Well, subconsciously, most of the time. Instincts, prior experience, well-known brain paths. But then… Then comes a time where you have time and energy to make a decision. How am I going to navigate this situation?

And that is when it becomes interesting. What do you choose? Based on what?

I recently had a conversation at work about getting people to take action. My conversation partner shared with me that he had to reframe a problem from “this doesn’t make sense” to “this makes me feel bad” and only after that he got some attention.

Which was a very interesting observation. It also triggered me a little bit. And it led me to postulate the distinction that is in the title of this blogpost.

Some people choose to take action based on emotions. And some people take action based on rationality.

And I believe rationality brings better results than emotionality. It’s obviously a combination of both when it comes to a fullfilling life, but living predominantly in the emotional world will also lead you to a world of constant pain.

Why? Let’s role play.

(names and gender don’t mean anything here)

We have Jim and Ashley. Jim feels hurt by Bob from work. Bob is Jim’s manager and he gets home and needs to vent.

Jim: Oh god, that asshole. I am done with him. I am going to quit tomorrow.

Ashley: What happened?

Jim: Bob assigned the shiny new project to someone else. I am so pissed off. He doesn’t see how much I am contributing. I will be better off elsewhere.

Ashley: You’ve been there for 10 years. You got 5 promotions from Bob. I think you’re overreacting and I think quitting would be a stupid move.

Jim: No, I made my mind. I am quitting.

And the next day Jim rationally knows it’s a stupid move. But he quits. To prove his emotions are valid and nobody will stomp on them. And then he yells at Ashley for not stopping him.

He threw his emotional identity into the decision making and he can’t back out now. He would invalidate his identity if he changed his mind.

Was it the best decision? Absolutely not. He should’ve talked it out with Bob.

Does it feel to Jim that he’s right and he has shown it to the man? Absolutely. Is it a wise decision? Absolutely not. Does Jim rationally know that it was a stupid decision? Absolutely. That’s why he yells at Ashley. So he doesn’t need to sit with his own mistake.

Because he’s unable to process his emotions and think clearly and make a rational decision. Because he made an emotional decision - he quit his job and created an argument with Ashley. Does not feel like the best possible outcome.

Making rational decisions allows you to detach from the outcome and it allows you to not feel offended if it doesn’t go through. If Jim wasn’t so proud of his past successes, he wouldn’t get so emotional about Bob assigning the project to someone else.

He might have been curious about the why, learn something, use the situation to emphasize his motivation to Bob. Instead, he freaked out. Good for his emotions, bad for his future and his relationship with Ashley.

Emotions are valid, but they do not determine who we are. And they for sure should not drive the decisions that impact our future. Or future of others.

I sometimes say “I did that because it felt right” or “it seemed like a good idea”. Those are not emotions driving those. Those are prior experiences talking, those are observed patterns talking.

Maybe I am a cold-blooded emotionless bastard. I know I am not. I just choose to not make decisions based on emotions. Those rarely lead to good, long-lasting results for everyone involved.

You surround yourself with cowards, you become a coward. You surround yourself with grounded people, you become grounded. You surround yourself with dreamers, you become a dreamer. You surround yourself with alcoholics, you become one.

There are phases in life when you can’t choose. When you are a little kid, you are surrounded by your parents, siblings, family members. And you are influenced by them. Who they are, who they are capable of being. They are the role models. They are the role models you spend the most time with. They are the examples you see the most. So you follow, because that’s all you know as a little kid…

And as you grow up, you meet people with different backgrounds, different life stories, different experience. And you see other examples. Other role models. Other patterns. Some good. Some bad. And you start to choose who you spend time with.

Consciously. Subconsciously.

Friends, partners, colleagues, bosses. You may feel like you don’t have a choice, but you always do. Sometimes you stay too long, because you just want to belong. It doesn’t matter too much where, you just want to not be alone. Sometimes it hurts to break it off. Sometimes you don’t feel a thing when you don’t see someone for years. Sometimes you forget.

Sometimes you don’t spend time with anyone.

And sometimes, you meet someone so different. Someone so unfamiliar. They give you a glimpse of what life can also be. They are open, welcoming, generous. And it’s so unknown. So different. It makes you feel so insecure. It brings out aspects of you that you buried. It’s so different that it’s so fucking scary.

It tests the limits of your curiosity. It holds you accountable for what you say.

So what do you do? Take a leap of faith and go on an adventure? Pull back to familiarity? Up to you. Up to me. And sometimes… you just don’t know. Yet.

In many many works of art, there is a line which goes something like “I like who I am when I am with you” or “You make me a better person”. That’s the influence people can have on each other.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are various echo chambers and “communities” like the Manosphere.

And then you read a book like The Extinction of Experience or listen to any other podcast about people using AI as therapists and you’re like - wait, we are losing this as humans. We are losing the opportunities to be exposed to these wonderfully different people. We are losing the opportunities to be scared by and be curious about the unknown.

We are losing the ability to even try to understand someone else. We are choosing comfort and familiarity over a challenge. We are choosing to remain insecure and anxious over being courageous and bold.

I refuse that. Even if it takes so much energy. It’s worth it. Yet it takes so much energy and so much time that it sometimes feels impossible.

Impossible is nothing. Take a small step forward every day.

And you obviously still need to feel comfort. It’s OK to recline into the familiar patterns here and there. It’s OK to spend time by yourself, scroll through meaningless amount of memes, swipe through tinder, stare out of the window aimlessly, watch an undemanding TV show. It’s OK to relax and feel comfortable.

It’s not OK to use other people for your own comfort. It’s not OK to manipulate with others because you are not comfortable by yourself. That is plain cruel.

Seek different opinions. Get out there. Meet new people. You will be amazed. You will be deeply uncomfortable and very insecure. But the influence.. When you start feeling the good influence.. That is something. Lean into it.

I am trying. It’s scary. Try it too. Live a little.

Actually no. Live a lot. You have only one lifetime.

Let’s continue with the Mirrors today. Because a lot of the time, you are showing a mirror to your inner self. And you are intentionally looking for reflections. And what you see there… you don’t like it. So you deflect.

I wanted this post title, there is no deeper thought to this.

Except… maybe… If you don’t like what you find. You’ve struck gold.

It’s an opportunity for growth, opportunity for a change. It’s a unique opportunity when you see your true self. It’s a unique opportunity to be kind and gentle to yourself. It’s a unique opportunity to accept and love yourself.

