Aaron Swartz: Take a step back.

So I started wondering: Is there more where that came from? I realized I’ve never stopped to ask whether I could get better at life. After all, in my day job, I’m constantly looking for ways to learn and grow – reading the latest books and articles about the field, talking to other people with similar jobs and hearing what’s worked for them. Why aren’t I doing the same thing for life? 

It turns out to be surprisingly hard. Life comes with no instruction manual and the advice parents give is all over the place. TV and the newspapers don’t offer much more than narrow Quick Tips and I never saw a course in this stuff at school.