A Day In The Life
Lex Fridman
Transcript
Starting the Day: Sleep, Health, and Productivity
Good morning.
A bunch of folks asked me to make one of these “day in the life” videos to talk about how I do time management in the day, how I structure the routine to maximize productivity. So here we go.
The day starts now, after about six to eight hours of sleep.
Now, there are periods of my life where I do sprints, where I'll pull all-nighters, work crazy hours, and so on. But regularly, I try to get 6 to 8 hours of sleep plus the mythical, epic 30-minute power nap.
I think sleep, diet, and exercise are essential for productivity. Just under, I would say, passion and whatever the heck you need to do to be happy and keep every single day low stress.
Sponsors and Things I Love
I might give a shout-out to a few products that sponsor the podcast for no reason except that I love using them, and that's why we agreed for them to sponsor the podcast.
So click their links in the description to support the videos I make.
I'm really fortunate to have way more sponsors than I need, so I get to choose only the ones I really love.
I'm generally a minimalist guy. I don't like material possessions, but this EZ-Bed has been nice. It lets you set the temperature throughout the night.
So for me, what I like is for it to cool the bed, and then warm up as I wake up. It's been helping me get some restful sleep.
The Morning Mantra
So I start each day when I get out of bed. The first thing, there's a mantra, a list that I have on a sheet of paper that I go through.
So I start by reminding myself of the current set of rules and constraints on the various addictions, things that drain on my time.
1. Controlling Social Media
That includes social media.
The current rule is I only check social media when I post, which is one, two, or three times a day for no more than 10 minutes.
So that's it. It's very strict.
That's one of the main addictions, I think, that's important to control.
Some people completely remove themselves from social media. I think that's one of the possible solutions. But to me, that's a little bit of an easy way out.
The hardest thing to do is to really moderate the use of social media because when you use it in moderation, it actually can bring you joy. It can really connect you with other people.
It kind of makes me feel amazing when I only check it once or twice a day. But you have to be strict.
2. Diet and Exercise
And then the other rules are diet and exercise.
So I make sure I exercise every single day, no matter what, even if injured. I find a body part, any body part that's not injured, and exercise it.
And then diet, I just have a strict diet that I follow within the constraints of which I can enjoy myself.
So for me, that's been keto, which is a very low-carb diet.
3. Gratitude
So the first part of the mantra is I remind myself of those rules. It kind of sets the constraints within which the game is to be played.
The second part of the mantra is gratitude.
I visualize and meditate on the idea that I might die today, at any moment today.
So I kind of try to accept the notion that today's my last day on this earth, and it's mostly just a breath in and out and a pause and a meditation on the fact that it's freaking amazing that I'm alive, that life is amazing.
4. Five-Year Goals
Third is I list out loud, by the way, unless I'm with somebody, then it's in my head.
But I list a set of goals for the next five years. A set of goals that I have, and these are ambitious, big goals that I would like to achieve in the next five years.
5. Near-Term Goals
Fourth is I list more near-term goals.
For me, that's by the end of 2020. I wanted to do these kinds of things.
They're just out of reach but achievable. So if I really work my ass off and with a bit of luck, I can get it done.
I mean, that really starts to get me amped up, like, let's get to work.
6. Visualizing the Day
Fifth part of the mantra, zooming in even further.
I actually focus in on the day. I visualize going through the rest of the day, all the things I think I need to get done.
This is really quick, but I literally visualize myself like in a game of Sims, like on fast-forward, running around, getting all this stuff done successfully.
Like, I visualize both the struggle of it. I visualize the hardest part of the day that I have on my to-do list and getting them done, crushing it.
But really sort of focusing on the timing of it, the beat of the day, and getting it all done.
Just like a game of Sims, except for the part where, when you're cooking, you set yourself on fire and you run around.
I miss Sims. I miss video games in general.
7. Principles to Live By
Finally, I go through a set of principles that I strive to live up to as a man.
Now, there's a particular set of phrases that are a little bit cliché, but I think fundamental to who I am.