Pobody’s nerfect and you are allowed to have not-so-nice areas in you. Everybody has those and the truly unique and authentic people are comfortable with that side of themselves. Maybe it’s not something to brag about, but it’s also not something to hide or be ashamed of.

It’s all you.

I struggle with the term guilty pleasure. Why should I feel guilty about something I like? If it makes me happy, if it makes me feel good about myself, I should be proud of it.

I have “I feel bad about my decision” in the same bucket. Why the fuck would you make a decision that would make you feel bad? It’s your decision, stand by it, be proud of it. And if you are not… maybe it was not the right decision all along and you should reflect on why you made it.

So… spend the time looking in the mirror, sifting through your soul, actively digging for the gold. It’s a lot of work. You’re not going to like it… But it’s the right thing to do and you know it all along.

Do not deflect. Accept. And Act.

I don’t like making myself sad. It’s stupid. Why would anyone do that to oneself?

I woke up totally grumpy, I had a dentist appointment in the morning… And then I texted someone something like “Screw it, I’m going to make a nice and easy day for myself”. And the response was “You are lucky that you can”.

That is some bullshit.

Everybody can do that. It has nothing to do with luck.

We have the freedom to make choices about how our days go.

We have the freedom to do nice things for ourselves.

We have the freedom to say no to things.

We have the freedom to reach out to people.

We have the freedom to cancel or not attend work meetings.

We have the freedom to take a sick day.

We have the freedom to say to ourselves “This is not my day, I’m gonna go home and put on Bon Jovi, tuck myself under the blanket and read a perverse Slovak book”.

And maybe that’s what I did. Maybe not. The last one is oddly specific.

What I definitely did is that I executed my freedom of choice and made myself feel not sad. It felt fucking good. Empowered. I felt like myself. Not like somebody’s expectation. I was gentle and kind with myself.

I wanted to mop up the floors in my apartment this week. I executed my freedom of choice and did jack shit. It felt good to remove the artificial, stupid and completely unnecessary pressure of completing a random chore.

It’s OK to take a me day and take care of myself. Even if that care means not doing anything “productive”. Even if it means starting reading a fifth book without finishing the previous ones. Even if it means buying random stuff from the internet like concert tickets or industry-level air humidifiers. Even if it means delaying doing something which somebody might consider necessary. Fuck necessity.

I just remembered that I have ice cream in my freezer. I know what my next act of freedom of choice will be.

We have the choice to make ourselves feel certain way. We can steer ourselves in a certain direction. If we keep repeating to ourselves “I can’t do that”, we will never even try. Of course you can do things. You are a sentient human being with a freedom of choice. Oh.. you’re anxious? Well, you remove the fucking anxiety by doing things. It’s hard. But you have the freedom to do it.

Last weekend I’ve read a fantastic book Stop Fixing Yourself: Wake Up, All Is Well by Anthony de Mello.

Apart from many very positive, beautiful and kind words, it contains a - for me at least - a hint of a completely revolutionary idea.

I never believed in God or higher powers. I never really had faith in anything. I believed and still believe in conscious choices, actions and consequences. I am a very rational being. I refuse to believe in the purely economical view of the world where every person is doing everything to maximize their own profit. I always felt that humans are way less… I guess mathematical.

In philosophy, self-help, psychotherapy and obviously religion, the higher power is a concept that gives one the actual freedom. The faith in a higher power, greater good, God or gods lets one be comfortable with unknowns and let go of the feel of need of control.

The book alludes to an idea that there is indeed a higher power equivalent to the traditional religious concept of God.

Love.

I think I found my higher power as I made a choice about 5 years ago that I will be a romantic and I will have faith in love. I think I found my higher power. I think I found my faith.

And sticking to that faith, that faith in love, is what allows me to execute my freedom of choice and make any day nice and easy for me. I love myself. And I can love others. Sometimes it is difficult as we hurt each other, but… You can always forgive. You shouldn’t forget, because “fool me once, fool me twice”… You have the freedom to choose with whom you spend your time on this Earth. It’s limited.

Love is a fantastic feeling, much better than grumpiness, depression and sadness. And if there’s nobody around you could love, you can love yourself. It’s great. Try it. Right now. And your day will suddenly become very nice.

I want love. I don’t want some half baked half ass situationship. I want a lifelong love. It’s almighty.

By the way, I think somebody regularly reads this blog now. I no longer have zero views on most articles. One or two people. I am 100% sure that it’s not my mom. I don’t know how does that make me feel. I hope you like this, deer reader, and you will keep coming back.

I couldn’t stop, because apart from sports right on the limit, drinking myself to sleep was the only way I knew how to stop my brain from thinking. It is constantly doing something, running something, contemplating something, overthinking something… It just spins 24/7. As it should.

About 2.5 years back, I had to stop doing any sports because of a medical condition. All I had left as a coping mechanism or an escape was drinking. I said to many people “I drink, because it’s the only way I know how to stop my brain from thinking”. And then I had to stop because of a change in medication. Which helped a lot, by the way.

I was scared. I was addicted to a habit. I was afraid of what is going to happen in my head. I had periods of not-drinking before, a few months here and there. And I always got back, because I didn’t know what to do with all the free time and all the free cycles in my head.

This time it was different. I just stopped because I had to. I don’t want kidney failure in my thirties.

And since I stopped, I wanted to get a drink maybe two times. I know exactly in which situations. In situations when I was uncomfortable with my thoughts. In situations when I wanted to stop thinking, forget, be blank for a little bit.

But the thoughts do not go away. They will be back after the three day bender. Denial and delay is not a solution. Acceptance and work is.

And the brain keeps spinning.

Yesterday I read this very long article full of life wisdom. And there are two sections that hit really hard: The World Is a Mirror and You Are a Mirror.

And today in a shower when my brain was doing some free spins after a short meditation and exercise, it hit me.

All the overthinking, all the revisiting of past conversations, all the exploration of what-if’s and why-did-this-person-do-that… It’s a mirror.

I am not thinking about those things because I want to be thinking about those people. My brain is reassuring myself that I don’t want to be doing what they are.

My brain is reassuring myself that the confusion, lies and contradictions that other people are causing, saying or doing is not me.

I keep trying to revisit some situations to understand other people’s motivation. And I just don’t get it. Because I am looking at those situations through my eyes, my life experience - I am being a mirror. And I don’t understand. And I will never understand.

And my brain is reassuring me that because I don’t understand, it’s not me. It’s not who I want to be, it’s not how I want to behave. That behaviour (and maybe the whole people that behave that way) are not the right match for me unless we both want to invest energy in the mutual understanding.

