Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 700 readers.

I’ve started paying more attention to the state I’m in before I trust the decisions I want to make.

I arrived at the restaurant after a very stressful day at work and told my good friend that I wasn’t going to run the Chicago Marathon.

He was quite surprised and asked me why.

I started telling him that it was too expensive, that I didn’t like the idea of ICE in the US, that it would be way too exhausting to travel again after my vacation, and a few other things.

I had a lot of reasons in my head.

It almost felt like I wanted to convince myself instead of explaining it to him, and I was totally convinced.

A few weeks later, after I had almost forgotten that evening, the thought of the marathon came back into my mind. I looked in the mirror, and this time I asked myself a completely different question.

I asked myself, “Are you stupid? Why wouldn’t you run the Chicago Marathon?”

And for a second, I felt dumb that the idea of skipping the event had even crossed my mind.

Of course I’m going to do it!

I convinced myself again, but this time in the positive direction.

That weird conversation with myself also raised another question I wanted to answer.

Why did the idea of skipping the marathon come up at all?

When I started thinking about it, I realized that it wasn’t the first time I had gone back and forth about something I actually wanted to do.

For instance, when I had a date, I sometimes played the same game until the day of the date and occasionally cancelled it. The same thing happened with plans with friends.

Then I regretted it the next day.

My Mind Was Trying to Remove More Load

Fortunately, the Chicago Marathon situation helped me understand what was happening.

I can clearly remember arriving at the restaurant and complaining about work for almost the whole evening. My good friend was understanding, but I’m not somebody who usually complains a lot.

That evening, though, I couldn’t stop venting.

At the time, I was managing two teams at work and trying to make sense of all the chaos without getting much help from management.

I was exhausted and annoyed.

My head was full of problems.

One colleague wanted this, another wanted that, my boss wanted speed and quality at the same time, and my team was complaining too.

Just endless noise.

And apparently, my brain started trying to make space by removing things like running the Chicago Marathon.

Honestly, that wasn’t such a bad idea from my brain’s perspective.

If I already had enough load to carry, then the plan to travel to the other side of the world and run for hours probably sounded like an unnecessary extra burden.

Running the marathon was completely about fun. There was no survival mechanism attached to it.

If I skipped it, nothing bad would happen.

But if I couldn’t handle the problems at work, there might be some kind of threat.

At least that is probably how my brain interpreted the situation.

After thinking about it, I started recognizing the pattern.

And honestly, I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed it earlier because I had also read about something similar before.

We often predict our future decisions based on how we feel right now.

For example, if I’m really hungry and somebody asks me whether I want to eat pizza on Sunday, my answer will probably be a big yes.

But if I had a huge dinner two minutes ago, then my prediction about what I will want to eat on Sunday might be something lighter, like a salad.

This is exactly what happened to me.

In my case, my exhaustion was predicting that I didn’t want to run that bloody marathon.

But that wasn’t actually true because if you asked me again in a different state, the answer would definitely be yes.

I had my vacation last month. After two weeks of relaxing in Indonesia, I never seriously thought about skipping the marathon again.

Subscribe now

The More Dangerous Decisions Don’t Always Feel Impulsive

So what is the learning here?

We all know that we shouldn’t act on an obvious impulse.

You get an annoying email from your boss and you probably shouldn’t reply with “f*ck you” or something similar.

Taking a breath, closing the email and going for a short walk can save you from the consequences of acting on that impulse.

But in my case, it wasn’t really about a quick impulse.

It was more about the state of my mind and body, which are obviously connected.

And these physical and mental states can last for much longer than a few minutes. Sometimes you don’t even realize how much they are influencing the way you think.

Imagine that you have slept badly for several nights and suddenly the trip you were excited about for months feels like another burden.

Or you are lonely and someone you already know is wrong for you suddenly starts looking much more attractive.

You had a few bad workouts and suddenly start wondering whether you even enjoy running.

You are overwhelmed at work and start cancelling things you normally enjoy because everything feels like too much.

You feel sad one evening and suddenly contacting your ex sounds like a good idea.

You quit alcohol two months ago, have a terrible week, and suddenly your mind produces plenty of convincing reasons why opening a bottle of wine tonight would be fine.

These things can feel very real in the moment, but the conclusion you want to draw from them may not be.

The difficult part is that these decisions don’t necessarily feel irrational while you are making them.

In my case, I had plenty of reasons why cancelling Chicago made sense.

None of them sounded crazy.

But I wasn’t really paying attention to the state I was in when I came up with those reasons.

The Rule I Use Now

For myself, I defined a rule for the future, and maybe it can be useful for you too.

Before I explain it, there is one more example that came to my mind. A few years ago, when I had just become single and felt miserable and lonely, I suddenly wanted to get a dog.

And yes, I like dogs. But looking back, my state of mind wasn’t in the right place to make that decision.

I think part of me simply wanted something that would make the loneliness easier.

I’m glad I didn’t do it back then.

That is exactly why, next time I want to make an important decision about an event, buying something, cancelling something or meeting someone, I want to ask myself how I actually feel first.

If my mind says to cancel the event or contact someone I know I probably shouldn’t contact, I want to take a step back and look at my current mental and physical state from a bit more distance.

Do I feel good or am I exhausted?

Am I lonely and sad, and is that influencing the decision?

Have I slept properly?

Am I stressed?

Am I hungry?

So before you reach out to your ex just because you are having a low moment, take a look at yourself first.

Try to understand the situation because when you are sad, exhausted, lonely or overwhelmed, your mind can provide you with very good reasons for doing something you may not actually want to do.

It’s not a sexy process, but looking at yourself from a more rational perspective can be very helpful.

It can save you from many annoying situations you create for yourself simply because you let your current feelings dictate your next move.

Once you take a moment and understand how you actually feel, you can also understand your motivation better.

Now, if I’m exhausted and a good friend asks whether we want to meet on Sunday, my immediate reaction might still be no.

But I also know that on Sunday I might be in a completely different state of mind, well rested and actually happy to see my friend.

It can feel weird to go against what you feel in the moment, but I think it is something you can practice and get better at over time.

Let me know in the comments whether you have experienced a similar situation.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 700 readers.

It took me almost 40 years to have the courage to question what I had learned and deliberately choose the life I actually wanted.

If you never question which parts of your life are actually yours, you can spend years becoming very good at living a life that does not fit you.

People often reach out to me and ask how they can find their true self.

And I understand the question because nobody really taught us how to do that.

We all know that it would probably be useful to figure out what is truly ours and what we simply inherited from our parents, teachers or society.

You hear things like, “Be yourself!”

But what the hell does that actually mean?

Honestly, I had no idea either.

It is possible that for most of your life, you have been doing things you never consciously chose. Some of those decisions may have been made for you before you were even old enough to question them. Like marriage, career or having children. Or where to live and how to live.

But let’s be honest. For many people, having some of those decisions already made can actually be comfortable because people hate making decisions.

And maybe your life works perfectly well as it is, regardless of which parts you chose consciously and which parts you inherited from the people around you.

But for me, it’s not enough.

Why? Because I want to take responsibility for my life. And even if my fate is to suffer, I would rather suffer because of my own decisions than live comfortably inside decisions somebody else made for me.

Read more

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 700 readers.

I used to be proud of how rarely I needed help, until I started noticing how much effort I was spending just to avoid asking for it.

You hate asking for help.

Even if you know someone who actually could help, you would rather struggle with the problem for days on your own.

You say that asking for help has never been your strength, but deep inside you know that sometimes it could make your life easier.

And there is also this bad feeling around the whole thing. Something like guilt, shame, the possibility that people might think that you’re weak or even incompetent.

Then your ego, of course, and even worse, the feeling that you don’t want to owe anyone anything. Because you know that help might come with some kind of emotional currency you have to pay back one day.

You don’t want to hear carefully slipped comments in future conversations like, “You know when I helped you in that situation” or “What would you have done without me back then?”

And they wink at you just to make sure you feel the debt.

So it’s better not to ask for any help. You’re going to solve it alone. Again. Whether that makes things harder or not doesn’t matter as long as you don’t need to deal with those feelings and possible annoying future scenarios.

Everything has its price. At least, that’s what some of us learned very early.

I did too. When I was a child, every time I asked for something, my mother lectured me for an hour before she helped. It was not only about paying a price later for the support, but she took half of it beforehand. I had to listen to her when she said that her life was miserable because she needed to support me all the time. That she would kill herself at some point because of all the work she had to do to help me.

So even before I got the help, I felt that tremendous amount of guilt as the price for it. Since then, my brain has associated asking for help with guilt, which I have always wanted to avoid at all costs.

Maybe you have a similar story or a different version of it. Your parents might have made you feel weak if you asked for help. Or you asked for something but never got it, so you learned that it didn’t make sense to ask.

All these experiences could have taught you that asking for help comes with a certain price. Either emotional, mental or even financial. So you developed a strategy of avoiding asking for help.

Honestly, that’s not a surprise. So you don’t need to blame yourself for it. Imagine you meet a dog for the first, second and third time and the dog bites you every time. At some point, you will start believing that all dogs bite.

It makes logical sense that you then start avoiding dogs. The same happens with behaviors where you have learned that negative consequences can be attached to them.

The problem is that this avoidance starts pushing you in another direction in your life, which is total independence. The feeling that you must deal with the problem on your own. You have to figure it out. There is no other option, like asking for help.

I know how it feels because I developed in the same direction. I became an extraordinary problem solver and a man of independence. When I see people asking for help, I just smile and do it on my own, regardless of how hard my own path is.

And it feels great. Being someone who can handle things alone is freeing and empowering at the same time.

You feel that you can control the things around you. You don’t need to experience rejection and disappointment when you ask for help. There is no future obligation where you feel like you have to say yes because of an old favor they did for you.

You are free. Or maybe a prisoner. Let’s just take a closer look.

Subscribe now

When your strength becomes a problem

The downside of your mindset, which you might not notice, starts when you begin thinking rigidly.

When your thinking slightly changes from “I can solve everything alone” into “I have to solve everything alone.”

That’s a huge difference.

