Last Sunday I visited the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe near Kassel, Germany. I was wow-ing the entire time at probably one of the most impressive pieces of architecture I’ve ever witnessed with my own eyes. If you do get a chance, I’d highly recommend paying it a visit.

So we started our hike from the Schloss Wilhelmshöhe and started climbing the hundreds of steps that lead all the way up to the Hercules monument. I read somewhere it is a 250 meter elevation. Whenever I paused to take a look at how high I had reached, it got more and more impressive.

I was eager to reach the top. I tried to rush my way through some of the points of interests along the way to reach ever so higher to get a better view. I had my little camera with me, and I wanted to get the best view. Finally, we reached the top of the hill, but there was a whole building up there, on top of which was the Hercules statue.

Of course, I wanted the best view, so I started going up the stairs of the building trying to get ever so higher. The stairs got narrower and narrower as I rushed to the top. But finally, I was there and tried to look outside through the small windows.

The view was underwhelming. It was more or less the same that we’d been seeing for some time during this hike up the tower but this time through tiny windows that had a lot of dust built upon them. I took a picture, and started walking down after not too long up there.

I was thinking about it in the car on the way back to Berlin, and I realized this is just how I sometimes go about my life; rushing towards a goal while not appreciating the views along the way, thinking something better awaits me at the end of it. I’d have slowed down, had I known how little joy the reaching the destination would bring.

Fortunately, I could appreciate everything a bit more on the way down the hill. Unfortunately the same cannot be done with passed time and experiences.

In closing

We live we learn, and such experiences are always a good reminder to slow down and appreciate the views around us; appreciate the present consciously and intentionally for it cannot be re-experienced.

Thank you for reading!

Back in the day, I’d try to publish an article every month on my blog. It was difficult, but I’d still manage it for most part. I just looked at my last published article, which was in March, and the plethora or drafts sitting there, receiving little to no love.

Whenever I come across blogs with last published articles from years ago, I wondered what might’ve happened. Why (and how) do some people manage to keep publishing long form content after all these years, while others have given up on blogs. Some of them have done so in favour of more short form content that has taken over the web in the last decade or so. And of course, there’s a whole spectrum in between, where I see myself right now.

I came across this idea of perceived cost of doing things, depending on how much time it takes. For example, if I have an article that took my 2 months to finalise (and thus get satisfaction from), my brain might associate the cost of writing a long form article to be 2 months, thus discouraging me from picking up my computer to write again. If the actual satisfaction is derived from people finding my writing useful, then the gratification is delayed by several months or even years.

Creating a meme for Instagram, on the other hand, gets me gratification within minutes. Of course I know how these things work. But possession of a piece of knowledge isn’t very useful if it cannot be applied in a meaningful way.

Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong about creating short form content, and there’s nothing superior about people who create long form content. Personally, as long as I retain my ability to do either when I wish, I’d be pretty happy. I want to make memes and make my friends laugh, and keep publishing valuable content on the internet.

And that’s why I started writing in the morning today as I was on my way to meet some friends: To publish it immediately and remove some of the cost burden that has creeped into my head around publishing on my blog. Hopefully I can write more soon.

Thank you for reading!

I have a love-hate relationship with articles such as this. On one hand, the thought of going back in time and changing certain decisions is always fascinating, and documenting some of those thoughts into text that I can keep coming back is alluring. What is also appealing is to have this documented as a reference for my future self who’d probably (read: most likely) also want to write back to his 18 year old (or 27 year old self 🤷‍♂️, who knows).

But on the other hand, articles with titles such as this are so cliche that they don’t feel sincere and make me cringe. What’s even the point of publishing it? Don’t I believe that my current state defines the combined success or failure of all my past decisions and events in my life? If I’m happy with the state of affairs in my life right now, doesn’t that mean everything in the past kinda worked out in the end?

I don’t know. My current philosophy doesn’t allow for an article like this one, for it doesn’t make any sense to wish for the possibility of a different present when I have the certainty of my current present, which I believe I’m okay with. But then, why stop myself from writing down all the lessons that I’ve learned ever since I turned 18. I guess I could post that under a less cringey title along the lines of “Generic useful lessons in life”.