If I don’t do well when I am confused, lost… If my self-esteem crashes when I am not sure what is happening… The right next step is not to try pushing myself to understand even if I really want to. It’s not going to happen unless the other person wants me to understand. The right next step that I can do is to step away. Step away into my world of clarity, honesty and the ability to confidently say “I don’t know, we need to figure it out”.

Other people have a different world, different life experience and they are a differently shaped mirror.

Every mirror is unique and every world behind the mirror is beautiful in its own way. We should be proud of our own worlds even if we don’t like the dark parts of them. We are the ones that have built them. And we can rebuild if needed.

And life happens when you dare to invite someone into your world. Because you stop being afraid. You understand your world a little bit, you’ve drawn a map and you are able to explain what you’ve built for yourself and why.

And whether they will accept the invitation? That’s on them. Maybe they are not ready.

I’m spending a few days home completely alone now. As a choice. Because I am ill and I want to think. The time passes differently when there is no deadline, no meeting, no nothing. The only anchorpoint in my day is 9AM and 9PM when I need to take my meds. And man… it’s wild.

Sometimes 30 minutes goes by like a whim. Sometimes it feels like three centuries.

When I was younger, I was spending days and weeks alone and never noticed these differences. It was always somehow going steadily forward. As I grow older, I notice that I am doing a lot of waiting.

I wait until I feel well. I wait until my show comes up on the TV schedule. I wait for someone to respond. I wait for someone to text first. I wait until it’s my turn. I wait until… something happens.

There is a movie about this. It’s called Waiting….

And parts of life should I guess feel like waiting. It’s OK. It’s OK to be bored. It’s OK to not feel unstoppable and invincible. It’s OK to just be. And wait what life brings. And takes.

It’s very liberating. Your brain just roams around, sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes sideways. That’s how most of these posts are created. The brain just roams somewhere and I spot an enteraining connection.

Or I just want to escape from what is there.. just one more thought away. It’s scary. And dark. Maybe I just don’t know what it is or how to call it. Yet. It can wait.

It’s not going to disappear, it’s going to come back. But maybe I can enjoy one or two blissful moments without any kind of pressure.

It’s not going anywhere. I will become healthy again. The TV shows are now online. If people want, they will respond or text. My turn is in a few seconds. And things happen all the time.

I’m still here. The world is still here.

Tick. Tock.

I’m still here. The world is still here.

Tick. Tock.

I’ve shared one of my older articles with someone who currently struggles and her reaction was “yeah, that only cements the fact that I shouldn’t bother others with my dark thoughts”.

That is NOT what I meant. Keeping dark things only to yourself is the worst thing you can do. It’s a really really bad idea that will lead to the bad direction of the spiral.

A couple of years ago we had a mini-conference day at work. One of the talks delivered by a great colleague was about the infamous Impostor syndrome. When we were chatting after, somebody asked me what would be my advice to get over it. And I said: “It’s simple, you need to get out of your head”.

We are our own biggest enemies.

No other person in the world can see into our head. And it works the other way - we can’t see into another person’s head. The best alternative to telepathy is to communicate with one another what is going on inside of us with language. And it’s not always possible or easy. Or even comfortable. Definitely not comfortable. How do I name this thing that is running through my head at 4AM?

You NEED to do the work to be able to verbalize what is going on in your head. If you don’t, it is just a big ball of mud without an obvious entrypoint. And the ball is gonna get bigger throughout your life. The sooner in life you learn how to name things, how to describe what is going on with you, the sooner you will be able to share with others. And you will learn that you are not the only one with these weird thoughts or hobbies.

It is super uncomfortable. Sifting through darkness, painful memories, heartbreak, heartbreak you caused…. Not nice. Necessary. You’re not going to like what you will find. You made mistakes, you caused hurt and pain… Everyone does. It’s OK, you don’t need to hate yourself. When you’re learning how to be you, you will inevitably make mistakes.

And sometimes you don’t even have the vocabulary. I had to go to therapy for years, I had to read many books about communication, psychology and mental illnesses to be able to even map out what the fuck is going on in me. It took me almost 15 years to get comfortable with my adult self and accept myself. For most of the time.

I wish somebody said “It’s simple, you need to get out of your head” to me when I was much younger, it would have made my twenties much easier.

Who am I kidding, if somebody told me that, I’d just say “fuck off with your hippie bullshit, I’m getting another beer”.

No matter how painful this is, this introspection is absolutely necessary. If you don’t understand (a little bit at least) yourself, you can’t define what you need. You can’t define what you want. You can’t define who you are. You can’t define who you want to be.

The next step is even harder.

Unless you put it out there, you will second guess yourself. You will talk yourself out of things. You won’t admit and accept that what you’ve just learned about yourself is real. You are going to numb yourself. You’re probably gonna get blackout drunk to forget about it. Many times.

And it will keep coming back. You will repeat the pattern. That’s what humans do. They repeat patterns. It takes an inhuman amount of courage to break the pattern. Because you will fuck it up the first time and you will feel like it’s not worht it. Everyone fucks it up. And it is worth it.

So you will want to go back. Go back to comfort. Go back to the comfort of your own pain. You know it, you know how to navigate it. Don’t. Just please don’t. It will happen, that’s why the word relapse exists. It happens. And it’s OK. You tried once, you will try again. You are strong enough to take that step forward again.

Now the really hard part: How do you get it out of your head?

Write. Draw. Paper can take anything. Once you can name it, you can write it down. Journaling is your friend at this stage. Get. It. Out. Just get it out.

Now you see it on paper (much better than a display IMO). It’s named. It’s still scary. But it’s out. You can relax for a bit. And then you can get back to it after a few days and explore what that IT really is. It’s on paper, so you can add words, you can draw arrows, you can draw animals, flowers, triangles… Anything goes.

I probably covered more paper with this in the past 5 years than with anything else.

But it is not in your head only anymore. It should feel like a giant boulder has been lifted from your chest. It is Out. Your Inside is finally Out. But you’re not done, there is always more to come.

You can stop here. But I guarantee that you won’t. At a certain point, you will start feeling like a kid discovering new things in the world. And You. Will. Want. To. Share. With. Others.

That is so difficult. You will practice, you will sugarcoat things, you will hide sections of you, you will perform a version of yourself that feels safe. You will tell yourself that you are going soft because you don’t want to hurt someone. That’s bullshit. That’s not it. That’s not you. You are still in denial. Or…

The thing that sucks the most about this is what my original post was about. Not everyone you share this with is the right person. Some people will dismiss. Some people will disappear. Some people won’t care. Some people won’t have the capacity or tools to listen. And you will feel like shit when you pick the wrong person. You won’t accept that that person is wrong. But they are, deep down you feel it.

