Life and Living - Daniel Bourke

Daniel Bourke

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Life and Living

A collection of 77 posts

A colourful butterfly sitting on the edge of a leaf

Life and Living

There's always going to be something

You’ve tweaked your back and now you can’t workout. You’ve got two kids under 3 and now every time someone asks you to hang out you can’t because you’re tired. You can’t go to all the events that arise at the end of the

Two labradors standing in a park with grass underfoot and a blue sky in the background.

A dog called Seven

Our crazy neighbours had a dog called Seven. And we had our dog Bella. Bella and Seven would yell at each other and sometimes say something nice like hello how was your day by sniffing each other through the gaps in the fence. One day my younger brothers opened the

A drawing of a fishing hook tied to fishing line about to enter the water with sky in the background

Life and Living

Not just fishing knots

Took mum to her childhood home Sunday just gone to see Papa. We walked in and mum saw Nana and they both started to cry. Papa, Alan, Alby, my grandfather was quite sick. The room was quiet and somber but had an unshakable aura of warmth and love. Everyone was

An Old School RuneScape player casting the spell high alchemy.

Where’s the magic?

I got asked once my favourite person from history in a job interview. I said Isaac Newton. An old cricket coach told me about the laws of motion. And I never forgot. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It helped fix my right arm leg spin. I later

Painting of Jacob wrestling with the angel in black and white by Gustave Doré

30 years old

I remember sitting in the car on the way to drop my brother to preschool. Being 9 years old and telling my mum how excited I was to turn ten. Double digits! I feel the same way about 29 to 30. I hardly even got used to saying I’m

Those days when nothing gets done

A drawing of three loops, each leading to the other, each slightly different colours

The same feeling

Starting something new. A business, a relationship, an adventure, a creation. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be new. Or even the start. Still, the feelings creep in. Am I going to make it? Does she like me? What does he think? Goodness what if I go broke? Valid

photo of landscape with ocean in middle ground, blue sky up top, bushes in foreground

AI Anxiety

A walk into the unknown.

weightlifter with weight overhead being admired by two other men, cartoon style

Silent idols

Showing without telling.

Watercolor painting of four separate rooms and areas with different functionality

Operation zero commute

I’d like to setup a life where my commute time is basically zero. As much as possible from home. Work from home, gym from home, practice farming from home, community from home. Everything walking or riding distance, the rest delivered. I don’t even live in one of the

ai-generated water colour painting of a girl dancing in a field

My favourite kind of people: those with joie de vivre

Here’s to the excited ones.

A drawing of cows in a field with a big green hill in the background and a nice blue sky

Life and Living

Survivability and Scalability

Have fun and let it become fruitful.

Cartoon record player with dancer spinning to the music

Listening or dancing?

Swimming or floating? Walking or standing still? Pissed off or laughing? Opposites give each other meaning. The listener’s ear hairs swing to the beat. And the dancer moves to the sound. Going through life floating down the stream. Or swimming along with events. My Mum used to teach swimming

Man sitting at a table alone with coloured chairs around the room and bright lights on every table

Table 14

blue rocks closeu

Life and Living

Out of the blue

A woman I went to primary school with had her life support turned off this morning. Yesterday she fainted and it turned out to be some kind of brain aneurysm. In the ambulance she was put into an induced coma. By the time she got to the hospital they found

small dog wrestling a big stick

Decision Making

Betting on yourself

Would you take a bet you could never lose?

Shedding old skin

Decision Making

Shedding old skin

A snake slithers out of its old skin without effort. A caterpillar decides it’s time to become a butterfly, encases itself in a cocoon, rests, and emerges with colourful wings. All of nature happens this way. No effort. Like air entering and leaving your lungs, happening by itself. Want

All I want to be is present

Life and Living

All I want to be is present

What's it all about?

Life and Living

No competition

Set the system up so you always win.

Life and Living

Alive but already dead

What are you scared of? She asked. Nothing. Really? Yes. Not even death? No, I paused, kept going. Well, I’m scared of dying not of death, so I guess there is one thing. Explain. To me, when death comes it’ll be like the time before you were alive.

The Buttons for the User Interface of Reality

Decision Making

The Buttons for the User Interface of Reality

Become an author of your reality by stacking your talents, affirming yourself, sparking curiosity, injecting novelty, painting contrast and keeping it simple simple simple.

I turn 27 today, here's ~27 micro-essays on life

I turn 27 today, here's ~27 micro-essays on life

A year is now officially 6-months. Luckmaxing. You were born to adapt. The "It is done" mindset. And the power of the follow-up.

[Interview] Work-life balance with Balance the Grind

[Interview] Work-life balance with Balance the Grind

A fun series of questions on how I approach work-life balance, how I spend (and view) my time, books I love and apps I can't live without.

Getting back to nature: competition and the mistake

Life and Living

Getting back to nature: competition and the mistake

Nature has created everything you see around you using two tools, competition and the mistake. Despite this, it is common practice to want to try and remove these tools from your life. But you know how it goes when any system works against nature. It doesn’t last long and

A guest of it all

Life and Living

A guest of it all

We’re all on tour here. All guests of life. It goes fast but it’s the longest thing you’ll do. The ones who make the most of it have fun being themselves. You can tell who they are. They’re the ones who walk into a room and