When you cannot think any differently anymore and believe that you have to deal with everything on your own. I remember when I was in a relationship and my girlfriend wanted to make me a sandwich, and I told her that she shouldn’t do it because I could take care of myself.

Or at work, when I was dealing with a huge workload but didn’t tell my boss because I wanted him to think of me as a strong and capable employee. Which led to exhaustion and almost burnout.

And this negative process doesn’t stop there because you not only refuse help, but you also educate your environment, the people around you.

You teach them that you are someone who doesn’t need help. So they stop offering their support. Then you feel even more unsupported, which turns into self confirmation that you have to do everything on your own.

I hope you can see how freedom can slowly turn into a self-created prison.

The better definition of independence

Here is the thing I have learned the hard way about asking for help or being that rigidly independent.

That coping mechanism you learned earlier in your life, the one that makes you strong, should only increase the options in your life but NOT become the only one.

What I mean by that:

Let’s say you are sick and your partner wants to make you tea. Being able to deal with problems alone means you know you could take care of yourself if nobody was there.

But if you refuse the tea just because receiving care makes you uncomfortable, then independence is not freedom anymore.

It has become a rule you’re trapped inside.

So you have two options here. One is accepting the help if there is some, but the other option is knowing that you can do it yourself if you’re alone, so you don’t feel helpless either.

This is how you can turn your problem solving skill into a real advantage instead of a burden.

What can you do next time?

First of all, you need to be aware of situations where you might need some help.

Notice the moment when you feel stuck or when you need to solve a problem you’ve been struggling with for a while. Then ask yourself whether there is someone who could help with the problem.

This is the moment where you need to be careful. If the answer is yes, stop your thought process there. Otherwise, you will continue with the “but” and immediately dismiss the option.

Once you admit that external help could make your life easier, your discomfort will arise. Those feelings I mentioned at the beginning. Notice them, but don’t try to escape them.

That will be the moment when you need to remind yourself that these feelings come from your past, but they don’t need to control your present.

Accept them and reach out to someone who could help. Start small. Ask your wife, your husband, a friend or a coworker. Practice the process.

The goal is not to become dependent on other people or to stop solving your own problems. The goal is to have both options available.

You can solve something alone when you want to, and you can ask for help when that makes more sense.

That is probably a much better definition of independence than needing to prove every time that you can do everything yourself.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 700 readers.

It took me 35 years to realize that sometimes the hardest thing to get used to is having nothing to worry about.

I was lying on the beach on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania.

White sand, tall palm trees, turquoise blue water in front of me, and my beautiful girlfriend lying next to me. There was absolutely nothing to worry about in that moment.

Still, after about an hour of lying there while my girlfriend was enjoying her book, I started to feel weird.

I didn’t know what the problem was, but I was sure that something was off. My heartbeat suddenly went up and I became anxious.

My head turned from left to right as if I were searching for something, then my hands started shaking, followed by my legs.

I knew I was having a panic attack because I had experienced them before, but never in the middle of paradise.

I didn’t tell my girlfriend because I was ashamed.

Instead, I went to the bar and secretly ordered two shots of vodka, which I drank immediately, hoping they would calm me down.

And it worked.

I followed them with a glass of wine, lit a cigarette, and after around 30 minutes of suffering, I was drunk but fine again.

The irony of the whole situation was that there wasn’t any problem that would justify having a panic attack.

I was always waiting for something to go wrong

This wasn’t something that happened to me once. I experienced different versions of it many times throughout my life, which made me curious about what the actual reason could be.

So I went to my doctor and told her what had happened, but she wasn’t particularly interested in figuring out the root cause. She gave me some sedatives in case it happened again.

Then I brought the topic up in therapy.

My therapist said it was an eruption of accumulated stress I had carried with me into my vacation. That made sense when I first heard it, but there was one problem with that explanation: it didn’t only happen when I tried to enjoy my well deserved days off.

It also happened at home, sometimes on completely ordinary weekends when everything was alright. It didn’t always come in the form of a panic attack either.

Sometimes it was just this inner unease, this vague sense that something was off.

I behaved like a suspicious cop who was constantly expecting danger.

When everything seemed to be cool at work, for example, I could interpret a single facial expression from my boss as a sign that he wasn’t fully happy with my performance.

He never said a word, but I created the story myself and reacted by working harder.

Even without any negative feedback, I could convince myself that something was happening in the background and that sooner or later it would become a problem for me.

It wasn’t exactly paranoia, but sometimes it came pretty close.

I did the same thing in my relationships, even during our happiest moments.

You know that feeling of it’s too good to be true?

There must be something wrong with her. There must be something wrong with our relationship.

The pattern became increasingly obvious: I created problems for myself or made my life harder even when I could have been having the best time of my life.

Whenever I achieved a goal, for instance, I immediately defined another, harder one. Subconsciously, I found a way to skip the phase of enjoyment and peace and move straight back into struggle.

Overpreparing for situations that barely required any planning became normal to me. I even rehearsed small talk in my head before attending an event.

These were the more subtle consequences of my actual problem because not every peaceful moment ended in a panic attack.

I think the beach situation was simply the most extreme version of the same pattern. There was nothing around me to fix, anticipate, or worry about, and somehow, instead of feeling peaceful, my whole body went into alarm mode.

But why was my brain doing this?

After spending years in therapy and practicing self awareness on my own, I finally started to understand where all of this was coming from.

I grew up in a difficult environment where dealing with problems 24/7 was normal. Survival mode became a part of me.

People often don’t believe me when I tell them about my childhood, but there were very few periods when I could simply enjoy being a child. My environment was too unpredictable. Things could escalate at any minute on a completely random day.

Compared to other kids, my normal life was a life full of problems.

I was constantly waiting for the next one to show up so I could deal with it. I didn’t consciously choose to live this way. It was simply the environment I had adapted to.

On a conscious level, I actually hated it. I complained a lot about having such a hard life and wondered why problems kept showing up for me.

At some point, I genuinely believed I was cursed.

And yet this is how I lived for around 30 years: worrying about the next problem, expecting the next disaster, and preparing for battles that didn’t even exist.

Until I realized something.

I wasn’t afraid of problems.

On the contrary, I was incredibly familiar with them.

What I wasn’t familiar with was their absence.

I kept turning back onto the bumpy road

That realization changed the way I looked at my entire life because it came with an uncomfortable recognition: many of my previous difficulties had been caused by me.

Every time my life was moving in the right direction, I somehow jumped behind the wheel and turned onto the goddamn bumpy road again without even noticing it.

Because I had never learned how to enjoy life when nothing was wrong.

When there was no problem to deal with, I created one or made my life harder with thoughts, goals, challenges, tight deadlines, or conflicts.

So what could I do about a subconscious mechanism that was quietly sabotaging my peace?

Well, I had to learn how to navigate a good life, which might sound surreal to someone who never had this problem.

And of course, recognizing the pattern didn’t make it disappear. My brain still does this shit.

The difference is that today I can sometimes catch myself before I march into the next artificial war.

Subscribe now

Learning to leave things alone

In the past, when somebody didn’t reply to me quickly, I immediately suspected that something was wrong and took it personally.

Today, I’m aware of this pattern and try not to react the same way. If somebody doesn’t reply to my message, I assume they are busy with their own life. Until they directly tell me there is a problem, there is no problem.

The same applies to my job.

I used to search for new jobs the moment my boss wasn’t in a good mood. I interpreted his behavior as the beginning of a potential problem that could eventually cost me my job, so I started preparing for the worst before anything had even happened.

Today, if there is no recurring negative feedback, I assume everything is alright.

My boss could have slept poorly. He could have had a fight with his partner. There are countless reasons for someone’s behavior, and most of them probably have nothing to do with me.

The same applies to relationships.

If I’m in a relationship and everything is going well, I try to accept the simple fact that everything is going well. I don’t search for signs of a possible catastrophe that I need to turn into a discussion, and I’ve stopped trying to read my partner’s thoughts or the thoughts of other people in general.

That’s something people who are used to living with problems often do. We read and interpret everything as a potential threat.

Now I try not to act until my girlfriend actually says, “There is a problem. Let’s talk about it.”

And then there are goals and achievements.

Constantly setting new and harder goals was another convenient way to make my life difficult again. If I worked on several ambitious goals simultaneously, my schedule became tight, everything needed to be organized, my own needs came up short, and eventually I became frustrated.

The strange thing is that all of this felt familiar.

So now, when I achieve a goal, I try to live with the empty space for a while. I use it to rest, read, practice yoga, or simply do things without needing them to lead anywhere.

The thing I’m learning is to accept that not having any problems is a valid state of life.

Problems still feel like home

But I’m not perfect at this, and probably never will be.

When I talk to someone, let’s say at the gym, and that person tells me about a problem, I can still feel my brain waking up. It immediately switches back into its familiar firefighting mode and starts looking for solutions to the problems of people I barely know.

I remember searching for jobs for people I hardly knew because I wanted to help them.

Today, I try to just listen. I tell people they can reach out to me if they need help, wish them the best, and then return to my own life.

I try not to carry their problems home with me just so I can feel “home” again.

Still, I often catch myself thinking about solutions for other people. When I go for a walk, my brain loves having a problem to deal with, and I don’t think this part of me will ever completely disappear.

Maybe it doesn’t have to.

What matters is that I’m aware of it now. I can catch myself and ask whether there is actually a problem that needs to be solved or whether my brain is simply looking for something familiar.

Because a life without problems is actually pretty great.

Real problems will show up again. That’s inevitable.

And when they do, I can use the superpower I spent most of my life developing and deal with them.

But hopefully, the next part of my life will be about becoming just as good at living when there aren’t any.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 700 readers.

I stepped on most of these myself before I even realized they existed.

You know there are many ways you can ruin your life.

You can gamble all your money away in a casino or lose yourself in drugs.

Those are the obvious ones. We all know about them.

But then there are habits that slowly push your trajectory in the wrong direction.

There is no dramatic moment. You don’t suddenly go to jail or lose everything overnight. Instead, years pass, and one day you realize that you’re nowhere near where you actually wanted to be.

