Achieving Happiness with Meaningful Life Goals

Last week, we talked about guiding principles for achieving life goals, where I stated my life goal is to continuously improve myself to realize my full potential and help others to do the same, so together we can do great things. That took 36 years of my life to figure out, so let's talk about why it took so long and how I finally did it, and hopefully that will help others find theirs sooner. Once there is a life goal, I believe life becomes more meaningful, and therefore achieving happiness.

To understand why it took so long, that is basically telling you my life story, which isn't that interesting and too long, so I will just summarize. I didn't cared about my life for the first 30 years until my first born, so I was just living life one day at a time trying to be happy. Then I was busy for the next 5 years juggling between work and family, and never thought about life until a year ago. That is when I started ctl.life after learning/embracing compassion with the goal of pushing myself to my limits, learn more about leadership and life, and share what I learn.

I have learned a lot in the past year, and only realized the key to a productive life is simply by doing the right thing a month ago. And then a week ago, my world was falling apart while doing the right things because I was not rock solid. The next day, I concluded that there is a balance between the two guiding principles, and they are simply tools for achieving life goals. My initial life goal is to push myself to my limits and find out what's beyond them, but I was still not happy and my unconscious mind was giving me that tinkling sensation that something was missing or wrong. I realized my life goal was incomplete as it was still ephemeral. I asked myself what am I really trying to accomplish? I want to help others too and there is only so much that I can do by myself. Finally, on 8/1/18, my life goal was complete and that is to continuously improve myself to realize my full potential and help others to do the same, so together we can do great things. I was pleasantly surprised the last part is actually a famous quote by Mother Teresa.

Most people don't think about life goals -- just living life one day at time and mostly trying to stay happy, have fun, and live a normal life (go to school, get a job, get married, have kids), which I did for the first 35 years. Some thought about them, and just gave up after considering our mortality -- what's the point if we are just going to die anyway. Well, I do believe there are several:

1. While our body will perish, our ideas and impacts live on. Albert Einstein's body is gone, but everyone still knows his name and his contributions are being used every day. Same for Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington, etc. Those people, while not living, have greater impact to everyone today than most people that are still alive! Think about that for a moment. 
2. While we are still alive, we can live like a homeless guy, an average joe, a billionaire, a pioneer/inventor, etc. Each has different levels of accomplishment and comfort. Which do you choose? I choose to accomplish as much as I can so I can live in the most comfortable way.
3. Don't like mortality? Well, maybe your life goal can be figuring out a way to achieve immortality. ;) Same for anything else that is impeding you from living your life to the fullest, change it.

Everyone actually have implicit life goals, such as staying alive and healthy, getting married and having kids, having a successful career, etc. So most people do live fairly good lives from those implicit goals. I do believe it is useful to make them explicit and ensure they are meaningful, so you get more out of life.

When you don't have explicit life goals, you are not really living your life, but just living for the sake of living. What's the point of living if there is nothing to accomplish? How do you accomplish something if you don't even know what it is? Without an explicit life goal, you are just doing what others tell you and living the minimal of your full potential. With the gift of intelligence, I think we can do better. So if you don't already have one, take some time to figure it out.

When you work, a job has many tasks/milestones/goals that need to be completed. And each goal provides motivation and direction, and satisfaction on completion. Those accomplishments provide meaning and happiness. Life goals have similar attributes but much more meaningful as they are more personal and last longer. Unlike jobs, since it's your own life, they can be whatever that you want that provides the most meaning and happiness. And the best ones are those that include other people.

It's ok to change life goals as we grow. I didn't set a goal until age 35, and changed it a year later after I learned new things, including what a life goal is. The important part is having life goals, so you know where you are going and can do the right things to get there.

The more meaningful the life goals are, the more happiness that you will get. Meaningful means goals that involve other people in a positive way. Since essentially anything we do involves other people, and likely in a positive way, therefore all life goals are meaningful, but they vary in degrees of meaningfulness. I believe there are three different levels of meaningfulness based on number of people involved: one, few, and everyone. The first one involves no one else, which may allow one to be happy temporarily and provides minimal happiness. The second one involves a few people, such as family and friends, which is quite meaningful and therefore allows one to have lasting happiness. The last one involves everyone, and therefore provides the highest level of happiness.

