of effort – and it’s easy to see what’s potentially more important or worth chasing.
There are investors who grind 80 hours a week to add 10 basis points to their returns when there are two or three full percentage points of lifestyle bloat in their finances that can be exploited with less effort. Outperformance is amazing when it can be achieved, and some can achieve a lot of it. But the fact that there’s so much effort put into one side of the finance equation and so little put into other is an opportunity for most people, companies, and countries. This is not about living like a monk, hampered by frugality.
It holds true at every level of wealth and spending.
The value of all money is relative to expectations… The idea that reducing your needs has the same impact as increasing your income – but the former is more certain and in your control than the latter, so it has a higher expected value – is as true for someone spending $15,000 a year as it is someone spending $15 million per year.”
Source: The biggest returns
Philosopher Nietzsche on the art of doing
“The doer alone learneth.” Thinking isn’t enough. Reading isn’t enough. Planning isn’t enough. You don’t learn by watching. You don’t learn by thinking. You learn by doing. No amount of theory replaces wobbling on a two-wheel bike. Falling teaches balance. Practice builds confidence. “Experience is the best teacher,” but only if you’re in the arena.” Nietzsche had no patience for armchair philosophers. Get out there. Try, fail, adjust, repeat. Action is the only real teacher. Do more of what makes you come alive. Don’t just think about it. Live it. Get to work.
Source: 15 Nietzsche Philosophies For Life That Are All One Sentence Long
Writer Joan Didion’s life advice
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it.
To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”
Source: 1975 Commencement Address at the University of California, Riverside
“Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them. In Utopia, said Thoreau, each would build his own home; and then song would come back to the heart of man, as it comes to the bird when it builds its nest. If we cannot build our homes, we can at least walk and throw and run; and we should never be so old as merely to watch games instead of playing them. Let us play is as good as Let us pray, and the results are more assured.”
Source: Fallen Leaves
What single habit, if implemented consistently for the rest of this year, would transform your life the most?
When you wake up, do you expect today to have many joys or many frustrations?
If you had 10x the agency you have, what would you do?
How can I make today feel like play to find flow?
In what areas of your life would you benefit from setting clearer boundaries?
Shortform is one of my indispensable tools for learning. I’ve been using it for a while now. I find their actionable summaries of self-improvement, philosophy, and psychology books easy to apply.
Shortform helps you level up without wasting time you don’t have. And they don’t stop at books. They’ve got guides for articles and podcasts. Experience a new level of lifelong learning with Shortform. Over 10,000 people use it to accelerate their learning. Join me on Shortform.
Postanly readers get a free trial and $50 off the annual plan.
About me: I’m Thomas. My essays cross between productivity, philosophy, psychology. I also write a Fast Company column on smarter living. My readers include intellectually curious people from Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Apple, BBC, HubSpot and Morning Brew.
Postanly Weekly is a reader-supported newsletter. To support my work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $9 per month or $60 for an entire year. There’s so much more for paid subscribers in 2026.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.