I think of these habits as landmines. They’re hidden along the path of life, and sometimes you don’t realize you’ve stepped on one until the damage is already done.

And I can tell you that I’ve stepped on quite a few myself.

Fortunately, none of them caused permanent damage that I couldn’t repair. But fixing that damage took a lot of hard work and, in some cases, years.

So I want to tell you about these landmines, because maybe knowing where they are will help you avoid stepping on them yourself.

Here are the 10 things that slowly ruin your life that I wish someone had told me about earlier.

1. Staying slightly too long in everything

There are many people who don’t leave. Whether it’s a relationship with hundreds of red flags or a job that drains them every single day, they stay until it slowly consumes them from the inside. Being unhappy and disappointed becomes normal. At some point, they stop thinking that something is wrong with their situation and start believing that life just sucks.

Deep down, these people know they should leave. But they never take that step because leaving feels harder than staying.

2. Pretending all the time instead of being who you actually are

Inhaling in the morning before you leave your home and exhaling once you close the door behind you in the evening.

There are people who have been doing this their entire lives. They’re exhausted, sad, and miserable on the inside because they believe their true self won’t be accepted. So they put on that happy face every day, laugh at jokes they don’t find funny, attend events they hate, and say yes when they mean no.

Then, later in life, some of these people wake up one day and ask themselves: Who am I actually?

And that can be a terrifying question when you’ve spent decades being who everyone else wanted you to be.

3. Pleasing everyone around you except yourself

People who please everyone are often the ones who rarely please themselves. They put everyone else’s needs before their own.

Over time, they become angry and exhausted, and they don’t even realize why.

There was a time when I also tried to please everyone around me. It got to the point where I had shaking hands and panic attacks.

And all that effort didn’t even get me the acceptance I so badly wanted. Because what I was looking for wasn’t something I could get from others. I had to give it to myself first.

4. Treating your real life as something that starts later

My parents wanted to go on vacation “next year” their whole lives. But they never went on that vacation.

It can be about anything, though. Your business idea, starting that hobby, booking that flight.

Your life is already happening now, and you’re most likely somewhere in the middle of it. There is no second life waiting for you once you finally have enough time.

If you have the time, money, and health to do something, don’t keep postponing it, because you don’t know how many more chances you’ll get.

Subscribe now

5. Expecting from others what you never give yourself

This is a tough one. You make other people responsible for meeting certain needs that you haven’t learned to meet yourself.

For example, my ex-girlfriend expected me to entertain her and constantly come up with new things for us to do, but she rarely did that herself. On the other hand, I expected her to show me unconditional love when I had never learned to give that love to myself.

She was angry at me, and I was angry at her. But we never asked ourselves the relevant question: Do we give ourselves what we expect from each other?

That’s the trap. When you depend on someone else to give you something you can’t give yourself, your happiness becomes dependent on their behavior. And whenever they fail to deliver, you blame them for how you feel.

You can spend years changing partners, friends, or circumstances without realizing that you’re carrying the same unmet need with you wherever you go.

6. Ignoring your health and calling it “enjoying life”

Someone I know used to tell me that he was simply someone who loved to enjoy life. Exercise wasn’t his thing. Eating well wasn’t his thing. But he loved opening a bottle of red wine on a random Tuesday.

Years later, he had a stroke at 41. I don’t know whether his lifestyle had anything to do with it. But seeing someone my age suddenly end up in a hospital changed the way I thought about health.

We tend to treat our health as something we’ll deal with once there’s a problem. The trouble is that by the time the problem arrives, some things are much harder to undo.

7. Always choosing what feels easier right now

It’s easier to stay on the couch than to go to the gym. My mother didn’t go to the doctor because she wanted to avoid hearing bad news.

There is always an excuse not to show up.

But many of the things you want require choosing temporary discomfort over what feels good right now. The good thing is that it’s your choice. You can stay on the couch and feel miserable, or you can get up and do the hard thing.

And this is a habit you can train.

Over time, the hard choice starts to become the easier one.

8. Comparing yourself to everyone and feeling behind

You will always find someone doing better than you. Someone who earns more money, looks better, travels more, has a nicer apartment, or seems to have figured out life while you’re still trying.

I feel it myself when someone tells me they’re moving into a fancy new apartment. Or when I walk through the garage in my building and see all those expensive cars.

But here is the strange thing about comparison: five minutes earlier, I was perfectly happy with my own life. Nothing about my life changed when I heard their news or saw those cars. I didn’t suddenly become poorer or less successful. I simply saw what someone else had and started looking at my own life differently.

That’s what comparison can do. It can turn something that was enough a moment ago into something that suddenly feels inadequate.

And there will always be another garage.

9. Never taking responsibility for your own life

I was there.

My parents, my girlfriends, and my teachers were to blame for my misery. And yes, what they did is on them. But I’m the one responsible for what I do with it now.

I know it’s not fair, and I also hated the idea that I’m the one who needs to clean up the mess after others. But here is the ugly truth: nobody will do it for you. No one is on the way to save you.

So either you stay stuck in victimhood and blame everyone else for your situation, or you start asking yourself what you can actually do about it.

Many people spend their whole lives in that prison and only realize at the end that they had a choice all along.

10. Trying to fill every void by buying something

Technology makes this worse.

You just log into your Amazon account, and within minutes something is on its way that makes you feel a little better.

People try to buy the status they don’t have, the novelty they don’t experience, and the identity they wish they had.

But the pleasure of a new gadget fades quickly, and the emptiness comes back. No Rolex, nice car, bag, or pair of shoes can give you what you need to develop on the inside.

Don’t get me wrong. Shopping is not the problem. The problem is when you try to fill the hole inside you with the next thing you order.

There are many landmines I mentioned above, but you don’t need to start panicking now. These are small hints, crumbs that can help you be aware of them.

And once you’re aware, you can also change your behavior if necessary.

The good news is that nothing I mentioned above is irreversible. You don’t go to jail or lose everything you have because you please everyone around you. But in the long term, these things can impact your life negatively.

It also means that you have enough time to change something before your life starts going in the wrong direction.

I did it, and it means that you can do it too.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 650 readers.

There was a time when I stayed in the wrong relationship and the wrong job without even realizing it. It took me years to understand why I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

People always told me it’s fate.

You cannot have a good relationship and a thriving career at the same time.

Either one or the other. And there was a time I actually believed it, because I experienced this phenomenon myself, in both directions.

The relationship ended after almost five years exactly when I finally started making money and getting recognition. And I also quit the job when I fell in love. Two of my ex-girlfriends broke up with me when they found a new job.

Many friends told me about the same experience and they also started to expect that outcome when they finally found a job or a partner. It almost turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy by thinking about having success in a job and love at the same time.

The myth seemed to be true.

Either that, or there must be something else we missed all the time.

I don’t believe in myths but I believe that there is almost always a reason for everything that happens in our life. We need to pay more attention.

After years of observing, thinking and reading I recognized the pattern that caused this fate-like situation.

And fortunately it’s not about a higher power playing an either-or game with us.

It’s about security.

When I finally had something, I saw everything

When I was unemployed back then, around the age of 22, I had a girlfriend.

We loved each other, moved together and tried to live our lives. But it was a tough time for me because after university I wasn’t able to find a stable job, only temporary solutions.

It sucked. But at least I had my girlfriend.

Who actually often talked to me like crap. She criticized me every single day. Same as my mother did. But I can tell you that I never once thought about breaking up with her.

When people asked me about our relationship I said we were happy, and I meant it.

She was the only person I could stick to and in my eyes she was perfect.

Then after two years of searching for jobs and trying to get into programs, I finally ended up in an international company. From the first day I sat in a room with academic people and worked for clients in Switzerland.

I got a computer, had my own desk in the office, people were nice to me and I started making real money. I also got a lot of appreciation from clients and colleagues.

I felt much better in my skin.

A few months in, I bought my first iPhone. My girlfriend criticized that too and said I was stupid for finally buying something for myself.

Time went on and I started to notice more when she judged me for something. When I wanted to watch an old movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger she said I was dumb. She criticized how I cleaned the apartment. When I wanted to tell her about my day she said she wasn’t interested at all.

Over time I had this feeling that I didn’t even want to go home anymore.

And I asked myself: what happened to her? Why did she change?

But the truth is that she didn’t change at all.

I changed.

Or more precisely, my circumstances changed.

She was the same person as when we first met. She didn’t criticize me more after I got a job. I finally had enough security in another part of my life to notice what had been there all along.

Which is interesting because it would mean I was blind in the first years of our relationship and didn’t see those problems.

I was blind, yes, but because that relationship meant survival for me. I lacked a good relationship with my parents, had no supportive network and no money either.

That level of insecurity narrowed my world. When one thing was keeping me emotionally stable, I became much more willing to tolerate everything that came with it.

It’s like asking yourself how to live a more fulfilled life. It’s a privileged question. People who work for survival every day don’t ask themselves whether their job fulfills them or makes them happy.

They work to make it to the next day.

And even if it sounds unfair, it was the same for me at the beginning of that relationship. I didn’t question those problems because losing the relationship felt too risky at that point in my life.

And none of this happened consciously. I wasn’t sitting there thinking that I needed her for stability or that I couldn’t afford to leave. I genuinely thought I was happy and that our relationship was good.

Sometimes we don’t stay because something is good. We stay because losing it feels too expensive.

Subscribe now

This time it was the job

When I was single in 2019 and started working for a company I shouldn’t have worked for, the same thing happened.

At that job I felt miserable every day. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t endure it, but I was under-challenged, bored, worked with people I didn’t like, on tasks I didn’t care about.

It was an e-commerce company whose purpose was to sell stuff to people, which I couldn’t identify with at all. But at that time I only looked at the bright side.

Then a few months in, I met my ex-girlfriend there. We fell for each other fast and turned quite quickly into a relationship. Once we had been together for a few months, I started complaining and searching for a new job.

That idea came out of nowhere. I suddenly had a long list of things I hated about that job that I hadn’t named before.

After one year and nine months I quit. But I’m telling you I wouldn’t have quit as quickly if I hadn’t met her. That was the same process I had experienced before, just flipped.

The first time, a job gave me enough stability to question my relationship.

