It’s Not Money But Being Useful That Makes Us Happy.

Meaning, Purpose and engagement with life = Happiness
Meaning, Purpose and engagement with life = Happiness
Source: Substack

“I’m fed up with life. I feel miserable. It’s like everything is against me,” he said, “my doctor has had to up the dosage of my anti-depressants.”

Listening to my friend talk about his hardships made my blood boil. This guy had everything going for him—money, a great wife and kids, several homes all over the world, a burgeoning business and good friends around him.

Images of his last holiday to the Maldives, the one thousand euro wine bottles he often drank, and the Rolex watches he wore flashed through my mind.

I immediately judged him for being entitled, spoiled, and not grateful for the life he had.

To me, he was in the top 3% of people alive. So how can he dare complain? Talk about living a privileged life in a world where the disparity between the elite and the rest is at its highest ever.

Finally, I couldn’t sit through his monologue. “Oh, please. You have so much goodness in your life. I don’t think you can complain, as I can’t about the privileged life we both live.”

He looked at me with a scornful smile. “Just because I have money—the money I made with my own two hands—doesn’t mean I have no right to vent about not being happy. We all have different battles to fight.”

Of course, he was right. I had no right to judge. He had created his successful business independently and invested his money wisely. Just because he was rich didn’t mean that I could assume he had to be happy as well.

The next morning, after journalling and examining myself, I realized many people had probably used the same argument against me during my midlife existential crisis in 2008.

I was well-off, healthy and had good relationships around me, but I was depressed only to go see a psychiatrist who prescribed anti-depressants to me.

I recoiled at how I must have sounded, too.

I texted my friend a long apology and decided to work on my issues instead and write this post, hoping he would read it.

None of us has the right to judge, question, or criticise people who are genuinely unhappy for whatever reason. We have no right to dismiss their pain or differentiate pain according to some hierarchy.

Pain is pain. Unhappiness is unhappiness.

Yes, we often need a dose of reality to awaken us and see that we are not in such dire circumstances. But what if he can’t? What if he can’t see a way through? What if all the trauma he’s suffered as a kid was finally catching up on him? (We’ve all suffered trauma, whether it’s low-key or heavy.)

I wrote in my journal that I needed to be more compassionate, understanding, and supportive of anyone who has had the guts to express their pain and not hide behind masks.

I’m regularly hard on myself, too, often dismissing my own pain as insignificant compared to others’ misfortune. I also needed to be more self-compassionate.

I believe that pain and suffering are alarms raised by our physical and emotional bodies to signal that not all is well. They nudge us to start asking questions about our mental well-being.

What traumas and unanswered questions have we ignored? Pain can become a gift, but only when we see it as a hurdle to overcome rather than a block. It is a gift if you see it as the point where the universe pushes you to change your road map.

We live our lives just like a rocket going to the moon. It is, of course, about 95% of the time – and it gets there only because of constant, tiny re-adjustments along the way.

The ‘Gifts of Adversity’ are those things that seem like detours but turn out to be tiny adjustments that help guide us to our destination. They start off as little hints and then become stronger messages, and if you continue to ignore them, they finally hit you hard as adversities.

When we start digging into our psyche, we notice how enslaved we are by our ego, which has paralyzed us with fears, self-pity, and resentment. We see that our old ways of living are not serving our new ways of being.

Back in 2011, in a one-on-one coaching session with Bob Proctor, I explained to him that I’d felt ambivalent about my life, as I had made money but wasn’t happy.  He said, “Then it’s time you challenged yourself and played a bigger game.”

Perhaps, after making so much money, my friend needed to find something new and purposeful to do.

Sebastian Junger’s quote from his book Tribe comes to mind:  “Humans don’t mind hardship; in fact, they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.”

From the way we treat our bodies to the way we connect with people, we need to have meaning, a purpose, and some big intentions regarding how and what we want to create with our lives.

Below are the hard questions I asked myself to get myself out of my disheartening time:

  • What keeps me in the highest vibration all the time?
  • Is my business really what I want to do now?
  • Are the relationships I have serving my real truth?
  • What are my unique gifts?
  • What am I here to do?
  • How can I serve humanity?

Without my friend’s sad, expressive words to himself and us, it’s easy to avoid those big questions, even when our bodies and energy levels have been whispering them for months.

Living consciously means making ourselves feel necessary like we’re an important cog in the universe’s constantly moving wheels.

Because we are the universe.

Lost in Distraction.Languishing in Life.

smartest-brains
smartest-brains
Source: Substack

Lately, I’m feeling restless. My mind is everywhere. I can’t focus for long on any task. What makes it worse is that I feel down whenever I don’t concentrate on the given task.

These glum feelings are low-key, more like a decrease in positive emotions and not outright negative ones. Perhaps the new term, languishing, describes these feelings perfectly.

Languishing entered our lexicon sometime after the Covid pandemic, which generally means a pullback from life and not being fully engaged. But also importantly, not depressed or very sad.

Maybe, Ironically, an Instagram version of depression.

I retraced my behaviour—that’s why journaling plays an important role in my life—and found that for most of 2023, I’d start my mornings with Twitter (Now X) and the internet instead of a book.

With the constant toxicity on the platform—the squabbling between opposite views on the several wars happening in the world, the slanderous rumours about my football team and the many idiots boasting how they have accumulated 100k followers, I was a wreck before my day even started.

Definitely Not what Thich Nhat Hanh had in my mind about a mindful morning.

One morning, I saw it clearly. I have an attention span of a toddler. What happened to my four-hour writing sessions?

I suspected that there was something broken in our collective attention. I see this lack with my colleagues in our team meetings. I see it with my children and friends when everyone is on their phones instead of engaging in meaningful conversation.

