It’s a pity that we usually focus a lot on the outside appearance, even though our inner development plays a big part in a long-lasting healthy lifestyle.

Posts or news articles that talk about celebrities gaining or losing weight always get a massive number of clicks. Now imagine that these posts would talk about “person x has finally found a mental balance”, I don’t think this would be as attractive as the post about someone’s weight gain or cellulite. It’s like there are ‘average’ humans and then famous humans that exist somewhere else in a bubble and the people who live in these bubbles are under constant observation regarding their health and appearance.

It’s easy to judge people by their outside appearance and make conclusions about it. It’s sad because most likely the outside appearance won’t tell you what’s really going on in the head or body. Someone might look healthy or their appearance might be fit, but actually their diet and everyday routines are far from healthy.

I’m very attracted to people who are intelligent, have a great sense of humour and know how to laugh at themselves. I think those are very common qualities that people appreciate. It’s obvious that you’re not able to see those qualities by focusing on how the person looks like. Since we can’t read each other’s minds and if we are too focused on appearances, it might happen that you’ll miss the brain/mind match made in heaven. That really is sad, since I truly believe that it’s easier to find someone with a nice six-pack than a brain that would be suitable for you and you feel attracted to.

I have recently realized that patience is needed in whatever you do in life and at the same time it’s one of the hardest things to learn. I want to blame society a bit. Learning patience in a world that seems to move really fast is hard. When you’re pushed to achieve something that society and social media feeds to you and defines what is successful and you’re not there yet, you feel disappointed. Finding the right values and the way you want to live your life requires big amounts of patience from yourself and the people close to you.

I think that overconsuming media is a modern way to escape life and the current existence we’re living in. I’m not saying that society is an easy place to navigate in, and it definitely is not always fun, but I’m sure that it’s easier to let go of your dreams and consume, than push yourself to be productive. It must be easier to put whatever trash on TV than trying to develop yourself. Developing skills requires work and consistency, and at the same time you put yourself in a situation where you most likely will fail, whenever you’re trying to learn something.

Don’t forget that you will most likely be judged by the people around you when showing them what you’ve been working on. This doesn’t sound very attractive compared to a full bag of candies and a marathon of series. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there’s less possibility to fail in binge watching than creating your own business, art, or following whatever your passion is. I still haven’t met a person in 2021 who wouldn’t know how to watch TV for hours if needed. The only way to tone down the madness of overconsuming, is to be able to find alternative options to fill up your day with.

Developing different skills is a huge part of creating the sense of who you are and what you’re capable of doing.

A very important part of the inner development process is failing. How do you deal with mistakes that you make, and those uncomfortable feelings that we tend to avoid? If you don’t know how to process uncomfortable feelings and repeat the same mistakes, you’ll most likely feel a lot of anger towards yourself. Being able to resist and deal with chaos around you, is extremely important to keep yourself productive and not falling in the trap of comparing yourself and your work too much against others and becoming paralyzed.

Patience is one of the trickiest words related to inner development. I want things to happen quickly, and therefore patience is something that I’m continuously trying to learn. I’m trying to tell myself that things are never complete, so I shouldn’t rush them too much. This text is actually a great example of me learning patience: these thoughts have been hard for me to put into words. I can’t even remember when I started to write these ideas down. I just never felt ready to write about this topic, because I didn’t know how I really felt about this. I ended up having the draft waiting there for a very very long time. This topic has been on my mind for so long that I don’t even know exactly what made me start to write about this. I feel that many things have changed in my life and I finally might have an idea how important developing myself towards the person I want to be is. I think I have grown enough to be able to observe this topic from a good distance.

So how can you start to develop yourself and find your passion?

I would recommend starting by doing something that you simply like. It’s also healthy to try things that you don’t like, but it’s better to start from something that you think that you would be able to implement into your daily life and routine. It’s important that you include in your everyday life something that you feel passionate, or at least interested about, and just stick with that and see where it goes. Maybe starting to send hate messages to the Kardashians as a hobby is not the best idea, even though it might sound pretty attractive to some. I’m quite sure that most of us are wired to get pleasure from the things that are healthy for us and the people around us, no matter how dark your mind is. The point is to be aware that we are able to change and develop ourselves, but changing habits doesn’t happen overnight (who else thought about Linkin Park – Breaking the habit song?).