This time, a relationship gave me enough stability to question my job.

What insecurity actually does to you

Looking back, I know insecurity narrowed my world.

When we are insecure, we can only afford to focus on what keeps us stable. Everything else becomes less important.

The moment a second stable pillar shows up in our life, like a new job, a new relationship, a better network, we suddenly have more room to question the things we tolerated before.

We start seeing things differently. Not necessarily because they got worse. Because we finally have enough security to look.

And the more security you have, the easier it becomes to consider alternatives.

Being single is not as scary when you suddenly have cool people around you in the office and a life outside your relationship. Quitting a job doesn’t feel as scary when you have a loving relationship waiting for you at home.

It’s not entitlement. You simply know that leaving became an option.

What to watch out for

This is the part I actually wanted to share with you, so you won’t end up surprised in that weird situation.

1. Make decisions slowly when you don’t have enough stability in your life. If your relationship is the only stable thing right now, be careful about big commitments like moving together or having a kid. People often do these steps because they want to keep their only stable pillar in their life, not because they really want it.

2. If you suddenly see problems that weren’t there before, take a step back. When you land a new job or enter a new relationship and suddenly start complaining about the other area of your life, it could be a sign. Those problems might have always been there. Take your time to think about it before you make changes out of impulse.

3. Don’t automatically assume that something suddenly became worse. Maybe your partner didn’t change. Maybe your job didn’t change. Sometimes the biggest change is that you now have enough security to admit what you don’t like. That doesn’t automatically mean you should leave. It means you finally have the space to ask yourself whether you actually want what you have.

I almost got a dog after my last breakup. I love dogs. I really want one. But I was reflecting on it and I knew I only wanted it right then because I felt miserable. That was my survival instinct, so I didn’t get the dog.

I still want one. But I want to get one because I want a dog, not because I need something to make an unstable period of my life feel stable.

Maybe you read my last piece about the rejections I got recently. I’m single and not fully happy in my job either. This would be exactly the moment where my survival instinct could push me into bad decisions. I could jump into a relationship with someone I don’t like just to feel loved a bit.

That would be wrong and fortunately I’m aware of it.

Insecurity can make us blind.

Once the pressure decreases and we have more stable pillars, like a job, a relationship, a strong network, financial security, then we start becoming more aware of the things we don’t actually like.

It’s not necessarily that those things became worse. Sometimes we simply stopped ignoring what was always there.

And sometimes we don’t stay because something is good for us, but because losing it feels too expensive.

That’s why I think the more stable pillars we build in our lives, the less desperately we need any single one of them.

And then we can finally ask ourselves a much better question before we make a commitment:

Do I actually want this, or do I just need it?

Because there is a huge difference.

The good news is that you can have the good job and the wonderful relationship at the same time. But you need to choose them because you actually want them, not because you desperately need something to hold on to.

The myth for me is busted.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 650 readers.

This was something that beat me down for a few days and made me question everything in my life.

When I clicked the play button on her voice message and heard the first three sentences, I had that feeling of explosion in my stomach. My body got warm and I had a choking feeling in my throat.

It was almost unnecessary to listen to the end, but I did anyway because I was paralyzed for a few seconds.

She didn’t want to see me again.

We have all been rejected in our lives and it’s not the first time for me either, but it doesn’t get any easier.

There was also this tiny voice in the back of my mind. The voice of the self-fulfilling prophecy about not being good enough, waking up immediately and saying: I told you.

It was almost like a moment of satisfaction because that belief I have been carrying my whole life about not being good enough might turn out to be true. And if it is true, then failing is not my fault at all. I’m just messed up and for that I can blame my parents. It’s a relief and an easy way out.

Good thing I didn’t fall into that trap and I don’t need to blame myself either.

But that voice message was the last drop in the glass of rejections I collected within a month, and it forced me to sit down. Usually I start asking loudly what all these rejections are trying to teach me, as if I were talking to a higher power, to God, or to the universe, waiting for the verdict.

But no one gave me the answer.

Two rejections from employers for trying to level up professionally and another from a girl I really liked.

I’m sure if I had received those nos with more time between them, I wouldn’t have ended up almost losing myself in victimhood. But they came one after another too quickly, and I couldn’t recover from the first one before the next arrived.

There is this saying about relationships that if you have a bad day, like fighting with your partner, you need at least five good days to make things good again. This might also apply to life in general.

The problem is not when you face problems or rejections. It simply gets overwhelming when many of them come simultaneously.

Then you don’t have a stable pillar in your life. When a date doesn’t work out but you are thriving in your job, a rejection doesn’t bother you as much. And it works the other way around as well. When you have success in dating or another area of your life but not in getting a better job or raise, at least you can turn to your partner and feel loved.

This is actually an interesting phenomenon I’m going to write about later.

In that moment, I had the rejections at work and I couldn’t call the girl anymore to talk about the work situation either, because she had also said no.

I had that tough hour, but since then I feel a little more relaxed about everything in my life.

But I didn’t become nonchalant, and I didn’t avoid my harsh feelings either.

I wanted to cry. I was lying on the couch and felt the pain. In my chest, in my stomach, and in my heart.

Maybe I tried too hard?

Should we search for lessons at all? Or just accept rejection as part of life and keep going?

I need more than that.

Maybe rejection helps us to pause and to think.

I have been contemplating it for a week now and letting my mind process those negative experiences.

One important thing came up quite quickly about not being good enough.

The fact that they didn’t choose me and the belief that I’m not good enough are two different things. Which might not be obvious to many of us. It helped me to separate my self-worth from those results.

The other thing that especially hit me is how little control I actually have over outcomes.

And I like to have control.

It helped me to survive in my childhood. It’s important to me to know everything about time, planning, and everything else. I want to calculate all possible outcomes in my mind like Magnus Carlsen, the chess grandmaster.

But life is often unpredictable. If I believe I delivered well in a job interview, it doesn’t mean at all that they thought I was great.

Or when I’m on a date, being polite, showing interest, and making her smile doesn’t mean she will like me.

That breaks the pattern that usually works well in my running training. I can calculate everything, and if I deliver, I get the results.

I thought I was well prepared for those conversations with employers and also for the date.

Still, nothing worked out.

That’s why my other learning is that the secret of success is not always great preparation.

Maybe it is taking on as many attempts as possible, having a lot of rejections and a few wins.

Or maybe it’s being more at peace and more present in the moment. Or being at the right place at the right time.

Who knows?

As I mentioned above, I feel more relaxed this week. It’s like a break. No interviews, no dates.

It’s like another encounter with acceptance that I can’t control everything in my life.

So trying too hard wasn’t the problem.

It was my expectation that good performance and following the right steps would naturally lead to guaranteed success.

This reminded me of what real life is. It can go sideways even if I did my best. But the other way is also possible. It can go well even if I didn’t do my best.

And I’m telling you this now so you won’t be surprised next time you get rejected while you feel well prepared.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 650 readers.

There was a time I believed anger is something I just need to release somehow and that's the whole story. I was wrong.

I was hitting the elevator door with my fist and had this feeling of explosion in my whole body because I was so angry.

That was the time when I didn’t know that I’m someone who loves freedom.

Also an introverted guy who couldn’t stand being in the spotlight.

That was the third day of a company gathering with workshops, stupid team building games and networking. On my way out, leaving home, I couldn’t keep myself together anymore.

But I lacked any explanation for my anger. There was only a feeling of rage and the repeating line in my mind: I don’t wanna go!

It would have been great to have someone who patted my back and told me that that moment had something important to tell me.

This is what I’m trying to do for you.

Because I needed at least 5 more years until I finally figured out what my anger was about.

But don’t get me wrong. Not every anger needs deep psychological interpretation. For instance, if someone scratches your car then the reason for freaking out is obvious.

What I’m writing about here is the anger that seems exaggerated given the situation. The kind that leaves you wondering why you turned into a beast for a second.

People often email me and ask about tools that help them to uncover their true self.

I usually tell them that they need to notice when they smile effortlessly or end up in a state of flow when they forget time passing. Which are all great signs if you want to understand what excites you and where your true interests lie.

What I often forget to mention is anger. And that’s why I wanted to dedicate an article to it.

Your anger is a great compass but also the finest source of self-destruction.

If it stays unexpressed, it will eat you from the inside. If you express it by screaming, hitting the gym, or hitting the elevator door, the problem will return because you didn’t solve the cause.

Next time you might let it out directly at your partner because she didn’t take out the trash, and you get into a fight. On top of that, you might turn into that annoying passive-aggressive person nobody wants to be around.

That’s why it’s important not only to treat the symptoms of your anger by releasing it but also to understand what it is trying to teach you about yourself.

Here are three important things you can learn about yourself by understanding your anger.

Your boundaries

You get angry when someone crosses a line. The tricky part is that you might not even know that boundary exists.

For instance, if your boss gives you extra work without asking whether you have the capacity for it, you might silently accept it but spend the rest of the day irritated at everyone around you.

Your boss crossed a boundary that says: I want to be consulted about my capacity and time before I get a new task.

But since you got used to it and it was always like this, you never realized that boundary existed.

Your anger is telling you that there is something you should pay attention to.

Earlier in my life, I was also angry when my girlfriend tried to force me to discuss an issue before I could think about it first. I’m an inner thinker due to my introverted personality and I like to take some time to think about problems before I talk about them.

In those situations, I learned that I need to communicate openly that I need some time to think before having a conversation about a problem. Surprisingly, nobody had a problem with that boundary since then.

And that’s why it’s important to take a moment when you get angry and ask yourself: has someone just crossed a line? If yes, try to name it out loud to yourself, and once you have it, you can say it next time.

Once you name the boundary, you will learn something about yourself that helps uncover who you really are.

Your values

Your values are even more important if you want to get to know yourself better. Based on them you can make better decisions that will help you to live more aligned with yourself.

If you know that freedom is an important value for you, you might choose a profession where you have more room to make decisions on your own. This is the reason why I love to work fully remote because this way I can design my days. It makes me more satisfied than being forced into an office all day long.

Knowing your values helps you to filter opportunities better. If you’re looking for a job and the company offers a lot of money but no freedom, you will end up frustrated.