If you find this useful, please share with your friends and family so they can benefit too. Thank you! This is part of Living Life to the Fullest blog series.

Guiding Principles for Achieving Life Goals

Life is full of wonders and things that we can experience. To capture the experience in the fastest and safest way is by following two guiding principles:

1. Do the Right Thing: This is the fastest way to achieve goals in the long run. It is the most productive guide in helping us select the right things to do to get what we want in life. Doing the wrong things will require redo, and some things can not be undone, therefore we will never get what we want. 
2. Be Rock Solid: This provides the necessary safety and energy as we do the right things. Life can be tough sometimes and doing the right thing isn't always easy, therefore we must fully embody our beliefs and be like a rock to get us through the tough times.

There is a balance between the guiding principles. If we keep doing the right things without being rock solid, eventually our body and mind will crumble as doing the right thing doesn't necessary feel good and can be emotionally and mentally draining. If we are rock solid without doing the right things, then we are simply stubborn and will do wrong things that hurt ourselves and other people. So it's important to check and balance the two.

Lastly, the guiding principles simply enable us to do anything and get everything we want, but what exactly? There are many experiences and the most important ones are our life goals (X), which is different for everyone. Physical things are fun but aren't that interesting to me as they are ephemeral. My life goal is to continuously improve myself to realize my full potential and help others to do the same, so together we can do great things, such as understanding the mysteries of the universe. It's important to keep our goals in mind at all times, otherwise we might be doing unnecessary work that doesn't help us achieve our life goals.

What are your life goals?

If you find this useful, please share with your friends and family, so they can benefit too. Thank you! This is part of the Living Life to the Fullest blog series.

Frustrated, Angry, Sad, Lonely, and Restless? Be Rock Solid

Those were the emotions that I felt this week, so it has been an interesting and dramatic week. There were some good times too, but let's focus on the negative this time to understand them and see how to get out of it -- be rock solid.

The details of how those emotions happened isn't important, but when I had them, I was completely consumed even though I know that I shouldn't. I tried not to react to them but they constantly slip out and just won't stop since the cause was still unresolved. So everything is falling apart -- despite everything that I know about life. A lot of my essential skills were being tested. Focus was always drifting to the problem. I wasn't sure if some of my principles were right. My emotions were all out of whack. I wasn't motivated anymore.

Something has to be done, and perhaps I wasn't doing something right, even if I think I was -- doing the right things should have a happy ending and I wasn't happy, so there must be something I am doing wrong. I started active meditation (aka thinking) to understand everything and also think about possible solutions based on what I know. After many hours of active meditation til the middle of the night, I concluded that I couldn't fix the problem, and therefore following my own advice, I will have to leave it -- reluctantly.

Before leaving, the next day, I did wanted to try one last time to see if I can fix the problem. While I wasn't sure if I fixed it, but I understood the problem better and wasn't sure if leaving was necessary.

Despite everything that's happening, as I didn't want to miss my first BayPIGgies meetup and also thought it might be a good distraction, I went. It seemed the topics were for newbies, so didn't learn much, but the networking and pizza was good. And pleasantly surprised to meet one of my ex-colleague and friend there, which made the night even better. :)

After I came back and took a shower (always therapeutic), not sure what triggered it exactly, but something that another ex-colleague said about the software he writes came to mind: "It's rock solid" is his response when someone asks about the quality of his software. Everything in my world was crumbling down because I wasn't "rock solid", not my principles or ideas. I need to believe in them, especially when everything is crumbling down. So I need to be "rock solid."

To be "rock solid" means to fully embody our beliefs, not just know and do but stand behind them and never waver, like a rock.

Unfortunately, on the next day, the problem wasn't fixed. Leaving didn't feel like the right thing to do, and with my new core principle "be rock solid", I will continue and try harder to fix the problem. And even if I can't fix the problem, I won't let my emotions affect me as I am the master -- not my emotions, and will continue to keep doing the right things, especially when the world is falling down.

