Here are a bunch of different things I’ve been thinking about. Lately, my work has felt like collecting dots in the hope that a constellation of meaning will soon reveal itself. 

If I’m afraid to fail, I guarantee that I will

Fear is simply a given in our lives. I’m starting to think that when you don’t learn how to deal with fear, it can become like a pair of permanent glasses, impacting how you see the world.

Fear becomes the filter. It’s perched upon my nose, hidden in plain sight, coloring my world, yet I don’t realize it’s there. When I let fear color my world, I let fear drive my decisions to avoid risks and to always play it safe.

Kindness is not free

We’ve all probably heard something like, “being kind doesn’t cost anything.” On its surface, it seems true, but I’m beginning to believe it costs a lot. It costs energy, intention, and the willingness to see beyond our lived experience. For some people, it costs years of therapy to learn how to first be kind to ourselves. I’m not trying to argue that we shouldn’t be kind. Instead we should learn to appreciate how valuable it is.

I can’t use logic to solve an emotional problem

Money alone isn’t safety. Money can help you afford the things to make you feel safe and secure, like housing, insurance, and therapy. Which can ease the anxieties naturally baked into the human experience. 

In a universe of uncertainty, money can be a world of comfort. But it isn’t safety. Until I actively try to address my desire for security and feelings of scarcity, I’ll fail at using logic to solve an emotional problem. The emotions must be addressed and processed before the logic can begin to make me feel better.

Wealth is what you don’t see

Traditionally, building wealth requires money not to be spent but instead invested. We don’t often see money that doesn’t get spent.

For many wealthy people, one major luxury of being well off is how money can be used to avoid seeing things, like crowds, human suffering, and poverty. 

And I believe the future, luxury will be the ability to unplug and give your attention to the things that you care about in your life instead of giving so much of your attention to your work. Being able to choose what you see, like spending your days looking at trees and not screens, is wealth.

Sometimes you have to work hard to make things easy

I haven’t published much of my writing this year, but I can approach writing with ease that I never had before. I attribute this to the fact that writing a book is taking up the gauntlet. I’ve had to work incredibly hard to make this act easy. Saving and investing have followed the same path. At first, it’s painful, but over time it gets easier.