But I never thought it could lead to me becoming a fidgety, restless soul who was walking away and not towards the inner peace and freedom I craved.

Attention is not like a beating heart that comes naturally to us. It’s similar to our muscles. It’s adaptable and versatile but will atrophy if we don’t use it. Neglect it, and it slowly withers away.

Ted Gioia, in his fantastic article, said: “The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity. The key is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds and must be repeated.”

With our attention fragmented, everything has become superficial and instantaneous. Tech Startups have replaced old-age companies. Blog posts are read more widely than books. Social media has overtaken TV. YouTube and TikTok instead of worthwhile movies. Ozempic and not ‘good eating’ is fast becoming the answer to losing pounds.

The worst of all is our connection with each other. We don’t meet face to face. Instead, most are on dating apps, gaming platforms or social media, where nothing deep about anyone can be revealed. How you look and what you wear and possess make you more interesting than what you think or say.

I always recall what Richard, my MFA tutor, told me back in 2017: to write well, you must “Stay narrow, go deep.”

Without going deep into anything, whether it’s a conversation, a movie/book or a problem at work, we don’t truly engage, and we are left with a feeling of not enough—we get spurts of laughter and happiness but no true joy.

Nothing deep can be reached quickly, and nothing meaningful is easily achieved.

Our challenge is that the smartest people on this planet are working on hijacking our attention. They’ve understood what lies under attention.

It’s the neurotransmitter dopamine. It’s not a pleasure chemical as it’s often touted to be, but more about the pursuit of pleasure.

Dopamine is a molecule of more. It activates our desire circuits from within. It flags the appearance of anything that can help us survive. It makes us want it right now, not caring if we genuinely want it or not. The smell of a cinnamon roll makes me stop and buy one, even when I’m full.

Dopamine wants to ensure you survive. So it’s telling you to take that reward now as you never know if it will be available again.

So, what’s wrong with surrendering to the dopamine ride?

In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke explains that when we experience an influx of dopamine (pleasure), our body must immediately follow it up with a painful crash so that it regulates itself back to normal.

Scroll on social media for too long, or eat the doughnuts that look so yummy, then you’d feel irritable, anxious and lack the motivation to do anything.

But what makes all of this even worse is the fact that, like being addicted to cocaine, we need more dopamine to get back to our original state—we are in a constant place of ‘not enough.’

If you agree with me that we are losing the fight against the tech geniuses, the question then is, how can we fight back?

These are some ways I’m reclaiming back my attention:

  1. Mornings are sacred. No social media or internet during my early hours. I leave my phone in another room and read while drinking my coffee. I then journal/write.
  2. I’ve quit Twitter. I go on Instagram and LinkedIn only in the afternoons and never in the mornings.
  3. Single-tasking: Doing one thing at a time. Recently, on a business trip, while taking the elevator down to the reception, I didn’t get my phone out and order an Uber. Instead, I conversed with the other guests and checked out before ordering it. Yes, I waited an extra 5 mins for the Uber to come, but it felt good to do one thing at a time. It was a small but albeit worthwhile win.
  4. Walking without listening to music or a podcast. (Not as easy as it sounds)
  5. At work, I’m now closing my laptop for a few hours and just wandering around, talking with team members.
  6. I’m having more one-on-one conversations both at work and with people that I care about. (Hint: Sav, I’m still waiting for you to make time for me this week.)
  7. Committing to all the mindful activities—walking, reading, writing, yoga stretching, being in nature, playing Padel —that the self-aware preach. Remember, attention is a muscle that atrophies.

What Comes Out When Life Squeezes You

Wayne Dyer was speaking at an “I Can Do It” Conference when he brought out an orange and asked a bright twelve-year-old what was inside it. The boy insisted it could only be orange juice, not apple or grapefruit juice. When pushed to explain why, the boy said: “Well, it’s an orange, and that’s what’s inside.” Wayne Dyer nodded and then looked at the audience to ask if it was you. “What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside. It doesn’t matter who does the squeezing — your mother, your brother, your children, your boss, the government. If someone says something about you that you don’t like, what comes out of you is what’s inside. And what’s inside is up to you. It’s your choice.” Reflecting on myself, I saw that not everything that’s inside me is as pure as I want it to be. When I went mad at the taxi in front of me, who was driving as slow as ten mph, it was only because of the pent-up frustration within me. I often feel that I’ve been living in a country and a place that’s just too comfortable for me. I need more novelty, urgency, and aliveness in my life. The taxi driving slowly is just a metaphor for how I live my life. I end up screaming at the driver, overtaking him and speeding away. Fast-forward a few months, driving on that same road, I see that same taxi in front of me. Now, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or when I belittle someone at my company for making an honest mistake, then it’s all about the fears inside of me. The stakes are high, and I know that one mistake could mean we can’t pay salaries or our suppliers come the month's end. I have a hard time facing uncertainty. I need to learn to accept that not everything will be under my control. Also, to remember that the company has survived far worse times than now. Most of our negative reactions are not about the people who irritate us but more about what is troubling us from the core. Dyer continued: “When someone puts the pressure on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it’s because that’s what you’ve allowed to be inside. Once you take away all those negative things you don’t want in your life and replace them with love, you’ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.” Whenever we overreact, then it’s an opportunity for us to step back and ask ourselves what’s really inside of us. What have we allowed to get inside of us, and what can we do to remove all the negative things we don’t want in our lives and replace them with love?
Wayne Dyer was speaking at an “I Can Do It” Conference when he brought out an orange and asked a bright twelve-year-old what was inside it. The boy insisted it could only be orange juice, not apple or grapefruit juice. When pushed to explain why, the boy said: “Well, it’s an orange, and that’s what’s inside.” Wayne Dyer nodded and then looked at the audience to ask if it was you. “What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside. It doesn’t matter who does the squeezing — your mother, your brother, your children, your boss, the government. If someone says something about you that you don’t like, what comes out of you is what’s inside. And what’s inside is up to you. It’s your choice.” Reflecting on myself, I saw that not everything that’s inside me is as pure as I want it to be. When I went mad at the taxi in front of me, who was driving as slow as ten mph, it was only because of the pent-up frustration within me. I often feel that I’ve been living in a country and a place that’s just too comfortable for me. I need more novelty, urgency, and aliveness in my life. The taxi driving slowly is just a metaphor for how I live my life. I end up screaming at the driver, overtaking him and speeding away. Fast-forward a few months, driving on that same road, I see that same taxi in front of me. Now, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or when I belittle someone at my company for making an honest mistake, then it’s all about the fears inside of me. The stakes are high, and I know that one mistake could mean we can’t pay salaries or our suppliers come the month's end. I have a hard time facing uncertainty. I need to learn to accept that not everything will be under my control. Also, to remember that the company has survived far worse times than now. Most of our negative reactions are not about the people who irritate us but more about what is troubling us from the core. Dyer continued: “When someone puts the pressure on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it’s because that’s what you’ve allowed to be inside. Once you take away all those negative things you don’t want in your life and replace them with love, you’ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.” Whenever we overreact, then it’s an opportunity for us to step back and ask ourselves what’s really inside of us. What have we allowed to get inside of us, and what can we do to remove all the negative things we don’t want in our lives and replace them with love?
Source: Substack