At the end of the day, while attending a company Happy Hour, I embodied "rock solid" mentality, so didn't let my emotions and problems distract me from having a great time with my colleagues. I was pleasantly surprised and happy to find out that one of my colleagues also has similar interest in talking about life. :D

This is part of Guiding Principles for Achieving Lifetime Goals blog series.

Are You a Master or Slave of Your Life?

When we are born, as we are helpless babies, we don't have a choice but to be slaves to our biological processes, such as emotions and feeding needs. As we grow, we start to make choices and explore the world with guidance from our parents/others, so our choices are highly influenced by them. In another words, we are slaves to our biological needs and other people.

Before we start, let's define master and slave so we are on the same page:

• A slave is someone that does what is being told, either explicitly or implicitly/indirectly. His/her choices and actions are either completely out of his/her control, or partially due to being heavily influenced by others. His/her world is confined by artificial limits imposed by others or his/her surroundings. He/she is afraid or have no desire to live life to the fullest as death scares him/her. In short, slave is someone that does the wrong things.
• A master is someone that does the right things, even if not desired by oneself, by making choices based on all the facts while considering opinions of others, including his/her own emotional/mental/physical states. His/her world is unbounded where anything is possible. He/she lives life to the fullest with passion, not fear.

Based on definition, it's easy to pick which one that you want to be, but the tricky part is, are you?

Let's examine some examples. Some are controversial, theoretical, or a bit out there, but you should not have a problem if you are really a master:

• A long time ago, people believed the world is flat. While many of them are pretty smart, but believing in something that can't be proved is not the right thing to do, and therefore all those people were slaves by definition. So smart isn't excluded from being a slave. 
• Today, many people still believe in God or some form of religion blindly. Again, believing in something that can not be proven is not the right thing to do. I don't want to go into this topic too much as it is controversial, but if you are curious about my view, I would say it's similar to Albert Einstein, an agnostic -- if we can't prove or disprove something, then we simply don't know and that's ok and the right thing to do. I will also add that most religions do have guidelines that help people "do the right things," and therefore I do like them for those reasons. 
• Are you naturally sad/angry (negative) or happy/cheerful (positive), or easily one way or the other based on certain inputs? Based on your emotions, do you act a certain way that you normally wouldn't? Yep, you are a slave to your emotions -- including myself, so you are not alone. 
• Do you feel the desire to have kids and not sure where it came from? Yep, you are a slave to your biological hormones to reproduce. Too late for me, but don't regret it -- love my kids...most of the time.
• Want to make lots of money to buy nice/fancy things? Working extra hours to get promotion/raises/fancy title? Yep, you are a slave to material & prestige possession.
• Drink or smoke just cuz others are doing it? Yep, you are a slave to peer pressure.
• Can't move your eyes away from the latest TV show / movie? Yep, you are a slave to passive entertainment. 
• And the list goes on.

So do you still think that you are a master that has full control of yourself? We still haven't even talked about being a master of this world and the universe yet.

This world has certain properties, such as gravity, how fast our space ships currently travel, or how plants and we need certain food to grow properly in certain places or conditions, and people die naturally or due to various causes. Those are generally known as facts. Do you believe those things can be changed?

• If no, then your world and mindset is limited within the boundary of a slave.
• If yes, congrats, then you have a mindset of a master of this world. As we are still learning about the world, we need to recognize the difference between current facts and indefinite facts. Until we have a 100% understanding of everything, which is fairly hard to achieve but not impossible, not all facts are indefinitely true. A master's mindset believes in the impossible and there is no such thing as impossible until proven -- even then, he/she is still open to be proven wrong.

Are you only concerned about things happening around you, like your family or your country or even just Earth? That is a limited mindset as Earth is essentially nothing when compared to the universe. There is so much to explore outside of Earth. It saddens me that most people, with the gift of intelligence, are simply content with living an ephemeral life of having a good education, beautiful spouse / kids, bountiful food, nice houses / cars, enjoying travels around the world, and then finally die as if nothing happened in the grand scheme of the universe. While that is a good life, and better than those that destroy things, it should be a minimal bar as it's limited and could potentially be so much more -- e.g. imagine being able to create Earth or life itself from scratch.