But some people will respond in a great way. Those people are curious about you. Those people are interested in you. Those people care about you. Those people love you. Those people are right for you. Keep them in your life.

There may be moments when you feel like they don’t exist. They do. You are not alone. You are never alone.

The work and the verbalization and the courage and strength to make changes is all on you. Nobody else can do it for you. That’s the sad fact. Nobody sees into your head, you are on your own. It’s loads and loads of work.

But you are not alone.

You can learn from others, you can test your thoughts with others, you can explore new angles with others… And you need this. It’s so much easier if you have a safe space with your therapist, with your partner, with your friend.

And if they downplay what you are saying, or just run away… Fuck them. Cut them.

You have the right to need something. If that need is “please hear me out, I want to share myself with you” and it’s not met with positivity and encouragement… They are not the right person for you at that moment. Maybe at a different stage of your lives, it would work… You tried, you dared to be yourself. And if it didn’t work out, they were not the right person. It’s OK, there are others, more fitting, in the world.

It’s better to dare, try and fail then to live in your own head with all the what-ifs and maybe’s. It’s better to cut someone than to live in a shell of performance.

Dare to be yourself.

Dare to share, dare to want, dare to need. You are only a human after all. It is OK to make mistakes and it is even more OK to have needs.

You are fine. You may not feel fine at the moment, but that will pass. You will be fine again as you once were. Your life is an endless Journey.

I am envious that person A has person B. I am jealous that person B has specifically person A.

The feeling that person A has someone to lean onto. Someone to call 24/7. Someone to get a hug from 24/7. I am envious of that possibility. I don’t have that. Not in the physical capacity. And I miss that.

The feeling that person B is giving to person A what she needs. Finally taking on the responsibility of being in a relationship. And that it’s not me in that place. I think I saw for a long time what she needs. And she chose someone else to get it from.

It makes me feel like I am not seen and appreciated for who I am. For what I can offer. That’s the ego that is hurt.

The epihany is in this: This specific situation does not determine my value and worth as a human being.

Their actions do not say anything about me. It does not define who I am. It does not determine who I want to be.

This specific situation speaks volumes about who the other people are. What are they afraid of, how insecure they both are. How deeply they don’t believe in themselves and how they are protecting themselves individually with lies and secrets. Maybe they lie even to each other, I don’t know. And I am not interested. It’s none of my business.

I can’t stand cowards. I can’t stand liars. I detest people who make other people lie. Secret is just another word for a lie. I don’t want to live in a lie. I want to be proud of what I have, I want to show off what I have with other people. And I can’t show off a lie. I couldn’t look into a mirror in the morning.

I admire people who are willing to talk about these things, who try to explain, who are brave enough to become vulnerable and offer me a peak into their mind and heart. That’s rare and should be appreciated. It is very difficult to truly open up and I cherish these conversations.

If I reach out though and all I get is “I don’t want to go there” in a very dismissive tone… We are done. I am not going to spend any more of my time and energy on you. If you reach out, I will listen. But a whiff of another lie… and you are not getting another chance. It takes two to have any kind of honest human relationship.

There are people in the world who actually care about me. And if you lie to me… I don’t think you are one of them.

I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned that who I can be is pretty amazing. And that loads of other people appreciate that version of me. And that if I take myself and offer the true myself to others, they will see me and appreciate me. Some of them. And that’s OK.

I have confidence in myself. In the true self. Not some fabricated version. Not a secret version. Not a made up version. My confidence is coming from truth, acceptance and honesty.

It’s been a long way to accept my flaws, my anxieties and my pet peeves. But they are all part of me. They are not something to be fixed or eradicated. They are something that I need to keep learning how to live with. They are something to be named and processed in therapy or in deep talks with friends. They are something to be accepted and loved.

Maybe shelved for most of the time. And if they show up… it will pass. I’ve made it through before.

I am only a human after all and no human is perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has bad days. And those who claim that they don’t have bad days… they are just insecure liars.

I know I am not that. Not anymore.

You feel good. You had a good day at work. You helped someone. You finished something. Somebody said “Well done, good job” to you. You made some plans for the weekend. A pretty girl on the tram smiled at you. It’s sunny, you walk home. And then… Poof.

You close the door of your apartment. And it hits you. It’s empty. Not the apartment. Your life is empty. There is absolutely nothing. You eat dinner. You have no taste. You turn on the TV. Nothing grabs your attention. You desperately want to be seen and heard by someone. You want to scream. But there is nobody to hear you. It’s empty.

Your soul is empty. Somehow it got completely drained. All you can do is wait in agony until it gets dark and cry yourself to sleep. Except you can’t sleep. Or cry for that matter.

You feel like nobody cares. You replay all the lies people told you, all the moments you felt betrayed or abandoned, all of your mistakes you can remember. And then it hits you - nobody cares.

Exactly. You are all alone.

Except it’s all bullshit. You are never alone.

How did you get here though?

You pushed people away, because you didn’t know how to accept them.

You downplayed all compliments and congratulations, so people stopped saying them to you.

You prioritized work over friends so you stopped showing up.

You prioritized helping others over your own comfort, so when you actually showed up, you were just a tired asshole instead of a listening friend.

You acted like an arrogant dick at times because you didn’t know how to handle success.

You were a yay-sayer without an own opinion so people ran all over you and you didn’t want to hang out with them again.

And a billion other things that are very much insignificant in the long run.

It is true that nobody cares. Nobody cares about the bad stuff. A sincere apology makes wonders.

It is not true that nobody cares about you. Decent people care about you. Decent people will show up when you ask for help. Decent people are full of love.

We are never alone and there is a decent person inside all of us. You are a good person. You are worth it. You can dare to want to be close with someone. You can dare to share your inner self.

You don’t need to be lonely as fuck. The world is a very friendly place full of people full of love.

Some people are lying shitheads, but hey - they probably have a reason and maybe they are aching to be asked about it. Maybe they are just having a bad day. And maybe they were never allowed to have a bad day. That must be lonely.

So pick up the damn phone and reach out to someone. You won’t seem needy, a simple “how are you?” will brighten up someone’s day. Maybe they are feeling lonely as fuck right now.

