Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when things go wrong; by fighting to maintain only positive beliefs about the futu… - Oliver Burkeman

Beyond the mountains, there are always more mountains, at least until you reach the final mountain before your time on earth comes to an end. In the meantime, few things are more exhilarating than mountaineering.

Fortunately, there are three pieces of advice for navigating a world of infinite information that are more genuinely helpful. The first is to treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket. That is to say: think of your backlog not as a container that gradually fills up, and that it's your job to empty, but as a stream that flows past you, from which you get to pick a few choice items, here and there, without feeling guilty for letting all the others float by.

the more that you remain aware of life's finitude, the more you will cherish it, and the less likely you will be to fritter it away on distractions.