But they center around compassion, empathy, love, and on the other side of it is character, integrity, and strength, both physical and mental.
The First Deep Work Session
So today's a little bit different because I'm also making this video.
I don't like it. It's uncomfortable. It's a distraction. It takes away from my focus, but I'm gonna get the job done.
I said I'm gonna do it, I'll do it.
So I'm gonna do the mantra now, and next thing, hit hard. The deepest work of the day for four hours, a four-hour session that I'll probably feel behind the desk.
Four Hours of Focus
All right, so I did the mantra, then I drank about a liter of water, went to the bathroom, made a coffee, and now ready to hit the day hard with a four-hour session of deep work, focused on a single thing.
No interruptions.
If interesting ideas come into my head to try to trick me into pulling on the thread of that idea, I gently set it aside, write it down on Google Doc to address later.
So I bring my mind gently back to the focus of all of the task.
'Cause ideas keep coming, but you really wanna focus on the task.
So the only interruptions that are allowed are water, coffee, bathroom. And I try to minimize those.
Usually, I try to be just once in that four-hour session.
I stop the timer when I take that break. But I don't do anything during that break like social media or any of that stuff.
It's really my mind is still focused on the task at hand and hitting it hard when I return to the desk.
The Workspace
The desk, by the way, is a standing desk. They don't sponsor anything, but I still love them.
It's Autonomous. You should check it out. Pretty inexpensive.
Sometimes I sit, sometimes I stand.
Not wearing a suit. I sometimes wear a suit, especially if I'm going to film.
I wear a suit when I go outside. I just enjoy the way I feel when I wear a suit.
But at home, I'm wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
Right now, I'm not wearing any pants. Just kidding, I'm wearing jeans.
But you wouldn't know it if I didn't, which is the magic of the internet.
People who wanna check, I could do a separate video on my setup. I optimize the heck out of everything.
But my first love, my home, is the Kinesis keyboard.
It's this weird ergonomic keyboard that's probably way too expensive, but I still love it.
I'm surrounded by things I love and Emacs editor, although I use a lot of modern IDEs.
The Hardest Task
Like today, I'm working on TensorFlow Lite on a Samsung Galaxy S20, doing some deep learning on the smartphone.
There's a bunch of tricky, undocumented things that I'm trying to accomplish.
Not looking forward to it because it's gonna be just a lot of debugging and trying to figure out obscure things.
But that's the hardest part of the day.
That's the hardest thing on my to-do list.
That's what I'm going to focus on.
No distractions.
That's what this four-hour session is about.
I'm usually drained, but happy at the end of the session.
I mean, I'm happy throughout, but I kind of dread this four-hour session every day, which is why I hit it hard early on without reflecting, without thinking, almost like a machine.
I just get the job done.
That's the way I think about it, and I feel good afterwards, but I don't wanna do it, and I do it anyway.
So here we go. I'll see you on the other end of the four hours.
After Four Hours
All right, the four-hour session is done.
I did not get as much done as I wanted, but it's nevertheless a big success 'cause I just grinded it out.
Zero thoughts about anything else.
Only took a single bathroom and water break.
So it took about four hours and 10 minutes.
Social Media
Next up, I'm gonna do a little bit of social media now, which I need to post a podcast conversation with David Eagleman, brilliant neuroscientist.
So I'm just gonna post that, check the comments from the previous day, trying to keep the whole experience under five minutes and definitely under 10 minutes.
Guitar and Music
And after that, like I do every single day, no exception, is guitar or piano or music.
Usually, these days, it's been guitar.
In the human world, I'm currently single.
But in the music world, I'm in an open relationship with this beautiful guitar.
Open relationship because I sometimes cheat on her with the acoustic, but mostly electric Fender Strat.
The warm, bluesy sound of a Fender, kind of like the Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, brings joy to my heart.
So I look forward to this moment.
It's an escape.
It just makes me happy like a lot of things do, but this is kind of a private moment of joy.