This is also a great complementary method to teach kids to do the right things. My kids love to watch TV, eat candies, and don't like to eat vegetables. For the first two, usually asking "what's the right thing to do?" would do. For the last one, I have to ask a second question, "are you a master or slave of your mouth?" As kids like being "masters," they distinctively choose that and then act like one. It did take a few tries for the idea to translate into action, but my daughter eats her vegetables now and proudly calls herself a master. :)

Happy Independence Day! :) Hope that you gain independence from life and become a master of your life, this world, and the universe. On this 4th of July, I choose and strive to become a master. What about you? If you like happy endings, you know what to do. To continuously improve yourself to become a true master, I recommend doing Master Check.

This is part of the Living Life to the Fullest blog series.

The Key to a Productive Life: What is the Right Thing to Do?

Life is complicated. So many things to do, so many choices, so it's easy to do the wrong things and effectively waste a lot of time. I have been searching for a simple way to solve all those problems, and I think I have finally found it. The next time that you have a decision to make, ask yourself: What is the right thing to do? Just do that and everything becomes simple. Your life will become easy, productive, fulfilling, and meaningful.

Let's do a practical exercise to see what I mean. Answer "what is the right thing to do?" to the following questions:

• Should I eat that extra bite of cake? 
• Should I go to school?
• Should I pretend to do work? Or work extra hours?
• Should I argue with my significant other? 
• Should I be angry easily for little things? 
• Should I steal from other people? 
• Should I hurt someone just because they live in a different country, or are just physically/mentally different from me?
• Should I study hard to get into a better school? 
• Should I follow the law even if it doesn't make sense?
• Should I like this post and share with my family and friends so they have a simple guide to a productive and meaningful life? ;) 

There were some trivial questions, and some tough ones. Regardless of how tough the question was, the answer was easy, right? And if you do exactly as answered, then congrats, you will have a very easy and productive life, and therefore fulfilling and meaningful.

What if we don't do the right things? Well, obviously,  that's the wrong thing to do -- LOL. But more than being wrong, there are implications:

• Since you are doing the wrong things (let's say you skipped out on work to watch a movie), then there are consequences, such as getting fired or being a burden to your colleagues and loosing their respect. All bad stuff, don't even look this way.
• Most importantly and not so obvious is delaying your own growth. The more wrong things that you do, the more bad or lack of skills get ingrained in your brain as it slowly deteriorates in performance, and therefore harder for you to do good things or gain useful skills later, therefore effectively limiting your own potential in life.
• Since you are doing the wrong things, that means you have to do the right things later, so you have effectively wasted all that time doing the wrong things. It's better to just skip that part, and do the right things to start -- even if the initial cost feels higher. This is the key to a productive life.

The last point needs to be emphasized as a lot of people's lives are not productive for that simple reason -- same applies to businesses, governments, etc. When I was young, I chose to do so many wrong things, so the net result is I am behind where I could have been. Even recently, I didn't do some things right. But hopefully, going forward, now that I know how to make a better decision, I will do the right things, and therefore lead a more productive life that allows me to do anything that what I want.

When you do the right things, you get everything that you want faster. Let's say that you want to be rich and travel around the world with someone that you love. That's 3 different things that most people want in life: money, entertainment, and love. What is the shortest path to each of them? Let's see:

• Money: Study hard in a good school, learn a lot of skills, make connections (friends/family/etc), and finally getting a good job thanks to the previous actions. Work smart, get promotions, at a startup or start your own company, and then you are rich. Note that we should never purely focus on making money (ask yourself "Is focusing on making money the right thing to do?"), but it's better to focus on doing the right things that provide real long-term values to you and others over your lifetime, and money will naturally come to you -- no need to look for it.
• Entertainment: For some things, this depends on money, otherwise just go out and have fun!
• Love: Socialize and then it's a matter of time. A bit of social skill wouldn't hurt, such as being nice, caring, fun, etc.

For each path, were those the right or wrong things to do? Yep, it's the right things to do, therefore the right things to do is the shortest path to what we want in life. Doing the right things compound over time as they build on your previous successes, knowledge, and skills learned.  

