‘Excellent Advice for Living’ by Kevin Kelly

To say that writer and futurist Kevin Kelly has had a profound influence on this website (and arguably the web as a whole) is an understatement. His longtime Cool Tools blog has been a regular source of reading for me personally ever since I first discovered RSS circa ’07 or ’08.

And in just a couple days, he has a new book coming out called Excellent Advice for Living that compiles 70 years of hard-earned life wisdom and presents it across 450 useful, thought-provoking, and occasionally humorous aphorisms that aim to help you live a better life. He covers everything from relationships to finances to parenting to self-reflection to careers and beyond.

Here are some of the succinct nuggets of advice you’ll find in the book:

“To succeed, get other people to pay you; to become wealthy, help other people to succeed.”

“A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.”

“If you are looking for something in your house and you finally find it, when you are done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.”

“If you loan someone $20 and you never see them again because they are avoiding paying you back, that makes it worth $20.”

“Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible. Instead aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.”

“If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute, you owe them a dollar.”

This is sure to be an invaluable resource, and it should find a happy home on your bookshelf where you can reference it daily.

The book releases May 2nd, 2023 and can be pre-ordered in these formats: