Lines I loved from the books I read in 2021

It's that time of year again. Winter melancholy and the anticipation of a reboot usually make me reflect on the year ending, and more importantly set intentions for the next.

One item on my 'goals' list makes a regular appearance. Read more. Now, over the past few years, I have rekindled my reading habit and the number of books I read in a year has steadily increased. However, I realise that I rarely retain most of what I read.

So this year, I am changing up that item on my list to Read & Write More, in the hope that articulating ideas will help me make bigger learning strides and perhaps let me retrospectively tap into those wonderful feelings that well written prose can inspire.

Our man Adam Grant recently tweeted, "Writing exposes gaps in your knowledge and logic. It pushes you to articulate assumptions and consider counterarguments. One of the best paths to sharper thinking is frequent writing." Always on point, Adam.

Now since I didn't follow this in 2021, I'm going to start off by sharing my favourite lines from the books I did read. This has turned out to be a collection of maxims to live by, and some helpful reminders of what matters...

My favourite of them all which seems fitting for this new goal:

“The worst troll is the one that lives in your head”

[From Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered]

Here we go -

1. “People who don’t take risks work for people who do,” - No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram
2. “Almost any human behaviour, if scrutinized sufficiently intensely, can begin to seem suspicious” - The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
3. “Learn even from enemies. Fas est ab hoste doceri. ” - The Pull of the Stars
4. “My parents had taught me that confidence is not a permanent state of being, a piece of wisdom I still believe. It’s something you can work to develop and something you have to work to maintain.” - Unfinished
5. “I had learned that love was not patient, love was not kind. Love was conditional. The people closest to you could turn their backs on you, saying goodbye for something that seemed like nothing. You could only depend on yourself.” - The Paris Library
6. “…those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble” - Things Fall Apart?(The African Trilogy, #1)
7. “His goal attracts him, because he doesn't let anything enter his soul which might oppose the goal”. [on focus] - Siddhartha
8. “Creativity is enhanced when performing straightforward mechanical tasks such as jogging, cooking and driving.” - The Rosie Project?(Don Tillman, #1)
9. “The worst troll is the one that lives in your head” - Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered
10. “Fear is a constant, and faith is a choice” || “Life is cyclical; what goes around comes around. Such a view of time will never respect history, for what is the past is also the future. That is why in many Indian languages the word for tomorrow and yesterday is the same, for example ‘kal’ in Hindi.” - Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana
11. “Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves.” - Homegoing
12. “Pessimism can be appealing - it’s easy to sound smart while being negative about the future. And especially so because its easy to ignore the slow growth of compounding. And the availability heuristic and ‘loss aversion’ makes big losses seem more present and prominent.” - The Psychology of Money (paraphrased as I listened on Audible)
13. “Happiness involves evenly balancing the many non negotiables in your life.” - The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win
14. “Once your pride gets involved, you’ll fight tooth and nail to maintain your habits.” - Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
15. “The challenge we face as leaders is to let feelings churn inside you but then present a calm exterior.” - My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future

Grateful for the Kindle app and the Notes feature. Where I listened on Audible, I thankfully took manual notes on the Notion app.

There. My first goal for 2022 already on its way (ish)...