… i have been carefully making my way through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, taking notes, saving quotes as i go… it is a book i have read several times and it inspires me in all kinds of ways… it is part of a list of texts that i have read and been inspired by that i have decided to re-read and really pay attention to… my quest is to see what they might have in common and weather they together have a message on how one should embrace their life, find meaning in it… a big spiritual mountain to climb, but i have been all around the base and part way up the sides in numerous places numerous times… it is time, i am thinking, for an all out assault on the summit… my 4K weeks are well beyond half done…

… just finished this book… i liked it very much and found it inspiring at times… its idea about time management is that it is less about your system for moving to do’s to done, than about choosing what is truly important to you and limiting your focus to a small selection of that at any given moment in time…

… it felt to me that there were some places where the philosophy presented was not completely worked out… in particular, the suggestions on how to execute appendix seemed a little anticlimactic… even so, i think it is well worth spending a few of your limited hours of attention on it…

… these are my main take aways…

• life is ridiculously limited… the average human has four thousand weeks to live and we burn through them at the rate of 52 a year…
• you can’t do it all… be a perfect worker, spouse, parent, solve all the worlds problems, write the great American novel… you must choose a few things on which to focus your attention and energy and each choice leaves any number of other choices behind…
• a meaningful life is one in which you make choices and leave possibilities behind… you make peace with your limitations and choose a few important-to-you places to apply time, energy and attention, and let go of all the other possibilities… you let yourself be mediocre at some things… you live as much as possible in full appreciation of the present moment…