This works well with kids too. I used to have to tell my kids what to do, when to do it, and why they should do it many many times. Eat your vegetables because it is good for you, take a bite, stop watching TV, take another bite, stop playing with your toys while eating, etc. After repeating so many times, it becomes annoying, and then you get angry, and then they get angry too. Now, I simply ask my kids "What's the right thing to do?" And they will think about how to answer that question (good way to improve their cognitive abilities), answer it correctly (thanks to your previous teachings), and finally actually do it (since they thought of the action themselves, and not being told what to do, which nobody likes). It's a win-win situation. Like my daughter always say, easy peasy lemon squeezy. :)

Does this mean that we always have to do the right things and act like a "goody two shoes?" Generally, yes, but not necessarily. Before doing anything -- right or wrong, we should evaluate the value and cost of the actions. If there is no value, then it doesn't matter either way. E.g. If someone dropped a penny, is it right to return it? Yes, but is there any value for the owner to get it back? Probably not unless it's a special penny. Finally, if the owner went away quickly in a taxi, there would be a cost to follow, so the cost simply makes it not worth doing. That might be a loophole to do the wrong thing, so tread carefully.

Life can be simple, and your life can be easy, productive, fulfilling, and meaningful. Like people always say, you just need to ask. 

What is the right thing to do? 

This is part of Guiding Principles for Achieving Lifetime Goals blog series.

autopip 1.0: Easily install apps from PyPI and keep them updated

It's been a fun week working on autopip and I am happy to announce 1.0 has been released -- it works. :) Check it out at https://pypi.org/project/autopip/

autopip simplifies installing Python apps, a package that contains bin scripts, from PyPI. It uses venv and pip under the hood to automatically create a virtual environment per app version, installs the app, and then atomically create symlinks for scripts in /usr/local/bin. By having each app/version install in its own virtual environment, you ensure there are no conflicts with other apps and it doesn't pollute your Python installation, so the app works as its developers intended. It is much faster/easier than managing the virtual environments yourself. Optionally, autopip can keep the app updated on a custom frequency (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly) using cron service.

If you are an app developer, you can also create an installation group that allows users to install a set of related apps with various version and update frequency settings -- each in its own virtual environment, of course. Take a look at an actual example at https://pypi.org/project/developer-tools/

Try it and hope that you like it as much as I do.

This is part of the Technology blog series.

Technology Series

This is a collection of blogs related to technology that makes our lives easier. Imagine a world where robots do all the work, and we get to do anything we want and can focus on innovation.

• Recommended Resources for Learning Python
• Dockerizing Your IDE
• autopip: Easily install apps from PyPI and keep them updated

Essential Life Skills Series

This is a collection of blogs related to skills that help you better take advantage of life. To accomplish what you want in life, you must have the skills to do it, and these are the essential ones to master.

• Continuous Self-Improve with Master Check
• Superpowers: Unleash Your Full Potential!
• Driven with Purpose
• Control
• Emotionally Out of Control? Stop Reacting!
• Balanced
• Planning
• 5 Simple Steps to Prioritize Tasks
• Roadmap: From Goals to Vision
• Quality before Quantity
• Perspective
• Relativity of Life
• The Game of Life

This is part of the Living Life to the Fullest blog series. 

Healthy Body & Mind Series

The Healthy Body & Mind series consist of blog entries related to being healthy in both your body and mind, which allows you to achieve more in life. ^_^ It is not enough to have one or the other, but both body and mind are required to achieve your full potential.

Achieve More with a Healthy Body and Mind

• Internal
• Sleep
• Meditation
• Exercise
• Stress
• External
• Food
• Environment
• Duress
• Intoxication

This is part of the Living Life to the Fullest blog series. 

Living Life to the Fullest

What's the meaning of life? That is the greatest question of all that everyone wonders at one point of his/her life.

I believe the meaning of life is whatever you want to be in order to live your life to the fullest, which consists of 5 components:

1. Health is the most important of all. Without health, it's harder to take advantage of everything life has to offer but still possible as long as you are alive... So try to be healthy to enjoy your life more.
2. Family comes next. It's no fun playing by yourself. Eventually, you will be lonely and bored, so play with your family. This includes your extended families: distant relatives, friends, colleagues, and even animals, microbes, and Earth.
3. Leadership allows you to push yourself to your limits and be the best of yourself. Be a leader of your life!
4. Fun is simply fun. :)
5. Happiness is the ultimate inner peace where you feel peaceful regardless of what happens with any of the other categories and feels happy when you do achieve any of the previous categories. And once you are truly happy, that improves your health and everything else in your life, hence the circular flow.