Wayne Dyer was speaking at an “I Can Do It” Conference when he brought out an orange and asked a bright twelve-year-old what was inside it. The boy insisted it could only be orange juice, not apple or grapefruit juice. When pushed to explain why, the boy said: “Well, it’s an orange, and that’s what’s inside.”

Wayne Dyer nodded and then looked at the audience to ask if it was you.

“What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside. It doesn’t matter who does the squeezing — your mother, your brother, your children, your boss, the government. If someone says something about you that you don’t like, what comes out of you is what’s inside. And what’s inside is up to you. It’s your choice.”

Reflecting on myself, I saw that not everything that’s inside me is as pure as I want it to be.

When I went mad at the taxi in front of me, who was driving as slow as ten mph, it was only because of the pent-up frustration within me. I often feel that I’ve been living in a country and a place that’s just too comfortable for me. I need more novelty, urgency, and aliveness in my life.

The taxi driving slowly is just a metaphor for how I live my life. I end up screaming at the driver, overtaking him and speeding away. Fast-forward a few months, driving on that same road, I see that same taxi in front of me. Now, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Or when I belittle someone at my company for making an honest mistake, then it’s all about the fears inside of me. The stakes are high, and I know that one mistake could mean we can’t pay salaries or our suppliers come the month’s end. I have a hard time facing uncertainty. I need to learn to accept that not everything will be under my control. Also, to remember that the company has survived far worse times than now.

Most of our negative reactions are not about the people who irritate us but more about what is troubling us from the core.

Dyer continued:

“When someone puts the pressure on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it’s because that’s what you’ve allowed to be inside. Once you take away all those negative things you don’t want in your life and replace them with love, you’ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.”

Whenever we overreact, then it’s an opportunity for us to step back and ask ourselves what’s really inside of us. What have we allowed to get inside of us, and what can we do to remove all the negative things we don’t want in our lives and replace them with love?

The Biggest Fight of My Life

The Biggest Fight of My Life
The Biggest Fight of My Life
Source: Substack

“There’s a guy in my head, and all he wants to do is lay in bed all day long, smoke pot, and watch old movies and cartoons. My life is a series of stratagems, to avoid, and outwit that guy.”—Anthony Bourdain

I’ve been thinking of quitting writing altogether. I can feel relief even when I type these words.

For the past six months, I’ve written very little.

After finishing the manuscript for my memoir, The Midlife Shift, in June of last year, I haven’t been able to stick to a writing routine.

The guy in my head has been hyperactive for many reasons. I’ve had to travel so much. My company is proving challenging and demanding a lot of my thinking time. The non-writing aspect of writing has proven nasty.

I’ve never been someone who can write anywhere. Unlike many writers who can write on demand in beautiful cafes worldwide, I have to be at my desk, my space, preferably early in the morning—in my element.

As soon as the morning passes and I haven’t written, I carry guilt and a sense of dread throughout the day. The closer I get to Thursdays, the day I release my newsletter, and I still haven’t written my post, the more anxious, overwhelmed and defeated I feel.

It hasn’t helped me that over the last six months, the first publishers of my memoir went bankrupt, and the second ones are making me wish they would. Also, there’s the trepidation I feel when I know I must do a lot of marketing during prelaunch, book release and post-launch.

I’ve never been a good self-promoter, quite the opposite, actually. I feel dishonest, almost hypocritical, when I treat my writing as a capitalistic venture—writing to me should be pure. (Yes, I know I’m being naive.)

Perhaps I see my writing as an escape that takes me out of the ugliness of real life and connects me to my soul when everything around me is just ego.

However, as Kahlil Gibran said, “There is no deeper desire than the desire of being revealed.”

Like all human beings, we writers yearn to reveal our true inner selves to the outside world. We want our madness to be seen. To be accepted. To be understood.

So market I must.

Perhaps I’ve romanticised writing too much for my own good, and I need to be conscious that it’s easy for me to fall out of love with writing, especially when life happens, and the unsexy parts of the writing come up.

Moreover, I’m from the business world, a world of ego that slowly drains the energy out of any well-meaning soul. My life is mired in materialism that often sucks me into a bottomless soul-less pit that is hard to get out of.

My writing means my inner world. My soul. My higher self. My connection to God.

