I want to share something else. I have seen so much death in my short life. I have had to do procedures called “Infant Trauma Surveys” which required us to image every single bone in a babies body. The purpose of these exams were to determine whether or not the child was being abused. The parents of these children were often told that their child was being checked out for growth defects. My coworkers and I knew even before we started imaging whether or not the child was a victim of abuse. The babies that were abused never cried as we took them away from their parents. Their eyes didn’t dart around the room looking for something to play with. They would lie down in any position we wanted without any effort from us. They would just lie there, too afraid to do anything. We always started from the head and worked our way down. The machine we used for these procedures would allow us to instantly see the radiographic image. I have always had a love for children so I would always volunteer to help hold them still for the procedure. This eight month boy gave me no resistance at all.

Read the whole thread.

He says, “Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?”

“Hah!” I say. “There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.” His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.

I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was “playing” – working, really – with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.

It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

Traveling for 10 months around the world through 17 countries covering Africa, South East Asia, Australasia and North, Central and South America. The trip was centered around surfing and photography

Presenting in Hong Kong, Japan, the US and London

Writing a book for O’Reilly as I went, titled JavaScript Web Applications

Writing another book on CoffeeScript, soon to be published by O’Reilly.

Doing a ton of open source libraries, such as Spine, Spine.Mobile, GFX, and Juggernaut.

Building a startup prototype

Presenting at FOWA

And finally, landing a job at Twitter

A friendly reminder, you understand.

Moving.

It isn’t always this simple, of course, but this is usually adequate.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people have had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. 

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it. 

This is the first one, and the best one. I’ve thought a lot about this one recently. There is only one thing stopping us from living the life we want to lead–ourselves and the choices we make.

Don’t be a pussy who dies full of regrets. Live the life you want to lead. You’ll be dead soon. Get to it.

It’s horribly unfair that we usually cannot live near our friends. When we are children we are stripped from close relationships because our parents had to move, or because their parents had to move. And these decisions in turn hinge on mundane things like company x needing someone in Wichita, or, as it often turns out, not needing someone in Wichita anymore.

So, as if it were a minor thing, worlds are ripped from each other. Two friends that used to live near each other suddenly don’t, and in the past this basically meant that person would cease being your friend. Even today, with all the technology we have, there is no substitute for being able to see someone physically, on a regular basis, for nurturing a close relationship.

I’m reminded of this every once in a while, and it depresses me.

This is one of a few videos that Scott Adams recently talked about being designed to change mood. I think it worked on me.