I also get angry when I see that someone has been treated unfairly because fairness is another one of my most important values.

Or when I go hiking and see trash in a beautiful forest.

I value nature and it pisses me off when people simply throw away empty coke bottles in the middle of the forest.

This helps me to live more consciously. I don’t have a car but ride a bicycle a lot, recycle trash, and buy clothes from sustainable manufacturers. I feel great about it.

Next time you get angry, ask yourself whether it is about a value. Don’t judge it, just notice it.

Write it down and keep it in mind the next time you need to make a decision, so you can check whether that decision is aligned with your values.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

Your wounds

Earlier in my life I often felt some kind of explosion in my chest when I talked to someone and noticed that the person wasn’t listening to me.

My mother did that regularly during my childhood.

I would tell her about school and in the middle of my story she would start talking to my father, as if I wasn’t there at all. That created a wound in me, the belief that I’m not worth listening to, and it hurts every single time someone gets distracted while I’m talking.

It was important to understand that anger in me because not everyone is like my mother. Sometimes it can really happen that someone gets distracted for a second. That should not be a reason to get upset.

But it wasn’t obvious to me when I was younger.

Only after I understood where that feeling came from and what it triggered in me could I start working on it.

Today when it happens, I don’t get angry but I empathize with the other person. This is important because that way I don’t let my past control my mood all the time.

You are probably also carrying some wounds with you. We all do. Our anger can help us identify them and find better ways to deal with them.

Next time you get angry, stop for a minute and ask yourself when you felt similarly in the past.

Use your anger as a compass

I’m always talking about how important it is that we know ourselves because it helps us to live a more fulfilling life.

But I do agree that it’s easier said than done when it comes to the actual process of getting to know ourselves.

Fortunately, we are not completely lost. There are many things we can pay attention to.

Anger is one of them. It helps us define our essentials like boundaries, values, and wounds. If you combine these with your true interests and the things that excite you, you can build a pretty satisfying life around them.

Try to think about your life like building a house. If you don’t get the foundation right, the building will collapse at some point when the storm arrives.

But if you have built a house on a solid foundation, it can resist and stay stable during hard times as well.

Your anger points in the direction where those basic pillars of yours lie.

Be curious about them. Uncover them. Use them to find your own way.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 650 readers.

At some point I got so exhausted in my life that I didn't need any other change, just to become authentic for the first time.

It took me 39 years to understand what it takes to live an authentic life.

Decades ago I would have said that I have to become indifferent and able to say “fuck you” in people’s faces without a blink.

And I have always admired those people who were able to say what they had on their mind without being scared and do whatever they wanted.

People who don’t explain themselves because they are so centered and unbothered.

I thought this was something genetically hardcoded in those lucky bastards but not in people like me.

But here is the good news for you and me: I was wrong back then.

After almost half of my life while facing many hardships, I figured out what made those people fearlessly authentic.

It’s not their genetics or money.

But it’s something you can develop by working on yourself and it comes down to three essential things.

They know themselves

I mean how could you become authentic if you don’t have anything to be authentic about?

If you don’t know yourself well then you only have two options:

1. You start faking something you’re not, which is the opposite of being authentic.

2. Or you simply do what other people want you to do, so you become a servant.

None of these options will lead you in the right direction.

You must know yourself deeply. Know what you love and how you like to spend your time alone when nobody is watching.

That’s the foundation of an authentic life.

This was my biggest problem when I was younger because I spent my whole childhood pleasing my mother. She criticized me to death and gave me the feeling that everything I liked was wrong. So I learned to please her, so she was happy and I felt right about myself.

I carried this strategy over the years into my romantic relationships, friendships and workplaces as well.

All my girlfriends complained that I didn’t have anything cool in my life like other guys who played in bands, were skating or playing on sports teams. I was sitting at home wondering how I could please my girlfriend.

Wow, this still hurts me when I write it down because I literally did that and I was surprised that they didn’t find me attractive anymore.

People who are able to express themselves in an authentic way have one thing in common: they formed an opinion of their own, based on their interests, values, needs, desires, strengths, weaknesses and what matters to them.

They don’t need to be right and badass all the time, but they own their true self.

Ask me today what I love, or ask anyone who you think is living an authentic life.

I can give you the exact answers including the values I’m living by. All the unfiltered stuff and my nerdy interests regarding astrophysics and movies.

For you it can be a good entry point to ask yourself how you would spend a weekend without any plan or distractions.

They are honest with themselves

One thing is knowing, but accepting is where it can get hard.

When I was younger I had the feeling that I’m a nerd in some ways, like if it’s about movies, books, instrumental music or even astrophysics. Unfortunately these were not the things I wanted to spend my time on.

Why? Because I thought these things were lame.

I purchased a 200€ Yamaha guitar so I could tell everyone that I play guitar. The guitar was much cooler than books by Stephen Hawking.

The shiny black guitar looked much cooler on Instagram and Facebook. I was also wearing a hat so I looked like Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day.

As a result I embarrassed myself every single time when people asked me how to play a guitar, or when someone accidentally had one with them. I tried to find excuses while getting a red face and trying to explain myself.

Everyone knew that I was a fraud.

That’s exactly how someone looks who doesn’t live an authentic life.

I could have avoided these moments by accepting my real interests, because there lies the difference.

If I’m honest with myself then I can be honest with others as well. If I accept myself as I am, I don’t need everyone else’s acceptance.

There is no need to pretend.

Yesterday I had a phone call with a friend. I told her about the book I recently read, The Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. For 10 minutes I spoke about light speed, stars and the problem with the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

She just said: wow, so cool that you know these things and remember everything you’ve read about.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

They live accordingly

Authentic people live the way they are.

They don’t put on a mask when they leave their home. The time they spend pretending is reduced to a minimum. Thanks to that, these people have more energy and are well balanced.

There is no secret life they try to hide when they are with others.

Years ago when I was 30 years old, I remember going to the office and putting on a mask every single day. In the evening, when I came home, I closed the door behind me and stopped for 10 seconds to breathe in and out. That was the moment I put down my mask. I felt exhausted.

Today when I go out, I stay the same as I am at home. I focus on the things I learned about myself, accepted, and created space for in my life.

When I meet new people and they are interested, I tell them about my life. It’s still surprising how much more likable I am now than back then when I wanted to be someone else.

I also sleep better because I know that tomorrow will be another day with me and I don’t need to prepare for the next performance.

Here is one more thing to mention: being authentic doesn’t mean that you never compromise on anything. If your partner or family need you then you don’t need to say no to them just because you’re such an authentic guy now.

Caring and supporting others are also part of authentic living and sometimes we need to push that solo trip back a week.

Just don’t skip it completely.

Life is just better this way

Authenticity is knowing who you are, accepting who you are, and having the courage to live accordingly.

Nothing will make you happier than waking up every day and being yourself.

Believe me, I have tried many different ways, but in the end the answer was not who I should become, but whether I could simply live as I am.

Give it a try and let me know how it went.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 500 readers.

Two years sober and I still have more questions than answers. This is my honest version of the story.

Last week I told you the story of why alcohol and I became best friends for more than twenty years, and what led to our ultimate breakup.

But the story did not end there.

After quitting, I had to face a completely new reality I had never experienced as an adult: living without alcohol.

Thousands of people search every month for questions like how to stay social without drinking, how to maintain friendships after getting sober, or whether quitting changes your social life.

I am not surprised.

If someone had asked me to quit ten years ago, I would have laughed in their face.

Drinking was simply too much fun and I wanted to keep it in my life. But as you read last week, the negative effects slowly outweighed the positive ones and I made my choice to leave that life behind.

The First Thing I Noticed

A few years ago I did Sober January with friends a few times, mostly to prove to ourselves that we did not have a problem if we could go a whole month without drinking.

We met on a Friday night after work and ordered non-alcoholic beers, but the conversations were noticeably different. It felt more like quickly updating each other on the week and nothing more. We admitted quickly that it made no sense to buy another non-alcoholic beer just to sit there in silence, so we called it a night early, around ten.

We literally spent the whole month counting the days until we could drink again.

I tried it once with an ex-girlfriend too, but she gave up after two weeks. She said life was too boring without drinks. Tough statement, if you think about it.

But now I do not have a date I am counting down to. I simply do not drink anymore.

And it changed my social life and how people pigeonhole me.

At the beginning I tried to believe I could keep up my old lifestyle.

In my mind I had pictured myself like those people at college parties who danced around with a Coke Light in their hands, perfectly at ease.

So I hung out with friends as before, but this time I stuck to non-alcoholic drinks. With my closest friends it was not a problem to spend time together, but just like during those sober January months, the night was always much shorter.

When strangers joined us, I went quiet again. I did not feel bad around them, but I did not open up the way I used to with alcohol.

The difference this time was that I had already figured out I was introverted, and that it was completely normal for me not to get into deep conversations with people I did not know. I saw that part of myself less as a problem now, which was a genuine improvement compared to the old days when I believed something was fundamentally wrong with me.

Once the strangers left, I started talking more again with my friends.

But something was still different. The mood no longer built the way it used to after three beers and two hours of drinking.

Instead it sort of plateaued and then quietly descended. Not into anything bad, but it felt like there was an end somewhere on the horizon that had not been there before.

We still laughed sometimes, but it was contained, nothing like the free flow that used to come after a few rounds.

I also started saying no to work related events.

A room full of people wanting to network did not sound like something I wanted to be part of anymore.

Before, I would have arrived already loosened up by a drink or two, ready to jump straight into small talk, crack some jokes, and feel like I belonged.

Sober, those events felt completely different. I felt like a white mark on a dark background that had ended up there by accident. I had to be honest with myself: I genuinely do not like those events.

Because I stopped showing up and started saying no to after-work pizza and beer gatherings, people at work began to label me boring.

Nobody said it out loud, but I could see it in their eyes. They were polite, but they stopped asking me to join them.

After about a year of not drinking, I stopped receiving any invitations to company dinners or parties at all. I only found out about them by accidentally seeing them in someone else’s calendar. They had simply stopped considering me.