That’s why keeping my writing persona will be the biggest fight of my life.

Probably, within the next twelve months, I’ll contemplate quitting again and perhaps write about it again. (Please bear with me.)

In Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy, she recalls a conversation with her ex-boyfriend, Gerard, who’d given up playing the violin as a teenager, though he was exceptional. However, a boy in his class, who was inferior to Gerard and had idolised him, took up the clarinet.

The boy’s lack of talent was a joke between Gerard and his music friends. While the boy grafted, Gerard, with all his instinctive ability, abandoned the orchestra to his parent’s despair. In the last term of school, the boy was the soloist at the school performance of Mozart’s concerto for clarinet. A few years later, Gerard saw the boy’s name on a flyer for a concert at Wigmore Hall. Today, the boy is a famous musician.

The moral of the story, Gerard told Cusk, was that we must pay attention not to what comes most naturally to us but to what we find most difficult.

At present, the greatest minds are working to distract us, pacify us, and make us more conventional. They want to relieve us from doing the HARD THINGS.

Writing doesn’t come easy to me. I envy those who write anywhere and at any time.

To keep my writing hat, and my sanity, I keep reminding myself of these maxims below:

  • If it’s easy, don’t do it.
  • If it’s hard, then go for it.
  • If the voice in my head comes up with an excuse, just tell it to shut the Fuck up.
  • Recall the joy I feel when writing constantly.
  • Read great writers like Cusk.1
  • Write early in the morning. At that time, my soul is still reachable.

And most of all to remind myself that I’m fighting the biggest fight of my life

11 Quotes By Kahlil Gibran That Are Indelibly Stamped In My Heart.

11 Quotes By Kahlil Gibran That Are Indelibly Stamped In My Heart.
11 Quotes By Kahlil Gibran That Are Indelibly Stamped In My Heart.
Source: Kahlil Gibran

There is one book I carry with me wherever I go: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

Every time I read a few pages, I start to feel an inner tingling in my heart, and my soul starts chirping like the nightingale he so lyrically describes. It’s true that I cling to his words harder than the average person because we both come from Lebanon. However, his great fame and works both as a poet and an artist have had a profound effect on many people around the world.

Gibran wrote in both Arabic and English, and his best work was produced in the era of the Roaring Twenties in New York, USA. He was influenced by the free thought and exuberance of that time, and he was regularly associated with W.B. Yeats, Carl Jung and August Rodin. His seminal book The Prophet is amongst the best-selling books of all time after the Bible and Shakespeare’s collections.

Though critics initially ignored his books, they have influenced world leaders like J.F. Kennedy, The Beatles and many millions around the globe. There is both simplicity and beauty to his writings that reach far and wide. They offer spiritual and philosophical musings on God, love, family, work, death and many other threads that unite humanity.

Below are 11 quotes from Gibran that I read regularly and that are indelibly stamped in my heart:

1) “Your daily life is your temple and your religion.”

2)“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”

3)“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

4)“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.”

5)“Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”

6)“You give but little when you give of your possessions.It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

7)“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.”

8)“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”

9)“When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

10)“Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’ Say not, ‘ I have found the path of the soul.’ Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’ For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”

11)“Work is love made visible. And if you can’t work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy”

If you had to choose one, then which one would it be?

How Alain De Botton’s Densification of Time Can Lengthen Our Lives.

How Alain De Botton's Densification of Time Can Lengthen Our Lives.
How Alain De Botton's Densification of Time Can Lengthen Our Lives.
Source: Elephant Journal

 

2015 was one of the saddest of my life as my mother passed away. However, it was also one of the most exciting years of my life, as I had intentionally set it up to be so. I wanted to do more joyful activities that made me release the handbrake within me, allowing me to express more of myself.

It was a remarkable year and remains etched in my mind and heart.

Contrary to what I’d thought, time didn’t move quickly; instead, it dragged unhurriedly.

Till today, I can recall most of the experiences of that year as if they happened last week.

I can still feel the heat from the hot coal I walked on with my son when we attended Tony Robbins’s four-day event, “Unleash the Power Within,” in London.

I still recall the joy of visiting my then mentor—Kahlil Gibran’s mausoleum in Bsharii, Lebanon, after spending the previous months reading and getting inspired by the Lebanese-American writer, poet, and philosopher who explained life’s most searching questions with simple, lyrical prose.

There was also the small matter of my TEDx Accra talk in April, which, till today, makes my knees wobble with both fear and excitement.

Time is just a strange dimension. It feels longer, denser and more intense when we do novel and meaningful stuff.

So we need to ask ourselves not how many years we can add to our lives but how we can slow it down so that we live more fully, intensely and meaningfully.

Alain de Botton makes the point more eloquently:

“One of the most basic facts about time is that, even though we insist on measuring it as if it were an objective unit, it doesn’t, in all conditions, seem to be moving at the same pace. Five minutes can feel like an hour; ten hours can feel like five minutes. A decade may pass like two years; two years may acquire the weight of half a century. And so on. In other words, our subjective experience of time bears precious little relation to the way we like to measure it on a clock. Time moves more or less slowly according to the vagaries of the human mind: it may fly, or it may drag; it may evaporate into airy nothing or achieve enduring density.”

Exercise, sleep, and good eating habits could make us live longer. Still, more importantly, they support us in living a better quality of life.

However, the true secret to enjoying our time on earth is to mimic our childhood, when everything is new, exciting and possible.

We want to replace the drudgery, familiarity, and comfort we seem to have after childhood with more novelty, adventure, and self-expression.

De Botton explains: “The more our days are filled with new, unpredictable, and challenging experiences, the longer they will feel. And, conversely, the more one day is exactly like another, the faster it will pass by in a blur.”