Exercise: The Daily Grind
And after that is about an hour and a half to two hours of a private set of moments of suffering, aka exercise.
So here we go.
Social media, guitar.
Keep the social media under 10 minutes, no exceptions.
And the guitar, sometimes I'll let it slip, but usually just 20 minutes.
Going for a Run
All right, I got the social media and the guitar done.
Actually, there were a bunch of moments where it just brought a smile to my face.
Both the hilarity and the love. I always really appreciate it.
When I check social media in moderation, it really does bring me joy.
So thank you for that.
Now it's time to face the demons in my mind, going on a long run.
All the things I don't wanna think about.
I usually start out listening to brown noise as I run. It really focuses my mind, lets me think deeply.
And then about two, three miles into the run, when I start feeling a little better, I'll switch to listening to an audiobook.
I'm currently listening to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Recommended highly. Great book. Rough, but important for our times.
If you don't study history, you're doomed to repeat it.
Six Miles Minimum
My current exercise routine is run a minimum of six miles every day.
And then when I'm about three or four miles in, I decide how far more I wanna go.
I usually don't feel like running, but once I actually get out there, when I say put some of the miles in, you start feeling good sometimes.
Sometimes not.
Sometimes it's the drag, but sometimes you feel really good, and then I'll do the 8, 10, maybe even 12 miles.
My hope one day is I'll just keep running and do an ultramarathon just on a whim.
Nickel and Dime Workout
Now, for the usual six- to seven-mile run, it should take about an hour.
And afterwards, I do a short but intense session of bodyweight exercises.
After the whole crazy pushup, pull-up, squat challenge that I did, I now do the David Goggins-inspired nickel and dime workout that he talks about.
So every single minute, you do five pull-ups and 10 pushups, minute on a minute, and usually it kicks my ass to do about 15 to 20 minutes of that.
That's enough.
My hope one day is to get up to like one hour, which is really tough.
Your muscle is just drained, exhausted, but I find it's a really great, intense way to get the exercise in without taking too much away from your day.
Hard on the mind, hard on the body, but good for the soul.
Training Fasted
By the way, all of this is fasted.
So it's been about 14, 16 hours since I've eaten last.
I feel great.
No food, water, and I've just taken a salt pill in case I do run for a long time.
It's important to have electrolytes in the body.
I love exercising fasted.
An empty stomach focuses the mind. I can actually perform extremely well.
That's one of the things I've learned about myself.
Everybody's different, but I've actually learned, for like martial arts, for combat sports, for intense workouts even, I just personally enjoy working out fasted.
So I guess based on my diet, but also on my psychology, I perform best when I'm fat-adapted, which means I'm on a low-carb diet.
It's probably deep somewhere in my Eastern European genetics that my ancestors would go without food for long periods of time and then have to wrestle a bear to the death intensely.
So it seems like this is the kind of thing I enjoy doing.
Not eating and then doing intense, focused, hard workouts.
Makes me feel great.
I enjoy it both physically and mentally.
After the Exercise Grind
All right, let's get to work.
All right, the exercise grind for the day is done.
I did seven miles in just over an hour, I think.
It's a slow pace, really losing myself in the audiobook, to be honest.
And then after that, I did 20 nickel and dimes.
That's 20 minutes.
Every minute you do 10 pushups and five pull-ups.
It's a great, quick way to exhaust the muscle.
Also, really good test of mental toughness.
'Cause at least for me, at least at home, I really wanna start quitting at about the 10- to 15-minute mark.
Just the muscles exhausted. You have to pause. It's just unpleasant.
Takes me back to the month and a half previously that I was doing the insane challenge.
So I love it.
It's really quick. 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes, depending on the day, and the one hour of running.
Feel pretty good.
Not so good about 1936, 1937 Nazi Germany, as the audiobook is covering, but yeah.
Really makes me think about the nature of evil.
It puts everything into it, puts everything else into context somehow.
You know, studying history sometimes is a really good way to force me to stop and to acknowledge how weak my mind is and how much stronger it needs to be.
