Miyamoto Musashi wrote "Dokkōdō" (獨行道), which translates to "The Way of Walking Alone". It consists of 21 precepts that serve as guidelines focused on self-discipline, humility, asceticism, and personal development. Musashi composed this work a week before his death in 1645.

He was the greatest swordsman in the history of Japan and never lost a duel.

His Principles:

1. Accept everything just the way it is.

• Some things just cannot be changed and must be accepted just as they are.
• There’s no point living in denial about your current circumstances or your past.
• Don’t have a very rigid worldview. You need to be flexible in your understanding of the world. Don’t try to change the interpretation of something to fit a pre-existing structure.
• Always adjust your mental models to reality, instead of engaging in self-delusion and projecting what you want reality to be onto actual reality.
• Beware cognitive dissonance.

2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

• Do not get emotionally attached to pleasure.
• Pleasure for the sake of pleasure lowers your ‘level’ as a human being. It makes you less human and more animalistic.
• If you did not understand the previous point, think of people who are addicted to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, or whatever. They have only one god – their fix.
• Pleasure in itself will not fulfill you. Satisfaction is secondary to purpose. Happiness is a by-product of achievement, self-understanding, and calmness.
• Pleasure has to be earnt. When you chase pleasure for the sake of pleasure, you feel good without earning the right to the dopamine – it only fulfills the body, not the spirit.
• Just take a look at the story of the Buddha. The man had everything. He was a prince. And yet he still wasn’t satisfied. Something was lacking.

3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.

• When you’re not sure of something or someone, you need to be very cautious with how you move forward.
• “Kind of” believing in something is not the same as actually believing in something – this includes self-belief. This is why most people fail at everything they try.