That hit me sometimes, because at previous workplaces I had been one of the people who organized those evenings. The one everyone counted on to make it fun.

Then there was our yearly big company event where people came from different countries for workshops and a party. We had dinner together and that part went fine, because I work with these people every day and we had enough to talk about. But when dinner ended, someone suggested going to the bars. Every single person went except me. I knew it made no sense for me to go. I would not drink and I would not enjoy it. So I said a quick, slightly awkward goodbye to everyone and disappeared into the evening.

The next morning I saw the photos from the night I had not been part of. A few years ago I would have been there. I might have felt rough the next day, but I would have been in those photos. I would have had those memories and those new connections too.

This happened not only at work but with almost everyone I used to drink with.

Everyone tried to be polite and understanding about my decision, but I immediately felt they did not see the point of hanging out anymore.

For what, exactly? To sit silently next to each other? I am not exaggerating. That is genuinely how it would have gone.

Quitting alcohol worked like a filter.

Many of the people I used to spend time with got stuck on it. Only a handful came through on the other side, friends who still wanted to see me without drinking, but in a different way.

I have to be honest here. These changes made me sad sometimes. I know this transformation is a process, and I know I was gaining things I could never have had while drinking. But losing things you used to enjoy is still a certain kind of grieving, even when the decision was right.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

What Happened to My Dating Life

I updated my dating profile to say I was sober. I quickly noticed fewer matches after that. Some women wrote to ask whether it was true that I did not drink, or whether it would bother me if they did. I always said it did not bother me, but most of them stopped replying anyway.

Maybe that was not the reason. But I think it played a part.

In my last relationship, when I mentioned I was thinking about quitting, my girlfriend became genuinely upset. She said alcohol played such an important role in her life that she could not imagine being with someone who did not drink. That surprised me, but it also showed me how deeply intertwined drinking is with the way most people connect.

Outside of dating apps, I also rarely end up in situations where meeting someone new is even possible anymore. Almost every girlfriend I ever had I met at a party, after work, during a day-drinking session, or at some kind of event where alcohol was present and lowering everyone’s guard including mine.

Those unpredictable, unplanned moments have gone quiet.

This is something Scott Galloway talks about in almost every podcast appearance, that Gen Z is drinking less and as a result meeting less, having less sex, getting into less trouble. The percentage of single and sexless men and women is rising and he sees a strong connection to the decline in drinking.

I think about that more than I expected to.

Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, also quit alcohol for a few years and recently started again.

He said that despite all the benefits, something was still missing. He did not enjoy music the way he used to. His marriage became a little flat because even on vacation with his wife they ended up going to bed at nine without doing anything wild or memorable.

I completely understand that. And when I see people I respect making that decision to go back, it sometimes makes me question my own.

But when I am completely honest with myself, I know I do not miss the alcohol.

What I miss is the novelty, the adventure, and the fun moments that alcohol used to help create. That is exactly what Manson missed too. He just admitted he had not found another way to generate those moments without it, partly because he discovered he was far more introverted than he had realized before quitting.

For now I have accepted that those things are missing, without forcing myself toward any particular solution.

That patience is also something new. The old version of me would have tried to escape this feeling immediately rather than just sitting with it.

What I Actually Gained

Quitting alcohol and doing serious work on myself has produced results. Small ones, but real ones.

I can now hold a conversation when I run into someone on the street, someone from my gym or a previous job. I feel comfortable in my own skin in a way I genuinely never did before.

Quitting made it possible to do hard things consistently, like training for marathons. Being sober helped me sleep well, perform better at work, and walk into difficult conversations without falling apart.

Those things built something in me over time.

During the years I was drinking, I was an insecure, shy person with low self-esteem on top of being introverted.

That has changed.

Today I have simply accepted that I am introverted, and when I find myself in a social situation, even with fewer of them than before, I no longer panic or feel the need to perform. I stay, I make eye contact, I ask genuine questions, I listen, and sometimes I am even funny without anything in my glass.

That is something I had genuinely never experienced before in my life.

I also notice that people seem to respect the decision. Friends tell me they admire it. Some say they want to do it too but are not ready, or are still enjoying the advantages I used to enjoy. I do not judge anyone for that. I have been there, and I honestly do not know where I will be in five years.

The Honest Closing

Most people do not actually want to drink.

They want what drinking gives them: the uninhibited conversations, the courage to talk to a stranger, the feeling of being the funniest person at the table. As I wrote last week, those things drove me for over twenty years.

Wanting to be more relaxed, open, and brave is completely human, and having those desires without alcohol does not mean something is wrong with you.

Alcohol is simply a shortcut. It lends you those qualities for an evening without requiring years of slow, uncomfortable work to build them for real. And because life is short, most people would rather borrow them tonight than earn them over years.

I am not going to say I will never drink again. I might.

But I am feeling too good right now mentally and physically to consider it, and I wonder whether starting again after forty even makes sense for me.

If I do drink again, I will write about that too.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 500 readers.

Most people don't drink because they love alcohol. They drink because they love who they become when they drink.

To understand what happens when you quit alcohol, you need to understand what it was giving you in the first place.

This is that story.

The whole journey splits into three chapters:

1. Before I touched alcohol.

2. The years I drank.

3. Life after becoming sober.

This article covers the first two.

Next week, I’ll cover the third.

I’ve also written about the health side of quitting and how to do it. If you’re interested, check them out:

Alcohol in my life before I had my first glass

I grew up in a family where alcohol was always present. Both of my grandfathers died from its consequences and my father followed the same path, misusing it as often as possible. My mother never drank, only a glass of wine at Christmas, because she had the opposite reaction to her husband’s alcoholism. She hated it. But because it was familiar, she tolerated it.

Both of my parents suffered from anxiety in their own ways. My mother lived in a constant state of worry, a kind of self-generated terror. My father fought feelings of not being good, strong, or valuable enough. He was deeply jealous, and alcohol amplified everything.

Fights, yelling, broken glasses, and worse were simply part of everyday life.

This made it impossible to have friends over because the situation was always too unpredictable.

My parents never had friends.

Growing up in that house, I learned quickly not to invite anyone either. My brother was six years older than me and always out with his friends. I stayed home, managing my mother’s misery and waiting for my drunk father to return so our daily tradition could begin.

Why am I telling you about my broken family?

Because those circumstances shaped my relationship with alcohol before I ever took a sip. Due to constant isolation, I developed social anxiety early. I turned red the moment I had to speak in front of a handful of people I already knew because I felt so insecure.

My mother’s constant criticism gave me the sense that I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes or just be myself, because that would embarrass her. She had a narcissistic personality, she needed constant attention and often withdrew her love when I didn’t do something right.

Her behavior made me feel like everything was my fault.

I became a child who worried constantly. I couldn’t measure my cortisol levels back then, but I was running on chronic anxiety. I didn’t know what I wanted because I was never encouraged to explore my own interests and nobody asked me about that either. My parents never knew what music or movies I liked, which kids I was hanging out with at school, nothing. My only job was to manage my mother’s emotional needs. When other kids’ parents asked why I was so quiet, I said I didn’t know, smiled, and shrugged my shoulders.

I had nothing to say, or at least nothing I believed was worth saying.

At school, I was one of the best students because failing would embarrass my mother. But socially, I was lost. We never had guests at home, so I never learned how to be around other people.

I declined every birthday party invitation because if I went, I’d have to invite them back, and I had no birthday party to give. I lied constantly. Made up reasons why I couldn’t come. Pretended we had vacations we never took.

I hated it, because deep down I wanted what they had. Cool parents. A normal house. To be the kid who made everyone laugh.

Instead, I carried years of unexpressed anger, unmet wishes, and the feeling that I simply wasn’t built the same way as everyone else.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

Alcohol gave me the life I always wanted

I was 14 when a friend suggested we drink together. He already had experience with alcohol once or twice but for me, it was the first time. Maybe at home I had licked some from my father’s beer once but that was all. We went to a supermarket and bought cherry liquor and mixed it with Coke.

After the third plastic cup, it kicked in.

We laughed. I tried to walk to a tree to pee and couldn’t go straight. We laughed more at ourselves and finished all four small bottles we had. That night we went to a teenage disco, running down the middle of the street on a Saturday evening. My eyes were almost closed and I was cheering loudly, stumbling from side to side.

It felt like Andy Dufresne walking out of Shawshank.

Except instead of a physical prison, I had just escaped the mental one I’d been locked in for the first 14 years of my life. I didn’t feel worried anymore. I didn’t care what other people might think about me. We were in another city anyway, and the alcohol made me feel free.

After that night, I knew I had found the solution for my anxiety and being socially awkward: alcohol.

Drinking and partying became my regular escape. I went to parties every weekend, not because I wanted to enjoy the music or because I was interested in those people. That was also part of it, but I simply needed to get out.

I danced carelessly and also started smoking as a small symbol of freedom.

Honestly, I became cooler. I talked to strangers, told jokes. They laughed and patted me on the back. My social circle grew for the first time in my life.

You can imagine what that meant to a kid who had spent years believing he wasn’t good enough.

Hangovers became familiar but I was more than ready to pay that small price for my new, enhanced life.

Sundays were for lying in bed and suffering a little. Sometimes I went out on Sunday too and drank a beer or two.

At university, I moved as far from my parents as I could. I chose the school by distance.

And it worked.

By that time, I was an experienced drinker. I quickly found new connections with people who shared my admiration for the booze and we drank almost every day, skipping seminars, heading to the bar at 1pm for table soccer and gin tonics.

Those people didn’t know my background. After a few beers, I talked like I belonged.

I organized my first birthday parties. One night I kissed one girl in one corner of the bar and another in the other corner. The first found out and poured half a liter of wine in my face.

My friends said I was so cool and I was so proud.

Looking back, I was still an insecure kid. Just also an asshole. But I didn’t care. I was catching up on everything I had missed.

Alcohol helped.

After graduating, came work.

I never drank during office hours, that much discipline I had. But I lived for the moment someone said “drinks after work?” The answer was always yes. I remember one evening when colleagues from headquarters were visiting. I arrived late. About ten people were sitting almost silently at a table. Then one of them spotted me and said: “David! Finally. It’s been so boring. When you’re here it’s always fun.”