If I wanna have a role in this world of making positive change, I think about Nazi Germany and what it means to be a hero in those times.
What it means to be a person that can reverse the decline into evil.
I think it's much more difficult than people realize.
I think it means standing against the masses.
It requires the kind of mental toughness, mental fortitude that I don't think I'm ready for and I need to be.
Most likely, hopefully I will never have to play a role of any importance, but if I do have that opportunity, I need to be able to step up.
That's what's studying the '30s.
The Great Depression on the United States side and the decline into a state of terror on the European side really makes me think.
I know this is a day in the life video, but that's also my days.
I, as often as possible, try to think deeply about history, about the state of the world today, about my own mind, about the science that I'm fascinated with, which is the science of intelligence and the science of engineering intelligence.
The Cold Shower
Actually, the exercise, when I jump into the shower, contains the moment of the day that I dread the most, which is the first minute that I take a cold shower.
I have a bunch of songs that I know the one-minute mark of that I usually put on.
It could be as cliché and cheesy as the Rocky soundtrack, “We're Gonna Fly Now.”
I think it's the first solo, it's the one-minute mark.
Or “Fortunate Son” by CCR.
Or if I really need a boost, I'm an old-school Metallica fan as well.
So “Master of Puppets.”
I think when he starts singing is the one-minute mark.
So here we go.
The Second Deep Work Session
And after that, I'm right back into the grind of deep work.
Another four-hour session where I continue on a particular task, focused for four hours straight.
Today I didn't get as much done on the TensorFlow Lite side, so I'm gonna probably dive right back in.
But usually during the shower and a little bit afterwards, I'm thinking about, like, what's the right thing to be focusing on given what I was able to get done in the first four-hour session.
Four More Hours of Focus
All right, next, fun time is over.
We're back to the grind of deep work, the second four-hour session of the day where I remove the rest of the world and focus on a single task.
Today I'm gonna continue with the TensorFlow Lite work on the Galaxy S20 for probably the entirety of the four-hour session.
Now, depending on the day, I might eat here if I'm eating twice a day.
Today, I don't really feel like it.
I'm really focused, really feeling good.
Again, that's kind of the benefits of the whole intermittent fasting, keto, that sometimes you just don't feel like eating.
You feel great.
So I'm going to eat just one meal today, which will be after this four-hour session.
And I see this as a kind of sprint to the finish because the eight hours in total of the work is really what I aim to do every single day.
The rest of the stuff, there'll be another four-hour session, but it's often more relaxed, more all over the place, has a few more distractions, a little bit more fun and chaos and just all over the place.
These two four-hour sessions of deep work is really what my day is centered around.
So everything is about them.
This is where The War of Art, the battle for focus, for gaining focus and holding onto focus, that's what it's all about.
Some days are really rough.
The first session today was easy. I found the focus pretty quickly and just stayed with it.
Part of it is because it's kind of a new activity, it's a new phone I'm playing with and also doing a different kind of experiment with TensorFlow Lite.
So it's new, it really pulls at you.
And even though it was difficult, there were no serious stumbling blocks.
Like, I didn't have to spend a lot of time debugging code and so on.
So it was easy.
Let's see what the second four-hour session is.
Sometimes it's a grind, but no matter what, the focus is always just to be present, to be there.
If nothing's working, it's not happening, I still stay in that place and wait for the breakthrough.
And the breakthrough always comes.
Everybody's different, I think, in how they discover focus, inspiration, motivation.
But I'm a big believer in the discipline of ritual.
So being there, and even if you don't feel like it, still being there.
Even if progress is not being made, still being there for the grind because sometimes just minutes later, there'll be a breakthrough.
That's how I feel about deep work.
That's how I feel about running too.
Just taking it one step at a time because some minutes are rough and others are full of bliss, and that's just the way, the journey of hard work, the journey of doing anything difficult.
I'll see you on the other end of the four hours.
Breaking the Fast
Now, the two big battles of the day are done.
The two four-hour sessions of deep work.
Time to break the fast.
I break the fast with Athletic Greens.
