Saturday, October 4th, 2025 — 12:42 AM

How was today? I woke up and immediately made my bed for the first time in a while. Just recalling everything that happened, I instantly felt very different—very positive, much better than I usually do. It takes me a long time most mornings. I'm usually very passive, someone else has to get me going.

I'm not setting an alarm nowadays, so today my mom woke me up. But instead of feeling like "I have to do this," I just instinctively made my bed. That kind of set me in action mode for the day, which is crazy. So yeah, made my bed after many days, and it was as effective as I remember, if not more.

Then I took Cookie for a walk. There was no breakfast, which was nice—to just start work a little hungry. Then I did yoga. I've been doing yoga for the past 3 days and it hasn't been feeling like a chore ever since I started focusing more on the mindfulness and presence aspect of my life.

The day went on. I've been writing more and more, but I'm still not reaching that level where I feel like, "wow, I was really flowing from one end to the other." I'm aiming for at least a few hours of solid work. It's not some arbitrary thing—I feel like if I work 5 hours a day, I'll feel a sense of progression.

I'm trying this journaling thing today because I have this idea stuck in my head that you review your day at the end of it and get into tomorrow with an intentional mindset. I don't know, I just want to try it out for a few days at least.

I definitely didn't eat more than I should have today. I think I ate a manageable amount—I didn't overeat like an animal. I walked around a lot and did some work after eating, which was very nice. I have this sense in my mind that I want to eat less, especially during the day. I just felt full, way more full than I wanted to. I felt heavy.

I got in some decent exercise today, I would say—some activity, some movement. I wouldn't even call it a proper workout. But I didn't eat too much and I did some work. I feel good mentally. I feel like things are going well.

I want to take a moment to be grateful. I feel like I want to feel grateful. I want to take a moment to actually feel the gratitude—not in some bullshit gratitude journal way, like heartlessly listing down things I think I should feel grateful for just to achieve some kind of improvement. I mean just actually taking a moment to appreciate things in life.

So I want to appreciate my friends. I want to appreciate my siblings, my brother, my cousins, my family, my mom, my dog. I'm glad, man. I'm glad. I've struggled with a lot of things, but overall I'm really happy that I was born in this kind of setting, with this background—my parents being who they are, my cousins being who they are.

And I'm very grateful for my dog Cookie and her good health. She's just a sweetheart who makes my life better. I'm so happy that I get to do whatever I want nowadays and that I know what I want to do. I have things that I care about and want to pursue.

Sometimes there's this guilt, this pressure. Sometimes it feels justified—you have all these gifts, all these advantages, and you feel like you want to give back. You feel a sense of responsibility and obligation even, like you want to make something out of it. You have this intention, and it's not just pressure. It's not just an ego thing where you feel like you have to make something out of yourself or else it wasn't worth it, or that you don't have any value. I feel like that creeps in occasionally, where you get kind of attached to it personally, like it's going to define you.

I feel like that tends to creep in. You start off with this nice, good idea, and it's about emotion and mood also—where you are in your highs and lows. I feel like when everything settles down and things calm down, you kind of get more perspective on both those areas.

So yeah, I do feel grateful that I have these things I want to do. I feel grateful that I have this opportunity to do them, and I want to follow through. I want to give it my all because you only get one life. Usually that gives me all this pressure—it feels like a heavy burden, like "why do I have to do this?" But right now I think the thing that keeps coming back is that I feel a very different energy. It's not like a high where I'm chasing and running towards something with forward momentum or whatever. It's not some ego thing that I have these dreams and all these things I want to do.

It's not that. It feels calm. It feels calming and it feels good. I feel good about it. And from this place, I want to move more heavily towards it. I do kind of want to feel a little bit of fire, you know? I want to feel proud of myself. That's a good kind of fire, something good, just for the satisfaction.

Like tonight, I made this huge list of all these topics that I can write about because I didn't feel like writing the article that I was writing. And writing, man—it's so exciting, just thinking about all those things and how I'll figure them out while writing them, and how they'll be structured on the page, and how nice they can feel, and how I can share them. It might help people, maybe inspire someone to do something.

I've had the good fortune of knowing all these people in my life who inspire me, who've had my back. All these people—Gary Vee, fucking all of them—mentally, some amazing, cool, interesting people who are flawed. Everyone has flaws, but that doesn't mean I don't admire Jordan Peterson for who he is and whatever he has done, David Goggins, all these people. I don't hold them up or put them on a pedestal. I disagree with them on certain things, but I respect them as well for their achievements. They've inspired me. They've taught me so many things.

I feel like I want to be a part of this world. I want to be a part of this culture. I want to be connected to other people. I have taken so much. I have received so much. And I've been crushed under the weight of it for so long in my life that right now I'm not feeling any guilt anymore. Because I was struggling with a lot of personal issues, struggling with depression and all that shit. And then I had Dr. K and all these other people like Dr. Gabor Maté and all these people, they were there. And my friends were there when I needed them.

I want to give back. So this is my way of giving back. Writing articles is a step closer to me writing my books and my storybooks and learning the skills I want to learn, to do the work I want to do—whether it's good technology and making nice, useful tools, or making stories for other people to inspire them and enlighten them, because that's what these writers and these creators have done for me.

So I don't just want to close the loop or pay it forward to be part of a chain. It's not just a cyclical, useless thing. When I say useless, I mean like some zero-sum game. I don't want to be a part of a zero-sum game. It's like you get something, you add something of your own, and then you pay it forward, thereby making things better. That's what I want to be a part of.

And this—me quitting my job, staying at home, trying to help my parents to the best of my ability, yes taking money from them but trying to make this thing of my own, this blog, this writing practice—this is my way of doing that.

So once again, I am grateful for everything that I do have. I'm most excited and happy that I get to follow the things that I want, to chase the things that I aspire to. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and I hope I can dive deep into it the way I want to.

I feel like at this point I should say amen.