The 7 Lessons:

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.

2. Do nothing out of guilt, or for prestige, status, money or approval alone.

3. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words.

4. Build pockets of stillness into your life.

5. Maya Angelou famously said, ‘When people tell you who they are, believe them’. But even more importantly, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them.

6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. As Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

7. Debbie Millman captures our modern predicament beautifully: “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.”

Read the full article: Brain Pickings: 7 Things I Learned in 7 Years of Reading, Writing, and Living