True, we can celebrate centenarians from Okinawa and other Blue Zone areas and learn from their good habits to live longer lives. We can also eulogise great people like Alexander the Great and wonder how his life must have been after conquering the world at 32.

However, life is not always about being glorious and attempting incredible feats like scaling Mount Everest, swimming across the English Channel, or creating a billion-dollar company.

Instead, we need to become artists and notice properly with our eyes open, savouring time.

We might live to be a hundred and still feel it all went too fast. Instead, we must aim to fill our days with adventure, appreciation, and awe that children naturally understand.

Not only must we become more mindful of our lives, noticing and appreciating life, but also follow creative pursuits. Self-expression, creativity, and writing for me make me sit up and notice life much more.

Writing in my journal daily allows me to think not only of my place in life but also of life in general. It slows me down, allowing me to pause and remember people’s faces, hear what they said and feel what they felt.

I can picture the black crows circling in the sky with extraordinary vividness.

I can notice the different phases of the moon. The sunsets. The density of the clouds.

Most importantly, when I’m writing, I dare to ask questions that connect me to my soul and to something much larger than myself—a humbling experience that is both grounding and illuminating.

If you want to live longer, eat kale, sleep 8 hours, exercise every day, but also start noticing the wonders of this world.

5 Insights That Made 2023 a Year of Growth

5 Insights That Made 2023 a Year of Growth
5 Insights That Made 2023 a Year of Growth
Source: Elephant Journal

“The world is the true classroom. The most rewarding and important type of learning is through experience, seeing something with our own eyes.” ~ Jack Hanna.

Approaching the end of the year, I like to review it so that I can reflect and start the new one with a bang. Doing so helps clarify what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons I learned.

We might read a great piece of advice that has the potential to work miracles in our lives, but until we internalise it or relate it to our own experience, we won’t trust it.

The best way to learn is through experience. Unless we absorb an emotion as a lesson, it will never become wisdom, rather remaining as abstract knowledge parked somewhere out in the ether.

These are the five lessons the last year has driven to my core:

1) My Life and Goals won’t end on New Year’s.

I now look at goal-setting not as a mere one-, two- or three-year plan, but rather more like a 20-year life plan. I think more in terms of creating systems than setting goals. With these systems, I’m doing something on a regular basis that makes me better and more content in the long run, regardless of immediate outcomes.

I don’t get the instant gratification that achieving a goal can give, but I also don’t carry the stress of not reaching a goal.

My ultimate aspiration—and one that I will pursue endlessly and ruthlessly—is to become a writer who earns enough money from writing to cover a comfortable lifestyle. I’m giving myself as much time as possible, as I know it’s not something I’ll achieve within the next few years.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying the journey of transitioning from a business owner(and all the stresses it brings) to becoming a full-time writer (and all the stresses it brings) and using its fire to power on in my life.

2) Health is Everything.

If you had told me health matters when I was under 40, I would have nodded politely but shrugged it off the same way most people shrug off global warming—yes, it’s a problem, but not mine, and I have more pressing issues.

However, as I’ve hit my 50s, I get it; it affects me in the now. It’s less about dying early and more about living well until I die. In the past few years, I can’t remember a week where I haven’t had some pain or mild distress, whether it’s from trying some exercise I shouldn’t or not warming up my muscles well enough. Or I’ll have gastrointestinal and digestive problems from eating badly, drinking excessively or binging on sugar.

These minor health issues, though not deadly, wreak havoc on my mind, and I end up spending many hours like a zombie, unable to do any of the things I want to do. They quickly lead me to despair and often take me down the dark road of melancholy. I could swear that every time I’ve suffered such emotions, I could trace them back to a failure in my body—some health issue.

3) Embrace Simplicity.

I can still feel the overwhelm that has overpowered me in the last few years. I took on too many projects. I tried to change too many things in my life, and in the end, I lost my way and often my mind.

If we listen closely to our hearts, there is an inherent urge in us to simplify our lives. Fewer decisions mean less energy spent. And so instead of more, we should choose less to help us focus, engage and enjoy those valuable things.

The more we get rid of anything unnecessary, the better we feel. All that extra is clutter—wasteful—and that stands in the way of our inner peace and contentment. By removing the unnecessary, we make room for what is essential and acquire more focus.

What is “essential” differs considerably for each of us. As such, simplifying our lives is a personal and very much subjective endeavour.

Like Zorba, I want to feel “once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.” (From Nikos Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek.)

4) Kaizen and the Power of One Percent Improvement.

Kaizen is a Japanese term that has become famous in the West. It describes continuous improvement through small incremental changes that accumulate over time. It’s used in the corporate world for developing systems and practices, and it’s one of the core principles that Toyota used to become the number one car producer in the world.

We tend to associate change with some large, visible result, like a before-and-after picture of someone who has lost weight in a few months. In reality, however, the greatest shifts occur when we make incremental changes daily. This way, we don’t put too much pressure on ourselves and overload our capacity.

Whether it’s in my business, writing or playing Padle Tennis, I want to remind myself of the power of Kaizen to improve a little every day, every week and every month.

5) We are a Product of our Habits.

Over the last 5-7 years, I set about solidifying the habits I wanted in my life. I called them my “non-negotiables” and committed them to a daily practice.

They include rising early, usually just before the sun, meditating for 20 minutes, and journalling for three Julia Cameron morning pages. In the late afternoons, these non-negotiables involve reading for an hour and then writing for at least an hour or a thousand words.

These practices have become the pillars of my daily living—the small bridges to my soul. It’s as if, when I’m doing them consistently, I’m closer to my higher self. I fill up my body with enough soul to be able to live a day in the physical world.

Often, when I’m travelling or on holiday, I somehow manage to stop my daily practice. Without realising it, I close the door to my soul, and my mood transforms from intentions of relaxation and fun to a swarm of negative thoughts.