I’ll never forget that. Someone was happy I walked in the room. I ordered a beer, lit a cigarette, and started talking.

I was proud, again.

What they didn’t know was that I had already drunk three beers at home before I left.

I always did. I sat on the balcony, had beers or a gin tonic, smoked, put on music until I felt right, and then I left.

Without that ritual, I was nervous.

Because no matter how many good experiences I collected, no matter how much positive feedback I got over the years, inside I was still the kid from elementary school who didn’t know how to be in a room with people.

I didn’t get better with people. I got better at drinking.

There were moments it was obvious.

Meeting a girlfriend’s parents sober, sitting quietly at the table while everyone wondered what was wrong with me. But the moment the first drinks came out and her father asked me outside for a cigarette, I knew what to do. I drank as fast as I could without looking like I was doing it.

Two drinks in, I started talking. Asking questions. Making them laugh.

My girlfriend looked over with that look in her eyes, proud of the funny guy she had brought home.

Every man on earth wants that look from his girl.

And finally, I got it too.

Alcohol helped again.

After 20 years of moments like these, I think it’s understandable why I kept going.

At least I have empathy for my own behavior.

And I’m sure many of you recognize something here. The deep underlying need to be liked. To feel cool at least once. The feeling of belonging. The courage that doesn’t come naturally.

The mental prison with a liquid key.

But as we all know, nothing lasts forever.

When alcohol stopped working

You know how a hangover gets worse as you get older.

If not, don’t worry, you will learn it.

Your body starts sending different signals. It started for me around 32 but I held on until 35.

By then it had become bad. If I drank heavily on a Saturday, I still felt wrecked by Wednesday. I wanted to throw up in the gym five days later. The social benefits started disappearing too. I drank and felt a little more relaxed, but that free, euphoric mode was gone.

After a few beers my body was a mess while my mind stayed sober, watching.

During drinking, my mind would wander to the next day, thinking about the consequences of the next beer we had just ordered. I knew I wanted to open my eyes on Sunday feeling fresh, not that feeling you probably also know, when your eyes open in the morning and you know immediately that you’re screwed and it will be a day about survival.

Just thinking about that made me not want the beer sitting in front of me.

Then one evening, after I had drunk a bit more again, I caught my reflection and saw my father.

That image didn’t leave me. Without the social benefits, and with my body rejecting it, I felt disgusted. I couldn’t walk straight and when the waitress came with the bill I couldn’t express myself properly. My words mixed up.

So I started reducing more and more. Sometimes I’d nurse a single beer for hours and sometimes leave it on the table unfinished. My only wish was to wake up fresh in the morning.

Slowly, I moved from drinking to belong to just enduring it to fit in.

Until one day I was done.

Two years ago, I stopped completely and I haven’t had a drink since.

Many people are scared to stop because they don’t want to lose exactly what I described above. They search online about how it feels to be completely sober. Some of them want confirmation that quitting makes life miserable so they can continue drinking, or that quitting makes life better without losing the version of themselves that only exists when they drink.

That’s the question I couldn’t answer for 20 years either.

But you’ll find an honest answer here soon.

Because that’s the story I’m telling next week.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 500 readers.

This one took longer to write than usual, mostly because it meant admitting things about my younger self I'm not proud of.

I didn’t expect a hot afternoon in the south of France to teach me anything about myself, but it did.

We were in Nice, on vacation with my ex-girlfriend. We had dropped her car off for a service appointment and had to walk back to the train station afterward. It was around noon, the kind of heat where every step feels like walking into a wall. One side of the street was sunlit, the other shaded by the buildings. We were walking on the sunny side when she said we should cross to the other one. I looked at her, confused, and asked why. She looked back at me, equally confused, and said we were burning alive over here.

That was the moment I realized I hadn’t noticed I was sweating through my shirt and that my skin was starting to sting from the sun. My first thought, once I caught up with what she meant, was that crossing the street would be better for her. It took a second longer to register that it would also be better for me.

Without her, I would have walked the entire way on the sunny side without a second thought, not because I preferred it, but because paying attention to my own needs had never been something I learned to do. After that day, I kept turning the question over: in how many other situations had I been ignoring what I actually needed, without ever noticing?

At that point in my life, I had already encountered ideas like awareness and self-improvement, but I was still a beginner. That walk in Nice is one of the clearest examples I have of what self-improvement actually gave me: the simple ability to notice that I exist, and that what happens to me matters too.

What changed in how I love people

A friend of mine has a demanding life, and there are stretches where she goes quiet for weeks. Years ago, her silence used to feel like a verdict. I would tell myself the friendship was over, that she had quietly moved on, and I would wait, almost daring her to prove me wrong by reaching out first. If she didn’t, I took it personally, sometimes even resentfully, as though her busy life was something done to me.

I never once considered messaging her first. Reaching out felt like an admission that I needed her more than she needed me, and somewhere underneath that was the belief that if I wasn’t the one being chased, I wasn’t really wanted at all.

Today, when a few weeks pass without a word from her, I’m the one who reaches out. I send a message, ask how she’s doing, and I mean it without any quiet test attached to it. She always replies warmly, and I’ve come to understand that her silence was never a verdict on us. It was just her life being full. The difference isn’t that she changed. I did.

That same period cost me a different friendship entirely. I had a friend who, whenever something didn’t go the way he wanted, would shift into manipulation rather than conversation. He never once looked at his own part in anything. If I didn’t meet some expectation he’d never actually stated out loud, the fault was automatically mine. For years I absorbed that, because ending the friendship felt like proof that I was the difficult one, the one who couldn’t keep people around.

Eventually I did end it, and I felt no guilt afterward, which surprised me almost as much as the decision itself. The old version of me believed that removing someone from my life meant I had failed at being a good enough friend, and that whatever someone gave me, however unbalanced, I was obligated to accept it gratefully.

What changed wasn’t that I stopped caring about people. It was that I stopped needing something from them to feel secure in the relationship. Before, every connection ran on a quiet transaction: their attention proved my worth, their silence threatened it. Today I can let someone be unavailable without reading it as rejection, and I can let someone go without reading it as my own failure. I’m genuinely happy these people exist in my life, but I no longer need them to in order to feel okay.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

Why I take self-improvement seriously

Self-improvement gets demonized by one group and worshipped by another, and most of the public conversation happens at those two extremes. I’ve spent the last two decades watching both camps, and I think the truth lives in a quieter, less talked-about middle.

I don’t believe the people who reject self-improvement and choose instead to “just be themselves” arrived there without doing any inner work at all. Some of them did grow up in homes where they learned, early and without effort, how to be at peace with themselves. I think that group is small. In my experience, the people who say they don’t need self-improvement usually fall into one of two categories. Either they did the work quietly, without naming it as such, or they are avoiding something they’re afraid to face, and rejecting the entire idea of self-improvement is easier than admitting that.

That second pattern is familiar to me. It’s a bit like disliking people who own cars because you can’t afford one yourself, while never quite admitting that earning more money is the actual answer. The same logic shows up around self-improvement. People who avoid it often aren’t rejecting the concept. They’re rejecting what they suspect they’d find if they looked closely at themselves, and I understand that completely, because the work itself is rarely pleasant. It means sitting with your weaknesses, naming your trauma out loud, having uncomfortable conversations with yourself and occasionally with a therapist, and slowly letting go of a version of yourself you’ve known your entire life in exchange for one you’ve never met.

So is self-improvement a good thing? In my case, the answer is an easy yes, and I only need to look at where I started to explain why.

I grew up in a difficult household, where I became my mother’s primary emotional caretaker starting around age five. At that age I was already absorbing things no child should have to carry: financial stress, marital conflict, addiction. I never learned to notice my own needs, let alone voice them. I became someone who served. I grew up believing I wasn’t good enough, shaped by the fighting between my parents, by my mother telling me she’d been disappointed I wasn’t born a girl, and by her repeated threats to take her own life. I internalized all of it as my fault.

I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I’m telling you because it explains where the journey started. Those early experiences built an adult who needed constant approval, who felt jealous easily because he never felt good enough, and who used alcohol and nicotine to numb what he couldn’t name. None of that was a good foundation for an adult life, and the walk in Nice is just one small, almost embarrassing example of how deep that pattern ran.

Without self-improvement, I don’t think I would have built the awareness, the boundaries, the confidence, or the physical health I have today. I quit drinking. I quit smoking. I’ve never felt more capable in my own body. I’m comfortable being alone without being lonely, and I set goals that genuinely make my life feel richer, because for the first time I actually know what I want from it.

I think most people are carrying something similar from their own upbringing, often without realizing it. And if you’re one of the rare ones who isn’t, genuinely, I’m glad for you. But in my experience, that’s the exception rather than the rule.

So if you ask me whether self-improvement is worth it, my answer is yes, but only when you’re doing it for yourself and not for an audience. Which brings me to the other side of this.

When self-improvement becomes a problem

Self-improvement starts to work against you the moment it stops being about your own peace and starts being about performance. I’ve watched people adopt rigid five a.m. routines, follow extreme diets, and journal by candlelight at three in the morning, not because any of it serves them, but because it photographs well and travels well online. That kind of self-improvement is dishonest at its core, and honesty is the one ingredient the whole process actually depends on.

I don’t run an intense early morning routine, because my own body doesn’t ask for one. I wake up around seven thirty without an alarm, and I’ve made peace with the fact that this is simply how my body operates. Forcing myself into someone else’s four a.m. ritual would mean fighting my own nature for the sake of appearances, and I’d rather build a life that fits the person I actually am.

The other failure mode is when self-improvement quietly swallows everything else in your life. A walk becomes a step count. A conversation becomes networking. A hobby becomes a project with metrics attached. People lose track of why they started in the first place, and the practice itself becomes the addiction, not so different from the substances some of us used it to replace.

This is why knowing when to stop matters as much as knowing how to start. I spent years in therapy, and at some point my sessions had turned into casual updates about my week rather than real work. I told my therapist I wanted to stop coming, and she simply said: good choice, go enjoy the results. That sentence stuck with me, because it gave me permission to treat the work as something with an actual finish line rather than a lifestyle to maintain forever.

