So, hi. It’s been a while since you heard from me and so I guess I should begin with a simple hi.

I have been thinking about my mindset with regards to life.

For me, living in this chaotic world and working in this work culture, the thoughts have always been about how can I do more?

Because the other question that constantly plagues my mind is, am I doing enough?

I guess it’s not just me. I have seen this thought with a lot of people, where everyone is constantly hustling. And I am sure there are better writers out there talking about this, so I am not going to bother too much about it just now.

I guess my question to you and to myself here is, what IS the life you want for yourself?

Actually this is the biggest problem I am currently facing. I don’t actually know what a nice peaceful life might be. I don’t know what stopping work really means because at the end of the day, no matter how much I did, I could’ve always done more.

And no matter how much I try, it’s never enough. I am always thinking that the reason I am not ‘successful’ is because I am not doing enough. But I don’t even know what success is.

So instead of just spending time mulling on this while watching some random movie (currently I have the Marvels playing in the background) I thought that I will write down some questions to help me reflect. And maybe these will help you too.

1. What even is success?

I guess the first question then would be reframing success. What is success? To each it is different and I guess that’s why it’s important you define it for yourself.

I mean, you could want to be a billionaire, and that’s great! But usually, that thought is hiding something much simple behind it. I say usually because I am no expert.

So, I really want to do my own work, I don’t want to do a full time job. And the reason is…I saw my dad work pretty much all the time and I guess I couldn’t spend quality time with him. He was usually super tired by the time he came out, and I guess I needed a male role model. Especially when life got tough. Which it did because I was an awkward kid.

That’s kind of my why…I want to do something that helps me spend quality time with my family! But…I haven’t been doing that because I feel like I am not doing enough and so I need to spend more time doing work!

What’s your measure of success?

2. The path of success – what does it look like?

So…what exactly does success look like for you?

Is it a dash to the finish line? Is it a slow but steady journey with plenty of breaks? Is it something in the middle?

I don’t know. I have never actually thought of this question seriously before. I don’t even know what I was doing up until now!

I think the image in my head was…I just need to keep slogging because in order to deserve what I make, whatever money I make, I must go through the hard slog of work. I guess the notion here is that everyone gets what they deserve.

But…I know people who work much harder than me. I know people who don’t work harder than me. There are differences in what we all have.

Like, as you are reading this, I am sure there is some guy on a yacht in Monaco lazing under the sun. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but the idea of doing something like that is so far removed for me it seems far fetched.

What did someone do to deserve that and then what did someone do to deserve sleeping on the streets? There’s actually not a lot of variables in life that are under our control. I am able to write this article to you because I am extremely lucky in my life.

I have had the privilege of a great education and a platform where I can write and share my thoughts.

All of this is to say…what does the journey of success look like? Is it about lazing under the sun on a yacht occasionally? Or is it about working under the harshest conditions to ensure you believe you earned what you got!

You have to at least picture it in order to create room for it!

3. How much work is work? Is work even definable?

So, the thing with work is, there’s always more work on the horizon. Let’s say you solved one problem, but there are other problems waiting to be discovered.

The deeper you dive into your work, the more ambitious you are, the more unending the work is. It’s an endless to do list.

I have never really been able to define work for myself, I tell myself an end goal. Something like, I will do x, y, and z tasks by the end of the day. But in order to do that I need to put together a lot of small steps!

Except, I don’t really think about all of those steps. I just…do them. And I consider it a failure if I am unable to achieve my end goals.

I think that’s the wrong way to think about it, the attempts to do something also counts as work.

If you don’t look at it as work then you are going to feel like you’re not working at all!

But to each their own. I would urge you to sit with this question a bit.

4. Where do your ideas of work and success come from?

Now, perhaps you have already answered these questions before but it’s important to ask these specifically.

My ideas of work and success mostly come from my parents and from social media. That’s mostly it.

I haven’t spent time trying to redefine it, I haven’t spent time really thinking about it. I just try to achieve the ‘success’ I am told I should have.

Now…I am thinking about where my parents got their ideas of success from, and where social media gets its ideas of success from. And what success even looks like!

So, since my parents didn’t come from the most plentiful background, and they were chasing city dreams, it became important to emphasize hardwork and intelligence as virtues. It became my ethos.

When I would laze around spending time reading a book, you read it, I was being lazy.

But if my parents had grown up in some European country, perhaps where they aren’t all about hustle culture, then maybe they wouldn’t emphasize hard work as a virtue? Maybe creativity? Maybe family time? I don’t know.

What I am trying to say is : YOUR IDEAS OF SUCCESS CAN COME FROM YOU!

But you have to think about where your current ideas come from. Once you have that, you can then slowly unlearning and learning those very concepts.

5. At the end of it…what matters to you the most?

Well, look, we are all creatures of habit and social creatures to boot. Let’s say you decide to come up with a whole new idea of success (maybe eating a cow daily is what is success to you) but if your friends and family are vegetarians then it might alienate them from you.

I guess, you will have to choose what matters and what doesn’t. Like, you have to choose if living with your family is worth the occasional conflict. Maybe the amount of fun and solidarity and support you get is worth the tiny moments of compromise and anxiety.

Or maybe you need to live by yourself in order to really live a calm life, because you are wired to be anxious! Who knows!

The point is, you can choose.

I hope these questions helped you reflect and get some clarity. I guess it has helped me a little bit. Although I can’t say with certainty that I am better off.

Maybe by reflecting on such questions, what is it that I truly want my days to look like…I will eventually begin to understand what is the life I want to make for myself!

I hope you do too. You got this!