My biggest fear - currently - is that I am no longer interested in anything. I have long periods of time when everything - and everyone - feels bland, flat, empty. I feel like I’ve seen everything, I’ve heard everything and I can understand everything. I don’t feel any joy.

It’s not arrogance. Being smart is an incredible curse.

I have moments when I know what people will say. So I don’t pay attention to what they actually have to say.

I have moments where I predict the future. A few months ago I said to multiple people at work “This is a mistake. We shouldn’t do it. Because if we do, A, B and C will happen.” We did it. And now A and B are behind us and C is about to happen next week or the week after.

What people consider crazy difficult or complex, I see as easy, simple, elegant. After a 10 minute conversation, I am already three steps ahead of everyone.

I absolutely hate this about myself. I miss not knowing. I miss feeling excited about the unknowns. I miss not seeing the future.

And others hate it too. I come off as too strong. As too opinionated. As a know-it-all. It rarely happens to me that I am not the smartest person in the room. I hate it. I want to not know. I want to be curious.

It’s a gift. It’s a curse. It’s me. I don’t hate myself. I am afraid that I will be bland, flat and empty. Because I will not be able to find any joy.

I am trying. I am fighting. It takes a lot of energy to consciously stay open. It takes a lot of energy to not overload the space with me. It takes a lot of energy to leave the room for others. It’s exhausting.

I need to be able to do it. Letting others grow, shine and learn on their own is THE joy. I lost sight of that in the last 12 months because I was down, exhausted and I missed the signals. And I paid the price.

I keep climbing up again. Finding new connections, learning new things. At my own pace. With my own mistakes. It is OK to ask for help, it is OK to need attention at times. It is OK to need to be heard at times. It is OK to vent at times. It is OK to not be perfect.

It is OK to have fears.

I was very happy that I felt comfortable enough to tell multiple people that I have the capacity to accept again. It means that my mind is free. It means that I have energy. It means that I can feel excitement. It means that I can feel curiosity. It means I do not see the future anymore.

I can be present again.

I can be present again with all my fears. But I do not need to be afraid. Everything is a OK.

We hurt others because we ourselves have been hurt in the past. Maybe not by the same person. But something from the past surfaces, we are angry, exhausted, we are running on instincts and not rationale… It just happens. We say or do something and someone gets hurt.

You can’t take it back. You can’t fix it. It happened. But why?

I’ve hurt people in my past because I was scared. I think 99% of the time when I’ve hurt someone was because I was scared. I was scared to say the truth. I was scared that I will be perceived as a failure. I was scared that I will disappoint. So I lied. Lies hurt people a lot.

That one remaining percent is me being angry. And I blurt out something stupid. Why was I angry? Because something happened and I became angry. Something triggered my past hurt and I became angry. But I wasn’t angry at you when I blurted out something stupid. I was angry at someone from 20 years ago. But most of all, I was angry at myself.

I was angry at myself because I was not good enough to create the safe space in which you would be willing to share the truth with me. I was angry at myself because I was unable to precisely express how I felt. I was angry at myself because I decided to not tell you information which would have prevented you from saying something hurtful to me. I was angry at myself for being hurt.

I was angry at myself because I felt like I failed you.

What gives me hope is that most people realize that they hurt someone. The worst feeling ever is the suspense before talking again. The fear that the relationship is broken beyond repair.

It never is. Everything can be rebuilt. If everybody involved wants to.

The best feeling is overcoming the fear, reaching out and apologizing. And then repairing. As they say on the internets, there is nothing better than one honest conversation.

So be fucking accountable and talk to each other.

We all have the power to influence our lives. We choose to stay. We choose to leave. We choose to come back. We choose to reach out. We choose to hope that somebody reaches out.

But as they say, Hope is not a strategy.

What is agonizing is making the choice. How will it affect me? How will it affect others? Should I even care about others? What if I make the wrong choice? Scary.

I’ve been recently feeling like Voldemort. Or like I have committed a genocide. But honestly, I don’t really understand what I’ve done. I just know that people gossip about me and some of them look at me like I am killing puppies with my brain. It’s very difficult. Some of these people I would have dared to call friends a year ago. And I don’t really know what they’ve been told.

I made choices as a manager. Choices I had to make to accommodate some people’s preferences, choices I believed were right for the organization, the projects and in the long run, for all the people involved. I was willing to sacrifice a bit of my mental health for this choice to make other’s people’s lives easier. It was not an easy choice to make and it took me a sleepless week to get comfortable with it.

If I were in the same situation again, I would make the same choice. I believe it was objectively the right choice.

The aftermath, however…. it is very sad. People rejected me. People stopped talking to me. People called me names behind my back. People I trusted told me very hurtful and humiliating things into my face. I actually appreciate that much more than those not talking to me at all. That creates space for imagination.

I felt patronized, condescended, betrayed, stabbed in the back, stumped to the ground. I felt dismissed, demotivated. Hurt. Hurt like hell. I felt thrown out.

A great place to be for somebody with history of depression induced by isolation and loneliness. Fucking A.

So I made another choice.

I could have left. I was considering that a lot. It would be easy. Simple. Clean.

I could have continued in the role I was doing. Without that team. That didn’t make any sense to me. I had a large plan for the whole organization and it wouldn’t work without them.

If I fought a little, I could have continued in the role I was doing. With the team. With different people. Some of them left anyway.

I made a choice to leave management. Because the company is slowly shifting towards prioritizing managers over leaders. Out of those two, I am definitely not a manager.

Now I am making choices about repair.

I don’t believe that people are bad. Or that they mean harm. People hurt each other because of their own hurt, insecurities, anxieties or fears. Some pain is so deeply embedded that it creates subconscious response patterns. I know most of mine very well. I know I make mistakes. I feel bad about them. I own them, I apologize if I understand what I caused.

Sadly, I am not a mind reader, so unless people tell me, I don’t know what I have caused.

It is interesting to discuss with people who should initiate the repair and whether it is even desired. Various opinions.

People who understand the situation from my perspective - because they asked about it - usually say that it’s not on me. Some of the people expect me to start going around and mending things. Most people don’t really give a shit. I wish I would be able to do that.

I do give a shit. The silence is slowly burning me from the inside. Most of my friends are telling me to just cut the people. To choose peace for myself.

Except I can’t. I am fighting myself when I tell myself that that is the right choice.

So I reached out to one person on Friday. I bumped into them in the office and it was very awkward. Then I sent a text in the afternoon. My thumb was levitating over the send button for three hours. I think the conversation went pretty OK.