A sponsor of the podcast, but actually an amazing thing that I love, whether they're a sponsor or not.
It covers all the bases that I need with the kind of restricted keto diet that I have.
It has all the things that a multivitamin has, but a ton of other nutrients as well.
I don't know what it looks like to you, but it's actually pretty delicious.
I look forward to it.
And it just makes me feel good.
What I Usually Eat
In case it's interesting, what I usually eat is some kind of meat, some kind of vegetable.
So if I eat once a day, that's gonna be about two pounds of meat, a total of 1,800 calories, 2,000 calories for the total meal.
If I'm not being very fancy, it's gonna be ground beef.
Like, this is grass-fed, organic, 85%, so 15% fat, ground beef.
In terms of keto, it results in a good macro breakdown.
In terms of taste, I just like it.
In terms of cooking, it's also easier because it's just the right amount of fat.
When it's mixed with the vegetables, it creates a nonsticky pan situation where I don't have to add any oil.
It just mixes nicely and results in flavorful veggies.
But veggies, my favorite go-to is probably cauliflower.
Not always.
When I really wanna get crazy and party, I go with carrots.
That's my party vegetable, my ground floor, the place I return to often.
My home is cauliflower.
Hate broccoli, though.
I love cauliflower and hate broccoli.
In this politically divisive world, we have to pick our sides.
My side is with cauliflower against broccoli.
Electrolytes and Supplements
What else?
So if I'm fasting or not on the keto diet, it's important to get electrolytes.
This is weird.
This is for long-distance running.
This is just sodium pills.
I think one gram, 1,000 milligrams of sodium in pill form.
Then there's magnesium glycinate.
When I first started keto, I think I was getting headaches for the first few days.
It's the keto flu that people talk about.
The salt is what cured it for me, and the magnesium.
There's a bunch of ways to get potassium.
I take it in pill form.
It's really just to be careful to make sure you get enough electrolytes in your diet, especially when I'm fasting, especially when I'm doing a lot of exercise, to balance with the water and everything like that.
Finally, I always take fish oil.
Did not plan—I'm mentioning another sponsor, but I will.
Public Goods.
They sell a bunch of different kinds of stuff, including fish oil.
It's all good.
I love the minimalist design of Public Goods stuff.
Anyway, so much of nutrition science is barely a science, really.
I like to just listen to my own body and do one-person, one-subject scientific experiments of what makes me feel good.
That's how I discovered the keto diet.
You know, I just look at the science to make sure it's not unhealthy, and it's not.
And for the rest of it, I just see what my energy levels are like, how I feel throughout the day in terms of mental performance, in terms of physical performance, all that kind of stuff.
Same with the nutrients, it's pretty minimalist.
So I do take stuff.
If I miss days where I don't take electrolytes or fish oil, it doesn't really matter, but I feel good.
But I find it's nice to make sure you're getting all the nutrients at least regularly.
And like I said, Athletic Greens helps make sure I cover all bases about all the weird stuff that I should be getting and I'm not even aware of.
Cooking
So...
This might be the first and only video I'll ever make in the kitchen.
I kind of feel like this is one of those chef shows where I should be yelling at somebody about their mediocre performance in the kitchen.
So I throw the veggies into boiling water, then drain the water, then throw in the meat, and then I guess broil it or whatever the heck the term is.
The entire thing takes about 20 minutes, but I only really participate in the last five minutes when it's broiling and I mix it.
And sorry if broiling is not the right term.
I don't know what I'm doing, okay?
Anyway, it's super easy.
I enjoy it.
It's delicious.
I throw some salt-based spices in there.
And the final result kind of tastes amazing, makes me happy.
After I make the meal, I'll probably overlay the video of what the final result looks like.
I'll often eat it behind the desk, sort of thinking deeply about something, oftentimes about the thing I'm going to do in the next four-hour session.
Just kind of relaxing, enjoying the food, but also just thinking.
Of course, if there was somebody else here with me, I'll be enjoying the meal with them.
