10,738 days and counting

Embrace the struggle. You'll be better for it.

I’ve spent 10,738 days with myself.

I’m still not quite sure who I am.

But every time life gets hard, I learn a little bit more.

Broadly speaking, life is funny — because it has to be.

Life is a tragicomedy full of chaos and random chance. And for a lot of us, that’s hard to accept.

Because as humans, we have a deep-rooted desire for control.

The more we control, the less risk there is. The less we control, the more danger there is.

But the universe has seen about 180 billion of us — and it doesn’t really care what we want.

So life has to be funny. Because if you can’t laugh at the uncertainty and the unpredictability, the setbacks and the struggles, the bad breaks and the backfires… You’ll forget what laughing sounds like.

So you laugh. And you live. And fortunately, you learn.

Most people think I quit my finance job and started my writing career because I wanted to pursue a passion. And there’s truth to that.

But the reality is deeper.

A few months before I quit, I listed out the pros and cons of the decision in a long email to myself.

Here was a pro:

“I am intrigued by the idea of stripping this image of 'success' away from myself. It would be beneficial to take these things away — the apartment, the paycheck, the suits and ties — and spend time without these material shields. I think I would learn a lot about myself.”

Looking back 17 months later, I can’t do much but laugh. Because life is funny.

When I wrote that paragraph, I had zero idea what I was in for.

I thought I knew how much work it would take to build a successful business. I didn’t.

I thought I knew how much pressure I’d feel to prove that I had made the right decision. I didn’t.

I thought I knew how much doubt, fear, and uncertainty I’d be juggling. You guessed it — I didn’t.

But I also thought I knew who I was.

And turns out — I didn’t.

I have learned more about myself in the past year-and-a-half than in the first 27 years of my life combined.

I took a hard left turn in life because I wanted to find out more about myself.

And because life is funny, it has made sure I’ve found that out…

But not in the way I expected.

I thought I’d learn through success — but I’ve learned far more through failure.

But I’ve learned. And I’ve realized how much more there is to learn. And without the struggles, I never would’ve known that.

So embrace hard times. Because without them, you might never get the chance to know yourself — and that’s the most terrifying thing of all.

Life is funny.