The next step is actually talking about it. I don’t know when, it’s not important. I am scared. That’s gonna be some next level shit. I need to bring my A-game. Not for them. For myself. And if it goes bad? Well, I will pat myself on the back for at least trying. That counts.

I felt lonely. I felt down. I felt miserable. I felt demotivated. I felt angry. I felt sad. I felt annoyed. I wanted to hurt someone. I spent two hours writing text messages to myself to calm myself down.

Not. Nice. At. All.

And all of that because I got cold. And also because I made some wrong conclusions based on partial information and I was beating myself because of the maybes. I should know better by now.

Yeah… the cold.

Imagine you are barely moving after a knee surgery. You do everything right for almost three months. It goes according to plan. Then the doctor tells you - cool, you can do stationary bike, walking and swimming. No other sports allowed. I hate swimming.

You get to a forest for the first time. You love it! Such progress! Such wow! And then on the same day, you get a cold. You get a sore throat and a full nose. And you are back to where you were for the previous weeks. Stuck at home, too <something> to do something. That blows, man!

And it reminded me of the times when I felt depressed. I was never clinically diagnosed, but I was there. I’m pretty sure of that. You want to do something, but you just can’t. You know you need to talk to someone, but you don’t even know what to say. You just hope that somebody would show interest in you so you can tell them how miserable you feel.

And then I remembered… I have friends. I am also an adult. I can do things on my own. So I reached out to someone, I showed interest in them. And because my friends are decent human beings, they reciprocated.

I love my friends. Now let’s get a little high on flu meds.

Have you ever heard of the Golden ratio? In mathematics, art and nature, it is widely considered as something near perfect. Just look at this.

It is perfect. You just feel it. And it is a spiral.

Crime Scene Investigation or search parties often organize themselves into a spiralling pattern. It is highly effective, especially when there is not enough people to perform a grid search or anything else that relies on a large number of people.

When I am dealing with some strong feelings, I usually have “waves”. The thing keeps coming back, but with smaller intensity. I describe it as a sinusoid with a decreasing amplitude. Which is actually a spiral if you look at it from a different angle.

So why is “you’re spiraling” so negative? It feels even more negative than “you’re running in circles”. Well, it is because you are following the spiral in the wrong direction. You are crashing into it’s center.

Oftentimes, “running in circles” means being lost, repeating the same pattern all over again. What a circle and a spiral have in common, is the centerpoint. The Thing. The Person. The Situation. And you seem to be orbiting it no matter what. It is there, always in sight. You can’t change it. When you are running in a circle, you are in the same distance at all times. No progress, no change.

When you are running in a spiral, the distance changes. You may be drawn closer to the centerpoint or you may be increasing the distance.

When you’re coming close to the centerpoint, you are risking a collision. The space you can use to navigate yourself is getting smaller, you are suffocating yourself. And you may hit very hard.

When you are spiraling out though, the distance increases, the space for your manoeuvres increases. You have more freedom, maybe it can feel like you have more control. Less gravity. The centerpoint is still there, it is static, it is not going away. But you are getting further away with each orbit.

When people in relationships are saying “I need some distance”, this is what they mean. Unless they are running away as fast as possible in a straight line. That’s a different, much sadder story.

And this was just 2D. Let’s add another dimension.

Even in 2D, we can talk about escape velocity. But in 3D, that is something else!

Do you feel the force of a tornado that you can tame and ride? I do.

Next time somebody tells you that you are spiraling, start spiraling in the other direction. Instead of spiraling inwards and down, spiral up and out. Deny physics if needed.

Maybe you will find a different centerpoint. The universe is quite big. Stay Fearless.

I was thinking about why linkedin encourages people to share a change in their role with a joyful illustration. And why are the people buying it.

Career should not define you. Your job should not be your identity. I am going to visit linkedin much less from now on. And so should you.

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend of roughly the same age. We are both living in our brains a little too much, we both struggle with relationships, we are both kind of successful at work, but we’re not necessarily happy. And we have agreed, that at this stage of life, we are both done finding our limits. We are now trying to find the mythical balance within those limits.

When I was bedridden after the knee surgery, I read a lot of books. Apart from self diagnosing myself with probably every psychological disorder there has ever been found, I was learning a lot about pulling oneself out of shit. It doesn’t sound too difficult - it’s just another problem you can solve step by step with discipline. However, to solve a problem, you need to first know what are you actually solving.

And that is where you go deep, in the uncomfortable truths about yourself that you never wanted to look at again. Who you’ve hurt, when you have been hurt, what you said to someone you love, what you didn’t do when you should have, what scares you to death… And you need to go beyond, you need to go to the why behind all of these.

And you can’t just think about it. That doesn’t work. You need to get it out. Psychotherapy works. Talking to friends works. If you’re alone, you write, but even more surprisingly, you talk to yourself. That shit makes wonders. Just reprocessing the thought coming from the outside of your head changes the game totally. You feel very silly, but it moves the perspective so much.

When I started to do that, I’ve realized that the root cause of all my problems (I wish!) is lack of energy. I am drained a lot. So I fallback to instinctive behaviour, self-defensive behaviour, mean and harsh behaviour. Not because I want to or because I am like that, but because it protects me and whatever is left of my energy (spoiler alert! - there is not much). I don’t like that. So how do you solve this problem?

(a) Increase the overall capacity, add more energy or be more efficient

(b) Manage energy differently so I have more to spend when it actually matters

Is there a (c)? I don’t see it.

For (a), it’s the usual stuff - better sleep, better diet, more exercise, GTD techniques, being the most efficient version of myself. This is what I’ve been doing in the past when I was pushing the limits. I was pushing myself to increase the overall energy and to decrease the amount of energy spent on any given task so more could fit. I never did drugs to do that apart from alcohol and caffeine, if you’re curious.

The older and more ill I get, the less it is physically possible to optimize (a). The times when I slept for 3 hours a day, I was a very successful at a full-time job, I exercised 5 times a week and I spent every night in a pub just won’t come back. And I don’t want them to come back.

So how do you do (b)? The first question to ask is - where does that energy go?

Generally speaking, every human is doing the same activities. Out of those activities, some come naturally and some require more conscious effort, this is where people are different. I’ll take a little bit of a leap here and say that something that requires your conscious effort, might be stressing you.

If you are stressed about something, you think about it upfront, you are on high alert when it’s happening and you need to decompress after it has happened (after hours beers anyone?). That is a lot of energy spent on the thing. Right?