There's nothing more beautiful than connecting with other human beings over some delicious food.
The Third Four-Hour Session
Okay, here we go.
All right, I'm done eating.
Feeling pretty good.
Don't feel like being on video, but by the way, wearing a 2001: A Space Odyssey shirt.
This is where I might be wearing a suit if I'm doing filming, if I just feel like it.
So the next four-hour session is more relaxed kind of work.
It's still really focused, but there's a bunch of tasks.
This is where I might do the email check.
Email Rules
Now, my rule with email: I check email at most three times a day.
And the first two times is just to check for emergencies or respond to an email that takes like less than 30 seconds to respond to and it's kind of important.
The third session, which is during this four-hour period, is when I actually spend, try to spend no more than an hour, but I go through the emails, I read them.
These days, I'm so freaking lucky to be getting just a lot of kind, thoughtful messages.
So I just take them in.
It brings me joy, it brings a smile to my face.
One of the favorite things of the day for me.
And I also, if there's like some of the stuff I have to deal with, I respond to those emails.
That's actually at the end of the four-hour session.
Work During the Third Session
Now, I would also be doing video editing and any kind of filming I'm doing, any kind of website design stuff.
And also the continuation of the deep work.
So today I didn't finish the TensorFlow Lite thing, but I'm close.
So I'm gonna probably spend one hour on doing some more TensorFlow.
Then I'm gonna do two hours for video editing, a podcast I need to be working on.
I usually try to put in an hour or two a day of podcast-related stuff.
I need to outsource it, I really do, but for now, I'm doing it.
And then the last hour would be checking the email and so on.
And after those four hours, I do two-plus hours of reading, one-hour paper, one hour plus of literature.
But we'll get to that.
First is four hours, I'm back to it.
TensorFlow for an hour, two hours of podcast editing, and then one hour of email.
Again, very few distractions, very few breaks.
When the Day Allows Chaos
On days like today, when I'm feeling really good, really energetic, this third four-hour session, I try to make as good as the first two in terms of the deep focus that I achieve.
Also, this time is for when I don't feel great.
I can just lay down and watch some Netflix, watch some documentaries on YouTube, hang out with friends.
If I had a girlfriend, this would be girlfriend time.
Netflix and chill.
For now, I'm doing just the Netflix part of that.
Anyway, today's deep work, but starting now, on any particular day, this is where the possibilities of chaos are wide open.
So I can just do whatever the hell I want.
I got some Jack Daniels, I got some Stoli, Smirnoff vodka.
I got some peanut butter-flavored whiskey.
So I don't drink very often, pretty rarely actually.
But the possibility is always there.
The night is always full of possibilities.
I'm a big fan of a random adventure and just being lost in it.
This is the time for that to happen.
But today, as far as I know, it's TensorFlow, Adobe Premiere, some email, then some papers, and some Dostoevsky.
Let's go.
Ending the Workday
All right, I got the four-hour session done.
Took just a few minutes longer.
I got all of the email done.
I got podcast editing and actually just got that done in just over an hour.
So I had some time to do podcast prep where I'm doing some research for a couple of upcoming conversations.
And of course, the TensorFlow thing, still didn't wrap it up, but put it in the hour that's on the plate for tomorrow to start again.
Programming is a grind.
What are you gonna do?
But I feel really good.
I really feel good about the day.
I don't know if this is a good day-in-the-life video, but it's a good day in my life.
Maybe not exactly in the sense that it all went perfectly, but in the sense that I put in a very large number of hours of deep focus.
I resisted the urge to become distracted.
I resisted all of the usual urges.
I mean, that's a daily fight and I won it today, but it's not over.
Reading and Learning
So next I'm gonna do one hour of paper reading.
I have a whole system of papers I read.
Every single day I read at least one paper.
Today I'm skimming two machine learning-type neuroscience papers that somebody suggested to me based on the Matt Belfanti conversation.
And then I'm also doing a deeper read, still.
This is the second session of it for the GPT-3 paper.