Life will most likely not go as you planned, no matter how much you plan it in advance. As well, it is most of the time boring, and we need to repeat very simple things from one day to another. Imagine that even if your wildest dreams would come true, it will never be exactly what you thought of.

Sometimes you have to trust your intuition and see what happens and that includes the possibility that you might fail. If you’re used to succeeding and sometimes you fail, it’s important for you to understand that failure is not an end. The only end in life is death. Actually, failure might be the beginning of something more valuable that you don’t know about until you experience it. We have to remember that many great things started from a mistake. If you fail, you have to ask yourself: from which perspective am I observing the failure? Who defines that I failed?

I have tried to be perfect for so long that I have lost my interest in it completely, but that doesn’t mean that I can just do whatever I feel like doing and justify myself by telling people that I’m not perfect. It means that whatever I do, it won’t be perfect, so I might as well do my very best, with the knowledge and skills I got in that moment and hope that everything goes well and I’m not executed afterwards. No one is perfect and has the so-called “perfect life” so why bother running after that? I would rather run towards “my life” and it includes; keep on doing the things I like or love, with the people I care about along the way.

I go back to talking about what I’ve learned from Camino de Santiago whenever I feel that I’m drifting away from what is actually important. Camino de Santiago is a Pilgrimage route through Spain and I completed it in 2016, so it has been a long time since I did something like that. The interesting part of this journey is that it continues even after returning home and I think that I have just recently understood all the valuable things that I’ve learned when walking there.

I remember stopping in one of the Albergue’s (refuges). There was an old man who was told to be a healer. My ankle was hurting a lot and I was curious to know what he would say about it. He looked at it for a bit and the answer was that I walked too fast. He told me that Santiago will not move anywhere, you just need to walk slower and have patience. This seems like the simplest thing to do, but to put that in practice when you have decided that you’ll be somewhere in x amount of time, it gets difficult. Eventually I found out in one of the Pharmacies that my other leg is longer than the other one, and that’s why my other ankle hurts more than the other one. I only needed a little lift in my shoe and I was able to finish my journey. Just in case you started to measure your legs, this only becomes relevant when you walk long distances. The difference is not bothering me in my regular life.

I think that every single idea or project needs patience and consistency for it to be able to become something. Whenever I hear people talking about their dreams and goals but there are no signs of consistency, work or patience, it’s hard to be supportive. When you see some signs of development or the person is at least trying, it’s easier to try to encourage moving forward. During these times when people suddenly become viral and there’s a lot of attention out of nowhere, it might be hard to keep it going, if there’s no solid ground you’re standing on. Five-minute fame might become the worst thing that happens to a person if that person is not ready for that. It can be crucial if your fame doesn’t last as long as you wanted to. There is a possibility that things might go right, but I doubt that we are born with a skill that prepares us to deal with fame and recognition.

Something that is very useful and will help you for the rest of your life with whatever you do; focusing on your inner development. There’s no age limit regarding that. Boomers, you’re welcome to the club and start by learning how to clear cache and cookies from your browser. It’s easier to say “I don’t know how to do it” instead of: “Can you show me how to do it?” It’s uncomfortable to admit that you don’t know something since we spend most of our days trying to hide our flaws. It’s very time-consuming trying to do everything on your own instead of distributing the work in a clever way and share the responsibility. I can’t tell for sure, but I’m guessing, that for the majority of us when things get complicated, we feel paralyzed, and don’t want to try things anymore.

I understand that not everyone has the capacity or idea where to start, how to set goals, or they are just simply lazy to work on themselves. Maybe it’s the moment when you have to admit that you might need a hobby, or therapy. If you realize that you’re stuck in a vicious circle, that is making you depressed and unable to live a balanced life, or learn new things, it’s time to make a change.