I then find myself counting the hours to get back to my physical home and my spiritual abode—my daily practices.

These lessons have now entered my subconscious, and I feel I can apply all of them to all aspects of my life. I will do so unconsciously, as they have become part of me. This is what I stand for and how I want to live until I die.

The Daily Practice That Changed My Life

The Daily Practice That Changed My Life
The Daily Practice That Changed My Life
Source: Substack

A few Christmases ago, everyone but me was having a good time.

I was sick in bed, struck by some mysterious virus. I had looked forward to this break after a hard and energy-sapping year, but in the chaos and melee of people that is the holidays, I had somehow lost my bearings, my grounding, and finally, my well-being.

I had stopped doing the things that made me feel good. The things I’d spent the last few years cultivating in my life.

Namely, I’d stopped my daily practice.

Following Annie Dillard’s wisdom, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” I had spent the whole year establishing and formalizing a set of non-negotiables that would underpin my daily life. These practices, when I observed them consistently, filled me with contentment and magic, and a feeling of being enough. They were the culmination of all the work I’d done on myself—all the self-awareness and self-knowledge I gathered—in the past five years.

To follow them meant getting into action, changing my behaviors, and ultimately my outcomes. Each morning, I primed myself for what I would do for the rest of the day—and the rest of my life. I was building small bridges that led to my soul.

However, it’s always easier to follow our habits when we are in our own environment. When we step out of it, and our routine times and places change, it becomes much harder. On my holiday, I missed one habit and then another, and everything snowballed out of control. And without realizing it, I closed the door to my soul.

Within a few days, I became restless, anxious, and then violently sick. My mood transformed from relaxed and fun to a swarm of negative thoughts. I became miserable as doubts and recriminations overtook me. I was now in a deep funk.

Was I reversing all the changes and progress I’d made within a two-week holiday?

Was my practice so fickle as to fail at the first sign of a challenge?

I was now counting the hours and days until I could get back to my physical home and my spiritual abode—my daily practice.

I returned home on the third day of the new year and was relentless in recovering the routines I had so meticulously created. Within a week I was back on track, and my next goal was to continue with my practices during my next two planned trips—one in February for business, and another in March to visit my son.

Because of my Christmas experience, I was extra vigilant this time ‘round. I set an intention for the rest of the year to complete my routines with a minimum of an 80 per cent level of achievement. I also added the caveat that, when I was away, I could lessen the time I spent on my routines. For example, I might journal for two pages instead of three, or substitute walking in the city for my exercise routine.

I wanted to make it as easy and practical as possible to remain connected to my soul. I finally recognized that to persist with my daily practice was to say: I love myself. I value myself. I fill myself with enough love and self-esteem that I can give back to others.

It’s like what they always say on the plane. When there is an emergency, we must put on our own oxygen mask first and then help others, including our own children.

These six non-negotiable rituals are my spiritual oxygen. They always take priority.

Rising Early

This is the keystone habit upon which all the others rely. There is something magical about waking up before anyone else. It has to be before the sun so that I can glimpse that orange-yellow ball of fire igniting the sky and my being. There is a quiet peace all around, punctuated by the whispers of the birds that grow into a symphony of sounds. It’s as if I’m one with God, residing in the Garden of Eden, albeit only for 30 minutes.

Meditation

I’m no Buddhist monk, and I still struggle with meditation. I often sit for long spells where my mind is active. However, I do notice a cumulative effect on my inner peace when I’m consistent with it. There is something I can’t quantify that makes it work. My meditation practice is a simple one; I follow my breath in and out for 20 minutes. Every time my mind wanders, I gently prod it back without judgement.

Journalling

Every morning, I write three hand-written morning pages as prescribed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. In them, I dump everything and anything that comes to mind in a stream of consciousness manner. This has a cathartic effect on me, and I find that I manage to tackle issues that have become urgent in my subconscious mind and are bubbling to the surface. I hardly ever go back and read my journals; they are gone and assimilated.

Exercise

I love exercising in the morning, as it gives me so much energy that overflows into the rest of my day. I’m filled up with endorphins and feel like Alexander the Great going after his next conquest. However, I keep it simple so it’s doable and I don’t arrive tired to work. It could be a light jog, a quick high-intensity interval training routine, or a basic strength workout, but nothing longer than 30-40 minutes. I am not to be Mr Universe or a super athlete but rather to remain healthy and high on endorphins.

Reading

I try to read for an hour a day. That could be in the early morning, evening, or just before I sleep, but I must read. Reading is soul-nourishing and has opened me to new worlds, ideas, and lives I could never have imagined otherwise. Some authors have become virtual mentors and soulmates. I could say I learned how life works solely from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. I know much about the slums of Mumbai even though I’ve never been there, thanks to Gregory David Roberts’s Shantaram. Reading is also one-half the practice to better writing.

Writing

I write for an hour a day, usually after coming home from work in the early evening or early morning, especially as I awaken very early these days. I’ve found joy in this “systems approach” I hadn’t used before. This daily hour of writing adds up after a week, and if I add some extra ones on the weekend, I can total 10 hours a week.

That’s much more than when I used to binge-write once a week. I’m also now in a constant writing mood. Ideas flow; true to Hemingway’s words, “the well is always overflowing,” and I leave it without emptying it. Writing is the language my soul uses to express itself and share itself with the world—I’ve denied it for far too long to stop now.

The point is not what habits to do, but to do what is relevant and sustainable in our lives, and consistently. I started with one habit, and over five years, it slowly grew to six as I learned what made me come alive. I made the practices easy at the start so that it was hard to fail. What became an hour, or 1,500 words of writing, started out as only 300.