I'm thinking of making a couple of videos on GPT-3 and just making sure I get all the details right.
There's a bunch of open questions that are not yet understood about GPT-3, I think.
How I Read Papers
And one of the things I do when I read papers is think outside of what the word is just saying.
There's obviously all kinds of different papers.
The ones I'm reading today, both the neuroscience side and GPT-3, are very easy to understand.
And it's more like a canvas on which you can project your ideas.
So you're taking in the approach, the different architecture, the results, understanding the different plots, the intuitions, like the different perspectives than the results, but all of that is like very literary.
Like, a single pass to that paper is almost enough, at least so far.
But what the whole purpose of the process is for me reading a paper like that is to think deeply beyond the paper.
To think: what are the deep questions to ask?
And that's what I do with paper reading.
Again, I have a whole system that's maybe for another video if anyone gives a damn.
That hour is usually pretty painful.
So I usually keep it to an hour.
Like, I literally sometimes am counting down to when to reach an hour 'cause it's kind of hard work.
It really requires focus.
Literature and Dostoevsky
After that is a little bit more fun reading.
It's nonfiction or fiction, depending.
Right now I'm working through the major novels of Dostoevsky because I'm going to be talking to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov translators.
I don't know when exactly, but in a few months.
Maybe in a month, I'll be going to Paris to talk to them.
So I'm rereading Dostoevsky.
I've finished The Idiot.
I'm now working through Crime and Punishment, reading it in English, but I'm also going to try to get to listening to it in Russian.
Like, taking it in both languages and trying to understand the music of the different languages and how they interact, how they connect, what is the gap, what are the things that are lost in translation, that kind of thing.
Sometimes I do it at the desk, sometimes I do it on the bed.
Going back and forth.
When I have a lot of energy like I do now, got a little bit of coffee in me, I'll just chill on the bed and read the papers and the books.
When I'm starting to get a little bit tired, I'll jump over to the desk and back and forth.
Ending the Day: Gratitude
So that's it.
I think I'll wrap up the day-in-the-life video here 'cause I'll do the one-hour paper reading and then the one-hour Dostoevsky, and after that jump into bed and drift into sleep while continuing to read the Dostoevsky.
But actually, after the hour of literature reading, I always take a pause and do the part of the mantra that I do in the morning.
That's gratitude.
Again, it's being thankful that I'm alive, that I survived another day, looking forward to the next day, and just being grateful for all of the moments that are full of joy in the day.
I mean, just even filming this silly thing, it's like fun.
There's a piece of technology that somehow is capturing this that other people might watch.
And then there's like a microphone.
I mean, just the entirety of the technology.
Everything is magical.
Everything is magical.
Reminding myself of that doesn't take much effort, but just taking a break, taking a pause, just breathing and just saying, “Damn, it's good to be alive.”
'Cause I won't always be alive.
The right end's too quickly.
So it's an opportunity, a moment to appreciate the entirety of it.
Final Thoughts
I hope this video is interesting or useful to somebody.
I value a few things in this world.
One of them is hard work, and I try to live by that every day.
And the other is, I often always, maybe too much, talk about is love and compassion towards other people.
So with those two things, it's one hell of a good life.
So I hope that comes through the way I live my day, this silly video.
And if you enjoy it, subscribe, support the kind folks that, for some crazy reason, wanna sponsor the podcast that I make.
The podcast just brings me a lot of joy, especially the people I get to meet, the people I get to talk to on the podcast, but also the community of people who listen to podcasts.
I'm a huge fan of podcasts myself, so this is just a big gift to be a part of that.
And the sponsors support that whole effort, and they create awesome stuff.
So I get to enjoy and share my love for the awesome stuff they create.
And as a byproduct of that, they enable me to have enough food and shelter to continue doing these podcasts, which is fundamentally a side gig for me to the main dream, the main effort that I'm still quietly putting in the hours on.
Again, thanks for watching.
And in your own life, make sure you work hard and put a little bit of love out there in the world.
Source
YouTube — A Day In The Life by Lex Fridman