So how do you get out of that loop? Smart people came up with 4A’s (for example here):

• Avoid - just don’t do it

• Alter - be open, transparent, change the conditions in your favour

• Accept - practice, practice, practice. Don’t bash yourself for mistakes

• Adapt - reframe, reduce the expectations, flow through it

I am not a massive fan of Adapt because to me it sounds like it’s not really solving anything. You are still there, you are there with the same skillset, it keeps happening. And I am not a fatalist, I refuse to believe that anything is set in stone and we can’t change our surroundings.

Accept is a good one. It’s there, so you better get your hands dirty and learn how to deal with it. And you get better over time, more skilled, less stressed. And along the way, you get the dopamine hit. It’s not easy, and definitely not fast.

Alter is even better fitting for me. I love curveballs, BATNAs, creative solutions and reframing. I believe this approach is bringing out the best of us as it requires open and upfront communication about our inner workings and it brings the other side to the table to come up with a creative approach together. Definitely my favourite. It can easily go to bikeshedding though.

Avoid is a an option that I was not really considering a lot in my life. It always felt like the easy way out and it was against how I was raised: “You can solve anything, you’re a smart kid.” If I avoid something, that’s not a solution… Is it? It turns out it is a perfectly acceptable solution!

I will just avoid some stressful situations a lot more from now on. Avoiding is very energy-efficient so it perfectly solves (b) and as a bonus, it brings me peace. It’s a great tool to be comfortable with.

Go avoid something or someone! It will make you feel great in the long run, I promise.

In corporate world, people need a corporate anchor. That’s why corporate ladders exist. Typically it’s a spreadsheet. Written communication is absolutely essential for distributing information. Is it the only and correct type of communication for describing what you should do? Absolutely not.

I'd argue that the only Job Description anyone should ever need would be this:

“Solve the problems that make the business successful. Solve them well and in a reasonable amount of time.”

Did I just solve the corporate world? Absolutely not.

The simplicity in people is that they can’t function on this level of abstraction. It’s too vague. That’s when job descriptions are introduced. Are they precise? No. Do they capture the passage of time and gaining experience? No.

So then we have job levels for Workers. Junior, Medior (awful word, by the way), Senior. And then you’re what? Dead?

According to a random google search a Senior is considered a person with 5+ years of experience. Do all the people gain the same level of proficiency in an area when they spend the same amount of time on it? No.

Does this mean that after 5 years you have nowhere to go? Are you done when you’re Senior? Traditionally, you would switch to management as a career progression.

Except management is not a natural growth path, it’s a completely different kind of job. So you have Junior, Medior (still an awful word) and Senior Managers. And then you’re what? Dead? No, the next step is probably an Executive.

Except being an Executive is again a completely different kind of job. Are there Junior Executives? I need to sift through linkedin.

Also, hopefully for very obvious reasons, you don’t need as many Executives as you need Managers and you don’t need as many Managers as you need Workers that do the actual work.

Just joking, it is all actual work. Just different type of work. And you don’t need equal amounts of it in a corporation. The traditional look - the ladder - is also sometimes called a pyramid. And it indicates the growth trajectory. You “climb the ladder” to reach the top. To become the CEO. To have all the power there is.

What if it’s not a pyramid at all? What if it’s a pie chart? There is a finite amount of work that needs to be done in a corporation. Every employee contributes in a certain area. There is a large amount of work for Workers, moderate amount of work for Management and tiny amount of work for Executives. Let’s play with this for a bit.

In a circle, you don’t climb to the top. There is no top. You can move from one piece of the pie to a different one. You solve the problems that need solving. Some people are better at solving Management problems. Some people are better at being Workers. Were they born like that? No.

They learned by doing. How do you do new things in the pyramid? You get promoted up and then you get the opportunity to do those things. Except they are new to you so you suck at it. And if you suck at something for long enough, you get fired.

In the pie chart? Just work out with the other people who does what. If you suck at it, just go work on a different piece of the pie where you contribute more. If you can’t function on this level of abstraction and uncertainty, you might be a better fit for a corporate pyramid. There’s no shame in that.

If it was indeed a pie chart, the people’s responsibilites would fluently shift over time as the needs of the corporation would shift. A project needs different things when it’s new or when it’s running. Everybody would understand that the shared goal is this:

“Make the corporation successful.”

But then people would need to sacrifice their personal ambitions, hunger for power and all the other toxic bullshit that comes with the idea of climbing the ladder and having a career.

True equality is not for everyone.

Why am I writing this? I am formally changing a role at my job. Everybody is making a huge deal out of that. I don’t see why. There is no difference to me. It’s all work that needs to be done by someone to make the corporation successful. I am just going to do a slightly different piece of the work now.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people would be able to just shift what they work on without any fuss? A little bit of management here, a little bit of worker there… What a Wonderful World that would be where people would naturally need to learn skills that they don’t yet have because the people that have them are busy with something else.

• Programmers will get extinct because of AI!

• I don’t need the expensive engineers anymore, I can build myself what I want in a jiffy!

• We can now create so much software in record time!

Well, apparently software engineering is fucked. Except it isn’t. And also the problem we should be talking about is something completely, but completely different.

Mankind does not need more software. Mankind does not need more.

Western civilization is bored, doomed and bound to destroy itself. The capitalistic run for more, more, more and more growth is how mankind will get itself extinct. Or at least collapsed. And we are speeding it up.

The promotion of self-centered culture, the emancipated person (I am intentionally not saying feminism here), the gig economy, the hustle economy, the content creator economy… This is killing our civilization. It’s the only civilization I know and I kind of like it. It seems better than orwellian totality.

Civilization is a group effort. Everything that the western world is currently promoting is not a group effort. Thanks to the internet, social media and instant online communication platforms, we forgot how to talk to each other in real life. We forgot that if we are rude, we may get punched in the face. Or get yelled at. If somebody doesn’t agree with us, we are triggered. Or we just block them.

We are creating our own echo chambers. All of our anxieties, disbeliefs, small-mindedness… It is echoed back to us and amplified. Nothing else than our own little world exists anymore. We forgot to be controversial, we forgot to get our opinions confronted, we forgot how to lead a dialogue, we forgot that being humiliated is sometimes absolutely required.

We forgot that our choices and actions have consequences. We learned to hide our true opinions and feelings. We forgot how to apologize. So we are being more alone. Alone and bored.

A human that is alone and bored wants to get entertained. A lot of humans get entertained by creating. Just take legos or poetry. Software used to be so complicated that not a lot of humans could contribute. Now that has changed.

Everybody can now create a computer program. Should they? Hell no.

