Is This It? This is It.

I know it’s tempting to believe some future moment has your happiness. That, someday, you’ll figure out how to solve your problems and finally arrive in that place where you can really enjoy things. But your life has already begun. This is it. We don’t know what happens once we die but, even if we lived forever, all we would ever be able to experie

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It’s tempting to imagine that ending or at least easing the struggle with time might also make you happy, most or all of the time. But I’ve no reason to believe that’s true. Our finite lives are filled with all the painful problems of finitude, from overfilled inboxes to death, and confronting them doesn’t stop them from feeling like problems—or no... See more

It would be ridiculous, anyway, to have figured so much out at 35. What are you going to do for the next 50 years? Settle deeper and deeper until you’re dead in the ground? It sounds much more interesting to keep being surprised by who you are and what you want.

I’m not arguing that experience doesn’t bring about wisdom, only that wisdom is an endle... See more

For most of my life I wanted things to go faster. Last week, I realized that now I want things to slow down. That change seems meaningful. I don’t know what’s catalyzed it—getting older, probably. Feeling that I’m finally headed in the right direction. Mindfulness? Whatever it is, I’ve noticed that the present seems more bearable.

Everything I’ve experienced in my life thus far has been my purpose, and that a sense of purpose is no further away than the next inhale or blink. This revelation was a relief. I felt myself put down the weight of needing absolute clarity on life direction and certainty that I’m doing the right things.

There’s no way to get any of this wrong.

"The

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