Albert Camus

1. Focus on the small things

“The literal meaning of life is doing whatever prevents you from killing yourself”

“Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?”

Live for the micro goals. Do whatever (even the mundane things) to prevent from divulging into the meaninglessness of life.

1. Just be yourself

“Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.”

Resist people pleasing and trying to “fit in”. Follow your own thing.

Friedrich Nietzsche said to be authentic you should stop pretending to know something you do not.

Like when you pretend to have listened to a song, read a book, know a word…lying; is the cause of unhappiness. The lying only reinforces the human tendency to be “belong” and blend in.

1. Stop looking for happiness in meaning

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

“living without appeal.”

Living the mundane and ordinary experiences of a day to day life by living in each and every moment.

“For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the unstoppable grandeur of this life.”

My take: Don’t indulge in the mental masturbation of wanting to live a certain type of life…a certain type of person, for you’re spitting in the face of the life that you already have and what you can make of it - or what it can make of you.

1. Live with passion

When you’re living a life that involves constantly working on yourself and finding things to be passionate about that’s worth a lot of points. It increases your focus and intensity.

Instead of asking “What my passion is?” Ask: “what could I be passionate about?”

• As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.
• “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” ― Albert Camus
• “People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.” ― Albert Camus
• “I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” ― Albert Camus