If you’re extremely afraid of failing, or you think that you’re a failure without trying, the same question pops up: who defines that you’re a failure? Is it you or someone else? The fact is that we aren’t good at something without any practice. You might be talented, but that alone is not going to lead you anywhere. You need practice, patience and consistency (and sometimes you also need to have some luck).

I think patience and consistency are connected; you need patience to be able to be consistent. If you want to become the person you want to be, or learn a new skill, you need practice and patience to be able to repeat things so many times, that finally you know how to do whatever you’re learning without deep thinking. Most likely you might need an example or inspiration that is leading you towards the goal but in the end, you will have to stop comparing yourself to others and trust your own process. Everyone advances at their own pace and you can’t force people to speed up. Maybe you can be the one giving the first push, but in the end the individual itself is the one that needs to do the work.

It’s normal that there are moments in time when you don’t have the patience that is needed because there are so many things happening around you. This seems like the disease of our times: constant lack of time we try to fight against. There are things that you “should have achieved” when reaching a certain age or a time-period. If you don’t fit into that model, you are a failure, and your future won’t seem as bright as that gin tonic on the private yacht. Easy life is the dream that many people want to live, but it obviously is a fantasy. When a certain type of lifestyle becomes obsession, we are sailing on dangerous waters.

What if you have tried everything and you fail?

What if you fail even though you are patient, hard-working, considerate, empathetic, a bit selfish but not too much, you are exceptionally beautiful and you don’t have to worry about money for the rest of your life because you already have enough? You’re lucky to have a lot of friends, and they all love to drink too much gin tonic on an expensive yacht.

What if you have all that, and you still feel like there’s something missing?

What is the solution when you already have everything?

Success is relative. You might think that making a deal with 1 million is successful, but when we look at that amount in a big picture, it should be at least 20 million so that you would be able to enter the real big money club. But wait, if you haven’t earned a billion, you can only call yourself a millionaire and not a billionaire. A “millionaire” sounds like nothing compared to a “billionaire”. There will always be someone who is more talented and more successful than you are.

So, if there’s always someone who is better than you, why would you even try to be more successful?

If you view success as something relative, you might already be successful. In my opinion, this is one of main rules in life: if you start to compare yourself to others, you’ll never be happy or feel that you have accomplished something. In the worst-case scenario, comparing yourself to others might lead you to stop doing the things you like, because you’ll never be fulfilled with the things you produce. You have to remember that in the end it’s your life. You might observe other people’s lives in the virtual world but you still have your life to live.

There’s a possibility that when you start doing something new, you will fail at some point. It doesn’t matter how many times you read the manual, it will happen.

Even if you fail and the failing experience wasn’t what you expected, you learn from that. It’s always good to aim high, even though there might be a chance that you end up failing a big time. The question that reveals the difference between individuals is; how do you approach the big obstacle or a failure that comes on the way in some point? Can you see in the future even a bit, and imagine yourself dealing with that issue?

Some people simply don’t want you to succeed and that’s a fact that you have to be aware of on your journey. Not all the people want the best for you, and there’re a lot of people whose success is based on letting other people down. We need to remember that we need each other. There’s no way to succeed without the support group around you.

In my ideal world people are able to create their own communities, and those communities want each other to succeed. With the good energy of the people around you, you gain confidence, and with that confidence, you’re able to support other people on their journeys. By taking care of your surroundings and supporting each other, you will most likely create a positive encouraging circle around you. If you are surrounded by those people, don’t ever take them for granted.

Imagine that you would have crazy amounts of money and you realise that people around you are there just because of your money, and not because of who you are. So whenever you think that money can fix everything, take a deep breath and repeat what you just thought. The type of wealth we have achieved in modern society hasn’t been going on for that long. Having a stable financial situation helps in many ways but there are things that money can’t fix. One valid example is: what if your mind is broken? You might meet the best therapists and pay a lot of money when finding a solution, but unfortunately there’s no return label or possibility for a reclamation of what comes to your brain.

So, whenever you feel that there’s no point in anything, stop thinking too much. Instead of thinking too much, start finding out what you like and then start doing the things you like. It’s as simple as that.

When you’re still alive and capable of doing things, it really is never too late to start to live your life.