Maria Popova is the founder of Brain Pickings, a website designed to introduce you to a broad variety of subjects that feed one’s mind and inspire creativity.  Since founding Brain Pickings, Maria has spent countless hours researching and writing – hours that have taught her many life lessons. In honor of the website’s 7^th birthday last fall, she was generous enough to share 7 things she learned from those 7 years of reading, writing, and living.

The 7 Lessons:

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.
2. Do nothing out of guilt, or for prestige, status, money or approval alone.
3. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words.
4. Build pockets of stillness into your life.
5. Maya Angelou famously said, ‘When people tell you who they are, believe them’. But even more importantly, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them.
6. Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. As Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
7. Debbie Millman captures our modern predicament beautifully: “Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.”

Now, the Brooklyn-based sustainable design studio Holstee has developed a letterpress poster in collaboration with Maria Popova displaying these simple (yet wise) life lessons.

Purchase the poster here.

Image courtesy of Holstee.