Apart from the blip over Christmas, my daily practice has now been consistent for the past 18 months. I feel this daily practice that I’ve found and enjoy so much is the result of all the work I did to find my authentic self. This daily practice not only grounds me and protects me from negativity all around (especially mine), but also serves to make me receptive to abundance and joy in my life.

These are the rituals that work for me. Some may resonate with you, while others won’t.   I believe everyone should have a core, sacred rituals in their life. For some, reading might be replaced by watching movies or documentaries. Writing could become creating shopfronts or websites. Meditation might instead be some form of prayer.

I encourage you to take some time to carefully develop the rituals that will become the bedrock of your life.

The Daily Practice That Changed My Life

The Daily Practice That Changed My Life
The Daily Practice That Changed My Life
Source: Elephant Journal

A few Christmases ago, everyone but me was having a good time.

I was sick in bed, struck by some mysterious virus. I had looked forward to this break after a hard and energy-sapping year, but in the chaos and melee of people that is the holidays, I had somehow lost my bearings, my grounding, and finally, my well-being.

I had stopped doing the things that made me feel good. The things I’d spent the last few years cultivating in my life.

Namely, I’d stopped my daily practice.

Following Annie Dillard’s wisdom, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” I had spent the whole year establishing and formalizing a set of non-negotiables that would underpin my daily life. These practices, when I observed them consistently, filled me with contentment and magic, and a feeling of being enough. They were the culmination of all the work I’d done on myself—all the self-awareness and self-knowledge I gathered—in the past five years.

To follow them meant getting into action, changing my behaviors, and ultimately my outcomes. Each morning, I primed myself for what I would do for the rest of the day—and the rest of my life. I was building small bridges that led to my soul.

However, it’s always easier to follow our habits when we are in our own environment. When we step out of it, and our routine times and places change, it becomes much harder. On my holiday, I missed one habit and then another, and everything snowballed out of control. And without realizing it, I closed the door to my soul.

Within a few days, I became restless, anxious, and then violently sick. My mood transformed from relaxed and fun to a swarm of negative thoughts. I became miserable as doubts and recriminations overtook me. I was now in a deep funk.

Was I reversing all the changes and progress I’d made within a two-week holiday?

Was my practice so fickle as to fail at the first sign of a challenge?

I was now counting the hours and days until I could get back to my physical home and my spiritual abode—my daily practice.

I returned home on the third day of the new year and was relentless in recovering the routines I had so meticulously created. Within a week I was back on track, and my next goal was to continue with my practices during my next two planned trips—one in February for business, and another in March to visit my son.

Because of my Christmas experience, I was extra vigilant this time ‘round. I set an intention for the rest of the year to complete my routines with a minimum of an 80 per cent level of achievement. I also added the caveat that, when I was away, I could lessen the time I spent on my routines. For example, I might journal for two pages instead of three, or substitute walking in the city for my exercise routine.

I wanted to make it as easy and practical as possible to remain connected to my soul. I finally recognized that to persist with my daily practice was to say: I love myself. I value myself. I fill myself with enough love and self-esteem that I can give back to others.

It’s like what they always say on the plane. When there is an emergency, we must put on our own oxygen mask first and then help others, including our own children.

These six non-negotiable rituals are my spiritual oxygen. They always take priority.

Rising Early

This is the keystone habit upon which all the others rely. There is something magical about waking up before anyone else. It has to be before the sun so that I can glimpse that orange-yellow ball of fire igniting the sky and my being. There is a quiet peace all around, punctuated by the whispers of the birds that grow into a symphony of sounds. It’s as if I’m one with God, residing in the Garden of Eden, albeit only for 30 minutes.

Meditation

I’m no Buddhist monk, and I still struggle with meditation. I often sit for long spells where my mind is active. However, I do notice a cumulative effect on my inner peace when I’m consistent with it. There is something I can’t quantify that makes it work. My meditation practice is a simple one; I follow my breath in and out for 20 minutes. Every time my mind wanders, I gently prod it back without judgement.

Journalling

Every morning, I write three hand-written morning pages as prescribed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. In them, I dump everything and anything that comes to mind in a stream of consciousness manner. This has a cathartic effect on me, and I find that I manage to tackle issues that have become urgent in my subconscious mind and are bubbling to the surface. I hardly ever go back and read my journals; they are gone and assimilated.

Exercise

I love exercising in the morning, as it gives me so much energy that overflows into the rest of my day. I’m filled up with endorphins and feel like Alexander the Great going after his next conquest. However, I keep it simple so it’s doable and I don’t arrive tired to work. It could be a light jog, a quick high-intensity interval training routine, or a basic strength workout, but nothing longer than 30-40 minutes. I am not to be Mr Universe or a super athlete but rather to remain healthy and high on endorphins.

Reading

I try to read for an hour a day. That could be in the early morning, evening, or just before I sleep, but I must read. Reading is soul-nourishing and has opened me to new worlds, ideas, and lives I could never have imagined otherwise. Some authors have become virtual mentors and soulmates. I could say I learned how life works solely from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. I know much about the slums of Mumbai even though I’ve never been there, thanks to Gregory David Roberts’s Shantaram. Reading is also one-half the practice to better writing.

Writing

I write for an hour a day, usually after coming home from work in the early evening or early morning, especially as I awaken very early these days. I’ve found joy in this “systems approach” I hadn’t used before. This daily hour of writing adds up after a week, and if I add some extra ones on the weekend, I can total 10 hours a week.

That’s much more than when I used to binge-write once a week. I’m also now in a constant writing mood. Ideas flow; true to Hemingway’s words, “the well is always overflowing,” and I leave it without emptying it. Writing is the language my soul uses to express itself and share itself with the world—I’ve denied it for far too long to stop now.

