A Short Collection of Unconventional Ideas*

These are all from Chris Guillebeau's website The Art of Nonconformity. 

I keep it bookmarked and reread his articles every few months when I get that "whoa...what am I doing with my life" feeling. It always makes me smile (and nod.)

GENERAL

- A year after you leave college, no one will care what your GPA was.

- Once you fully understand what you want, it’s not usually that difficult to get it.

- At all stages of life, people will gladly offer you unsolicited lists of things you 

“must” do, be, or have. Most of the time you can nod your head, 

walk away, and ignore them.

- You don’t have to live your life the way other 

people expect you to.

- Potential is good when you’re 15 years old. After that, you need to

 start doing something.

- Simplifying your life is like running – not that complicated. 

You don’t need gadgets or monthly magazines to do 

either of these activities.

WORK

- Contrary to what you may have heard, it does not always 

“take money to make money.” You can start many 

businesses for less than $100.

- You don’t need employees to have a business. 

In fact, it’s probably easier not to.

- In many organizations, it’s not hard to stand out by being remarkable. 

Sadly, this is true in non-profit organizations 

just as much as in cubicle nation.

- If you’re only working 10 productive hours a week but technically 

have to be on a job site for another 30 hours, why not spend

 5-10 hours of the extra time doing something 

useful instead of just surfing the internet? Ideas: 

learn a language, write a novel, plan your retirement, whatever.

ART

-If you don’t enjoy spending long periods of time working by yourself 

with no external validation, a career 

in the arts is probably not a good choice.

-Despite appearances to the contrary, it’s OK for artists to make money.

-Jackson Pollack: is it really art? 

Your opinion is the only one that matters.

GETTING SERIOUS

-Sometimes things that seem “too good to be true” actually 

turn out to be true. If you’re skeptical by nature, 

you might miss out on some of them.

-You are not a bad person if you want to 

do something for yourself.

-You don’t have to feel guilty for having more than other people do. 

The goal is to help them get more by creating wealth, 

not by taking it away from you.

These things are optional:

Cars

Credit Cards

Houses

Bank Accounts

Phones

Insurance

Email

[Note: They can all be useful; just understand that they are also optional.]

There is almost always more than one way to accomplish something.

Click here for the FULL List

*this was posted last week before blogger crashed. I just got it back, so here it is once more!