Technology plays a supporting role for each of those categories by enhancing them. It is not a necessity but we are better with it.

At the center, there is a set of essential life skills that allows us to manifest ideas into reality, and the fastest and safest way is by following the two guiding principles for achieving life goals.

Define your own meaning of life and live your life to the fullest!

Great Leadership Series

A great leader is a leader that leads for the happiness of self and the greater good yet humbled to follow others as well.

The Great Leadership series consists of blog entries related to being/becoming a great leader, which I believe everyone should strive to be in order to be the best of yourself.

The Pyramid of Great Leadership Traits

• Openness
• S.M.A.L.L. and The Four Agreements
• Compassion
• Animals, Microbes, and Earth
• The Seed of World Peace
• Trust
• Trust Yourself
• Living Life Without Regret and Shame
• Focus
• Execution
• Difficulties from Ideas to Realization
• Passion
• Wisdom
• Vision
• III: Influence, Inspire, Impact

This is part of the Living Life to the Fullest blog series. 

Recommended Readings by Leaders

There are many books and articles on the Internet, and it could be hard to find the good ones. This is a list of readings recommended by today's leaders and so they are a must-read to get you started on your journey of becoming a leader of your life.

This post will be updated with more recommendations in the future.

New

1. The Meaning Revolution by Fred Kofman [must read / the best]
• Most concepts are freely available on LinkedIn Conscious Business Academy
2. How to Motivate Employees by Lindsay McGregor

Compassion

1. The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler [review]
2. Managing Compassionately by Jeff Weiner [must read]
3. My top 10 quotes on kindness by Richard Branson

Leadership

1. 8 Tips for Living Your Best Life by Richard Branson
2. 13 Things You Should Give Up If You Want To Be Successful by Zdravko Cvijetić
3. Lose the Formalities by Richard Branson
4. Good to Great by Jim Collins [review / must read]
5. Managing Your Mental Energy to be More Productive at Work by Rachel Baldelomar
6. The Benefits of Open Salaries in the Workplace by Talia Koren
7. The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma
8. The Leader With No Title by Robin Sharma [review]
9. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma [must read]
10. Living Life to the Fullest by Max Zheng (biased/shameless plug. :D )
11. Three Golden Rules for Effective Public Speaking by Jeff Weiner
12. Why Successful Individuals Wear the Same Outfit Daily by Vincent Carlos
13. Recommendations from David Henke
1. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Luiz [review / must read]
2. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Golddratt & Cox
3. Six Thinking Hats  by Edward de Bono
4. Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times by Donald T. Phillips
5. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Freddrick P. Brooks, Jr.
6. Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute
7. 10 Secrets of Successful Leaders by Kara Prior
8. The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal by David McCullough
9. Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values by Fred Kofman
10. The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman

About CTL

Welcome fellow masters of life! :D

This is a personal blog where I post interesting things about life, especially topics that enable us to live to the fullest, such as compassion, technology, and leadership (CTL). The best way to do that is by doing the right things and be rock solid while keeping our life goals in mind. All my wisdom about life thus far is continuously updated in single page as A Great Life Guide as I learn. Detailed lessons/experiments will still be posted here.

Why CTL?

1. There isn't enough compassion in the world, and we need it in order to fully understand each other and work as a team to build a better world.
2. Technology will greatly improve the living conditions for everyone -- imagine a world where robots do all the work and we can do anything we want. 
3. To be the best of ourselves, we have to be great leaders and not just followers. Be a leader of your life!

It started with CTL, but has evolved to be so much more after I realized my life goal is:

To continuously improve myself to reach my full potential and help others to do the same, so together we can do great things.

New post is published about once a week. To receive notification, use the social media links to follow me.

Thanks for reading and let's live our lives to the fullest!! :)