The point is not what habits to do, but to do what is relevant and sustainable in our lives, and consistently. I started with one habit, and over five years, it slowly grew to six as I learned what made me come alive. I made the practices easy at the start so that it was hard to fail. What became an hour, or 1,500 words of writing, started out as only 300.

Apart from the blip over Christmas, my daily practice has now been consistent for the past 18 months. I feel this daily practice that I’ve found and enjoy so much is the result of all the work I did to find my authentic self. This daily practice not only grounds me and protects me from negativity all around (especially mine), but also serves to make me receptive to abundance and joy in my life.

These are the rituals that work for me. Some may resonate with you, while others won’t.   I believe everyone should have a core, sacred rituals in their life. For some, reading might be replaced by watching movies or documentaries. Writing could become creating shopfronts or websites. Meditation might instead be some form of prayer.

I encourage you to take some time to carefully develop the rituals that will become the bedrock of your life.

5 Insights That Made 2023 a Year of Growth

5 Insights That Made 2023 a Year of Growth
5 Insights That Made 2023 a Year of Growth
Source: Substack

“The world is the true classroom. The most rewarding and important type of learning is through experience, seeing something with our own eyes.” ~ Jack Hanna.

Approaching the end of the year, I like to review it so that I can reflect and start the new one with a bang. Doing so helps clarify what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons I learned.

We might read a great piece of advice that has the potential to work miracles in our lives, but until we internalise it or relate it to our own experience, we won’t trust it.

The best way to learn is through experience. Unless we absorb an emotion as a lesson, it will never become wisdom, rather remaining as abstract knowledge parked somewhere out in the ether.

These are the five lessons the last year has driven to my core:

1) My Life and Goals won’t end on New Year’s.

I now look at goal-setting not as a mere one-, two- or three-year plan, but rather more like a 20-year life plan. I think more in terms of creating systems than setting goals. With these systems, I’m doing something on a regular basis that makes me better and more content in the long run, regardless of immediate outcomes.

I don’t get the instant gratification that achieving a goal can give, but I also don’t carry the stress of not reaching a goal.

My ultimate aspiration—and one that I will pursue endlessly and ruthlessly—is to become a writer who earns enough money from writing to cover a comfortable lifestyle. I’m giving myself as much time as possible, as I know it’s not something I’ll achieve within the next few years.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying the journey of transitioning from a business owner(and all the stresses it brings) to becoming a full-time writer (and all the stresses it brings) and using its fire to power on in my life.

2) Health is Everything.

If you had told me health matters when I was under 40, I would have nodded politely but shrugged it off the same way most people shrug off global warming—yes, it’s a problem, but not mine, and I have more pressing issues.

However, as I’ve hit my 50s, I get it; it affects me in the now. It’s less about dying early and more about living well until I die. In the past few years, I can’t remember a week where I haven’t had some pain or mild distress, whether it’s from trying some exercise I shouldn’t or not warming up my muscles well enough. Or I’ll have gastrointestinal and digestive problems from eating badly, drinking excessively or binging on sugar.

These minor health issues, though not deadly, wreak havoc on my mind, and I end up spending many hours like a zombie, unable to do any of the things I want to do. They quickly lead me to despair and often take me down the dark road of melancholy. I could swear that every time I’ve suffered such emotions, I could trace them back to a failure in my body—some health issue.

3) Embrace Simplicity.

I can still feel the overwhelm that has overpowered me in the last few years. I took on too many projects. I tried to change too many things in my life, and in the end, I lost my way and often my mind.

If we listen closely to our hearts, there is an inherent urge in us to simplify our lives. Fewer decisions mean less energy spent. And so instead of more, we should choose less to help us focus, engage and enjoy those valuable things.

The more we get rid of anything unnecessary, the better we feel. All that extra is clutter—wasteful—and that stands in the way of our inner peace and contentment. By removing the unnecessary, we make room for what is essential and acquire more focus.

What is “essential” differs considerably for each of us. As such, simplifying our lives is a personal and very much subjective endeavour.

Like Zorba, I want to feel “once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.” (From Nikos Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek.)

4) Kaizen and the Power of One Percent Improvement.

Kaizen is a Japanese term that has become famous in the West. It describes continuous improvement through small incremental changes that accumulate over time. It’s used in the corporate world for developing systems and practices, and it’s one of the core principles that Toyota used to become the number one car producer in the world.

We tend to associate change with some large, visible result, like a before-and-after picture of someone who has lost weight in a few months. In reality, however, the greatest shifts occur when we make incremental changes daily. This way, we don’t put too much pressure on ourselves and overload our capacity.

Whether it’s in my business, writing or playing Padle Tennis, I want to remind myself of the power of Kaizen to improve a little every day, every week and every month.

5) We are a Product of our Habits.

Over the last 5-7 years, I set about solidifying the habits I wanted in my life. I called them my “non-negotiables” and committed them to a daily practice. They include rising early, usually just before the sun, meditating for 20 minutes, and journalling for three Julia Cameron morning pages. In the late afternoons, these non-negotiables involve reading for an hour and then writing for at least an hour or a thousand words.

These practices have become the pillars of my daily living—the small bridges to my soul. It’s as if, when I’m doing them consistently, I’m closer to my higher self. I fill up my body with enough soul to be able to live a day in the physical world.

Often, when I’m travelling or on holiday, I somehow manage to stop my daily practice. Without realising it, I close the door to my soul, and my mood transforms from intentions of relaxation and fun to a swarm of negative thoughts.

I then find myself counting the hours to get back to my physical home and my spiritual abode—my daily practices.

These lessons have now entered my subconscious, and I feel I can apply all of them to all aspects of my life. I will do so unconsciously, as they have become part of me. This is what I stand for and how I want to live until I die.