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Often when people are stuck in life it’s because they’re holding out for the delusional possibility of a costless way of getting what they want, instead of just paying the cost

We all love the training montage in movies—those brisk two-minute sequences where the protagonist transforms from novice to expert while upbeat music plays. One minute they're struggling to do a single push-up; the next, they're ready for the championship fight.

Real life doesn't work like that. The actual training—the part where you build the found... See more

Unfortunately, if you want to do new things, you'll face a force more powerful than other people's skepticism: your own skepticism. You too will judge your early work too harshly. How do you avoid that?

Cultural identity, in this second sense, is a matter of "'becoming"' as well as "'being"'. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But like everything which is historical, they undergo constant t... See more

Research yourself. Where were you born? Why? What were your parents doing at the time? Can you fact-check the family story, the family immigration story too? What records are there of it? What are the stories they always tell? Can you interview those who know you or knew you as to what they remember? Is there any documentation? Old letters, old pho... See more

You know the least about your life precisely because, for living in it, you might barely notice the details, or push into the history. And even if your family or friends tell you stories of the past, you might never fact-check it.