But then, useful to whom? When? Would I like it to be handed over to me when I was 5? 10?

Exactly. We’ll move in circles here and never get anywhere. That’s probably the reason this article has been a draft for a year or more. But I think I’ll have to get it out of my head first, and deal with the above thought later. Having cleared that, let’s get started * snaps finger *

The satisfaction of reaching a goal is so much smaller than the satisfaction of doing something you love, so love the process for that’s where most of the satisfaction lies

Quotes that urge us to enjoy the climb more than the peak, the journey more than the destination or something along those lines are dime a dozen. Being a quote-collector, I’ve known them forever.

But it is only after repeatedly going through the same journey over and over again — desiring something, working my way towards it and then eventually getting it — have I learned that the joy of having achieved something is minuscule compared to the joy I got along the way doing the thing I loved.

Happiness derived from external sources is very limited, and once the basics are covered, very superficial

Very similar to the previous point, but with an important distinction. Time and again, something has repeated:

• I’ve desired something materialistic
• Spent countless hours reading about it and contemplating about the joys its possession will bring me
• Eventually acquiring it
• Only to have the joy feel underwhelming after a matter of minutes of doing it

And then recently I came across this quote

“Traveling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his 1841 essay, “Self-Reliance.”

I think what Emerson is trying to say is that trying to fix something that’s an issue on the inside by changing something on the outside seldom, if ever, works. But if you’ve ever spent hours browsing Amazon out of boredom thinking the new iPhone or Sony’s new mirrorless camera will make you content and solve all of your life problems, and were lucky to actually be able to buy it, you’ll know that the satisfaction was very short lived and things go back to being exactly the way they were before.

We also vastly overestimate how much joy we’d get from achieving our material goals. Getting to a higher salary, or a dream job, or the latest iPhone; I realized how little joy the outcome eventually brought compared to the misery that the desire for it brought.

Friends and family are what keep you going even on the gloomiest days

I arrived in Berlin on a very cold and gloomy day, and the next few weren’t any different. Unable to cope, and having had my luggage misplaced, I was naturally sad after the second day, asking why was I even there.

Just sitting quietly in my bedroom having exactly 0 friends in this new city, I was feeling (what I’d later learn) the seasonal low mood sprinkled over homesickness. Then I got a call from a friend back home. Then my parents called me. And within an hour or so, I was actually happy I was in Berlin, went out for a walk and had some kebab 🥙

Case in point, I learned that my brain is easily tricked into happiness by interacting with people I love and care about. Just a casual chat a day with a friend keeps me in generally good mood. It is like a tonic for my mental health, doubling as first aid when time comes.

Hence, I think it is important to always have people that one can open up with. These people don’t magically appear but have to be invested in over years to cultivate such relationships and that’s something I really value in my life today.

Bad decisions attract bad circumstances which bring a bad state of mind, and a bad state of mind brings more bad decisions. Works just as well with good decisions

Or the snowball effect. Habits, outcomes of decisions and events in our lives, both good or bad, generally start small and they slowly spiral and become greater in magnitude and have a greater influence on our lives.

For this reason, I think it is important to 1. Be mindful of smaller problems that might have the potential to spiral into bigger ones, 2. Have people around you who can point out and alert you of the small cracks developing and 3. Believe that little good habits, however small, will compound with other little good habits and bring much greater good than their perceived insignificance.

Be aware and intentional

David Foster Wallace’s speech titled this is water talks about learning how to think, how to chose what we think about inside our minds irrespective of what’s happening outside of it, to be in control of our thoughts. I’d highly recommend you listen to it.

Like many, I found the speech very educational, and decided to not only be more attentive of my thoughts and the way I think about things, but also be very intentional about my actions. For me, it means to jump out of the default setting and steering the direction in which I mind decides to run with a thought after having passed it through my values filter.

It also means that when something doesn’t work out, it is usually not a sad outcome, but an educational one because I chose this version of reality over the others, and accepted the risks and rewards associated.

In closing

Phew, that was not easy to write. But I’m happy I did. I can already see myself coming back to this article from time to time. I hope you found some value in the text above

Thank you for reading.