One of the greatest post from linkedin that stuck with me compared this to a wide adoption of writing and reading. Nowadays, almost everyone can read and write. Is everybody a poet or a published author? No.

Even in the world of published authors, there’s so much junk. Does it have it’s market? Yes. Does that market justify it’s existence? Probably. Is it contributing to mankind’s future? I doubt that.

Creating software is now much easier than ever before. Much more accessible. Much more available. Is that a good thing? Absolutely.

Is the path we took to get here the right one? I am doubtful. The generative LLM market is controlled by a small number of players. It consumes a ton of resources, it’s greedy, it’s circular. The bubble will burst in a year or two. And the output… is it worth it? I don’t know. I don’t think it is.

General population loves the chatbot use case. It is built on top of a lot of information. A lot of the information that is junk. The AI these days is a statistical model only as good as the information you train it on. If you feed it junk, it will produce junk.

What is the solution? Add protection layers. Add control layers. Add filters. Add a manual feedback loop. Add more. What do you get in return? Hallucinations.

Now take this to creating software. You get some output. Is it a hallucination? Is it good software? How do you know? I don’t. I don’t know a good software that was written by humans when I see it. I need to run it and observe what it does.

Code and software are tools. Tools are supposed to solve problems. Not create them. The first question everybody should ask themselves is: Do I really need to have this problem?

The AI world is creating problems that don’t need to exist. Mankind is keeping itself occupied with stupidly expensive toys. At the same time, western superpower is blatantly ignoring international law.

There will be a huge war soon. And linkedin will be full of posts about vibe coding a drone detection software.

Not everyone agrees with the decisions. Not everyone agrees with how I communicate the decisions.

Because I have a tendency of moving quickly, my communication style is sometimes too straightforward and there were situations when I got feedback that I have been too “harsh”.

Yes, I have been harsh. In situations where teams are stuck for months. In situations where teams discuss inconsequential details for weeks. In situations where teams and individuals are unable to support their decision with facts. In situations where clear alternatives have not been considered because of personal preferences. In situations where there is a discussion of a potential edge case three years down the line. In situations where I failed to understand the other side. In situations where I felt hurt or attacked.

I am impatient. I get frustrated. Make a decision based on information you currently have and move forward! Don’t be afraid. And stand by that decision, be able to argue for it, defend it, be able to make compromises. And if there’s new information, reconsider. But you gotta keep moving.

This obviously creates conflicts. In my opinion, conflicts are good. Or rather, they are inevitable. A group of people that is 100% aligned and is avoiding a conflict is destined to make mediocre decisions that feel safe. And it will lead to an unsafe environment where people walk on egg-shells. Because conflict is inevitable.

A culture which tends to avoid conflict or sweeps it under the rug or deals with it in secretive conversations is destined to fail in the long run.

A conflict bubbling under the surface will just explode one day and the consequences will be much more severe than if you take the courage and try to resolve it as soon as possible.

A conflict that is discussed behind somebody’s back will backfire. People talk, the person will get to know. It will create more harm than a timely confrontation. Maybe it will create the same amount of harm, but later. So delaying only costs more time.

This is where it gets really difficult. Because you now need to deal with people and their emotions and egos. Every person is different. Not a lot of people are able to remove their personality from conflict, keep it factual and assertive. This applies to a wide range of situations from technical discussions all the way to personal relationships!

Confrontation and conflict are scary. Because it is very easy to take it personally. On both ends. Regardless of how well it is communicated. People get defensive, people yell, people are mean, people hurt. Sometimes even intentionally. This is how humans communicate. It’s impossible to be kind 100% of the time. It’s better to be harsh at times and stay authentic, than to be nice and fake.

Conflict resolution is a two way street which needs both sides to understand what is going on, both sides to be willing to resolve the conflict and both sides to be at least a little bit curious about the other side. It is a negotiation.

The approach to conflict resolution cuts deep into people’s inner fears, self-awareness, self-value and egoism.

So how do you deal with this? Transparency. Honesty. Patience. Equality. Curiosity. Humility. Love.

And you can prepare for this, you can start by reading Supercommunicators and Crucial Conversations. And after you do, try to be the best version of yourself.

You are only human, you will make mistakes, create conflicts and it is your responsibility to try to resolve them and be accountable for your decisions and actions. And if the other side isn’t ready for conflict resolution… Just walk away, it’s not worth it.

The knee is great, I’m able to do small steps with only one crutch. I was able to drive a car today for a little bit (don’t tell my doctor!), my movement goes to about 70 degrees and it’s getting better literally every day. All the muscles in my right leg basically disappeared, I am doing some exercises which are fucking painful. But the progress is there and it’s quick-ish.

I have also rented this beatiful contraption with which I spend more than an hour every day. Insert leg, press a button and it bends and straigthens the leg for you. It doesn’t really seem to help with the muscles, but it does stretch the ligaments and all the other stiff parts of the joint. Definitely more convenient than pushing all the exercise to the limit by myself (which I’m doing anyway).

By myself… Yes… That’s the key element of the last three weeks. I haven’t had a visitor in 7 days for various reasons. It’s lonely, it’s freeing, it’s… I feel very ambivalent. I have very sad moments of crisis when I just ache to get a phone call or a text message. And it passes in 10 minutes and then I experience childish joy because I lift my leg one more time. Or that I can lie on my side. For five minutes, then the bloodflow gets cut. But hey, it’s something.

I have realized that I am drawn back to work because I crave the social interactions I am getting there. That’s not very healthy, is it? So that’s something I need to rebuild when I can walk again. Work should be just work, not part of your life that is supplementing other parts of your life that you neglected.

The most difficult piece of the puzzle in the past few days has been getting into something. Whatever I pick up - a book, a movie, a TV show, a game, it all contains deep human connections, emotions and love. And that brings up memories and disappointments from the past and gets me very sad. At the same time, it’s a very approachable exposition therapy because I don’t risk anything. Once I’m comfortable with this, I can get back to the real world.

Yesterday night was challenging - it was the holiday party from work. I so much want to be there. I so much don’t want to be there. Prime ambivalence worth exploring when writing my private journal. I can’t go anyway, but it’s a thought worth observing.

The Wedding People is indeed a very good book. Very real, very emotional, very positive, full of hope. After you get through first 100 pages which are depressing AF.

The Death Stranding 2 is indeed a very weird game. I like it. I don’t get all of it, but I really like the peaceful gameplay full of love and care. I am about halfway through it and I am looking forward to finishing it.