A few honest signals tell me the work has done its job, at least for now. The problem I set out to solve is actually solved, not managed, not white-knuckled, solved. The habits I built no longer take willpower; they’ve become how I simply live. Continuing to push on that particular area stops producing any noticeable change. I start losing presence and joy in the process itself, more focused on optimizing than on living. And the sense of who I am starts to feel solid enough that I’m not constantly trying to fix or prove it.

If you don’t have some version of a finish line, self-improvement can quietly become obsessive. Taken far enough, it can erode your relationships and your ability to simply accept yourself, because there’s no longer a self left to accept, only an ongoing project.

Growth and acceptance were never opposites

I think self-improvement and self-acceptance can coexist, and honestly, I think they’re supposed to. In my own life, it felt worth spending a few real years, three or five, deep in the work: cutting distractions, facing the things I’d been carrying without noticing, and figuring out who I actually was underneath everything my parents, teachers, friends, and culture had layered onto me. That kind of focused period lets you understand your past clearly enough to choose your direction without simply inheriting someone else’s.

But that season isn’t meant to last forever. At some point the work shifts from discovery to maintenance, and the goal stops being to keep improving and starts being to actually live the life you built. Self-improvement, done honestly, isn’t a permanent identity. It’s a season you walk through so you can come out the other side and finally just be there.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 500 readers.

I am writing this the same day I finally walked into that bike store, five months later than I should have, and more relieved than I expected.

When I came out of the bike store with the collection slip in my hand, I was smiling.

In the last five months I looked at my broken bike in my apartment every single day and told myself I should go to the bike store. Somehow I never did. There was always an excuse. No time because of work, running, writing. Bad weather so I would not need it anyway. But it bothered me because I knew it was never really about the bike.

It was about my life. The bike was a symbol sitting in my apartment every day, waiting for me to be honest about what it represented.

During those five months dust started to collect on the seat and the wheel. I looked at it daily and the answer in my mind was always the same. Yes, I am going to go to the bike store. Soon.

This is how shrinking starts.

There is always a last time you do something, accompanied by the quiet assumption that you will do it again. You stop going to the gym because you need new shoes first, and then somehow you never go back. You stop seeing the friends you used to see every week because life got busy, and you keep meaning to message them, but a year and a half passes and the closeness you remember is now just a memory you have not updated.

One thing stops, then another follows, and then you look around and realize the dust is sitting everywhere. Your life has become so small it is mostly just work and television in the evening. But when someone at work asks how you spend your time, you still tell them about the gym, the travel, the friends. Because in your mind that is still who you are.

For five months I was still the guy who rides a bike. The fit one who cycles to the gym instead of taking the bus. I told people I love cycling with a small uncomfortable thought in the back of my mind that I really should go to the bike store.

The truth is I had started lying to myself.

Subscribe now

I practice enough awareness in my daily life to eventually notice the unspoken conflict. Something felt off and I felt uncomfortable enough that I had to look at it honestly. When I did, I knew it was about procrastination and about what happens when you let procrastination make your decisions for you.

You might think I am being dramatic about a bicycle. But this is always how it starts. You stop doing something in your thirties or forties, you blink, and suddenly you are sixty seven and have not ridden a bike in decades but still think of yourself as someone who just needs to go to the bike store.

Many people lose themselves exactly this way. A small problem becomes a blocker, the well-oiled system stops, one hobby disappears then another, and life gets smaller and smaller until everything they loved exists only as a memory of who they used to be. It really bothers me because it is completely avoidable, which is exactly why looking at that bike every day made me so uncomfortable. The weather was beautiful outside and I could have been the person I remembered.

When I came out of the bike store smiling, it was not because the bike would be fixed. It was because I had said no to the shrinking. I had noticed the drift, named it, and done something about it before it became permanent. They also need to fix the brakes which will cost more than I expected. I did not hesitate for a second because that cost felt like nothing compared to what it represented.

On Monday I get the bike back and my life will be a little richer for it.

Awareness is not about grand transformations. It is about noticing the small shifts before they become irreversible. The dust collecting, the excuses multiplying, the gap between who you are and who you keep telling yourself you will be again soon.

What in your life is broken and collecting dust right now?

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Welcome and thank you for being here. Running Home is a weekly newsletter about awareness, self-reliance, health, and freedom. Real stories, honest struggles, and the hard-won lessons from someone who chose to change his life completely.

If this resonates, Subscribe and join 450 readers.

I am writing this on a quiet Sunday morning, thinking about all the years I spent running from things that were simply trying to get my attention.

We all know that situation.

We are sitting in a meeting with a good idea or a solution we believe in, but we stay silent.

We want to avoid the moment when we break the silence and draw attention to ourselves.

Just thinking about it makes us nervous, so we say nothing.

At home, we feel the urge to turn on a podcast the moment we walk through the door.

The silence of an empty apartment is the thing we cannot face.

Avoidance is a coping mechanism.

It protects us from discomfort and runs our life quietly in the background, often without us even noticing.

The mechanism is efficient. That is exactly what makes it a problem.

Because avoidance is more than protection.

It hides information about ourselves that we need to know.

In the meeting it is not really about the attention.

It is about the fear of being exposed as not good enough.

At home it is not really about the silence.

It is about the loneliness or sadness waiting underneath it that we are not ready to sit with yet.

The pattern is always the same. The avoidance is never really about the thing on the surface.

In my own life I often did not send job applications.

Not because I was lazy but because I wanted to avoid the interview where it might turn out I was not good enough for the role.

In my relationships I stayed silent when something bothered me or when I wanted something for myself because I was afraid that showing my real needs would risk the harmony and eventually cost me the relationship.

The hidden information underneath both was the same belief: I am not good enough, and if people see that, they will leave.

Nobody wants to face that about themselves.

But that belief, once you can name it, is actually valuable information. It is the starting point of everything that can change.

As long as you stay in avoidance mode you keep that information hidden.

You never get the chance to question it, challenge it, or collect evidence that it is wrong.

You never find out that the thing you feared was never as dangerous as the avoidance itself.

What happens when you stop avoiding

The first thing you will experience is discomfort.

There is no way around it and no shortcut.

That is something you have to get through.

But on the other side of that discomfort, your energy improves.

Avoidance is exhausting in ways you do not notice until you stop.

The internal dialogue loops, the constant low level stress, the bad sleep.

When you stop feeding the avoidance, that weight lifts.

More importantly, you start collecting real information about yourself.

What you are actually capable of.

Where you genuinely need to grow.

The picture of yourself becomes clearer and more honest, which makes every future decision easier and faster.

You also lose something.

The short term relief that avoidance gave you disappears.

But what replaces it is something more durable: the quiet confidence of someone who shows up instead of hiding.

How to quit the avoidance loop

You do not have to go from zero to one hundred.

The best approach is to shrink the avoided thing down to its smallest possible version.

If you fear silence, start with short walks without music or earbuds.

If you avoid writing because you believe you are not good enough, open the document and write one deliberately bad sentence.

The goal is not to complete the task.

It is to put one foot in the room, stay for two minutes, then leave.

Then do it again the next day.

Tell yourself before you start that it will feel uncomfortable.

That single step adjusts your expectations and almost always leads to the same realization: it was not as bad as you thought.

Remove the escape routes.

No phone on the desk when you sit down to write.

No earbuds when you walk.

And when you finally speak about something real, do not soften it with humor.

If you do not take the conversation seriously, neither will anyone else.

What I found when I stopped running

Silence was one of my biggest enemies.

I lived in constant noise so I would not have to hear what was happening inside.

When I finally started walking without distraction, I felt the discomfort immediately.

But I also found the man I had been neglecting for 35 years.

Someone who had many interests but never got the attention he needed.

I found warm memories from my childhood I could finally use as a compass.

I found things that needed work, my lack of confidence, the belief that I was not enough.

And in meetings, when I finally spoke up, I found that people appreciated what I said.

Nobody laughed.

Nobody judged the out of the box ideas.

My words mattered more than I had ever allowed myself to believe.

That is what was waiting on the other side of the avoidance.

Not the catastrophe I feared.

Just myself.

What Was Always Waiting

Avoidance feels like protection.

And for a while it is.

But it is a short term strategy with a long term cost, because everything you are hiding from yourself is also everything you need to grow.

The courage to face it does not have to be dramatic.

It starts with two minutes in the room, one honest sentence, one walk without noise.

That is the lowest price you will ever pay for the life waiting on the other side.

Thank you for reading.

It means a lot that you spent your time here.

If this resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with someone who needs to read it. A comment or a like also means more than you think, it tells me that this kind of writing is worth continuing.

And if you are not yet subscribed, you are welcome to join the journey below.

Subscribe now

Do you remember what you did yesterday and why?

And what did you do today?

And why?

Surprisingly, a lot of people struggle to answer these questions, especially the why part.

I remember three years ago when I wanted to buy a Christmas tree only for myself, but I stopped before I could leave my apartment because a question came into my mind:

Why am I doing this at all?

The only thing I could tell myself was: because I’ve always done it.

I spent money every year on a Christmas tree just to have it for two weeks in my apartment and throw it out after the short holiday season.

After I realized that, I asked myself whether I really needed it.

Funnily, the answer was a straightforward no.

This wasn’t the first moment in my life that I questioned recurring things, and the more I realized how powerful the question actually was, the more I adapted this new way of being: living deliberately.

It feels like taking over the wheel on a road where I was only a passenger before. The car had been operating in autopilot mode. Now I’m able to push the brake, slow down, look at the map, and ask myself where I actually want to go.

It’s freedom.

Over the years, I developed the habit of awareness, which helps me not to slip back into the passenger seat.

Most of the things I do today have their purpose in my life. Either they carry me toward my goals or give me space and time to rest or entertain myself.

And I can tell that this way of living highly contributes to the fact that I feel really happy, well-balanced, and content with everything I do.

Now, having this experience, I want to help you wake up and gain control over your life - control that you might never have had, or that you lost by falling into sleepwalking without even noticing it.

You might feel frustrated, weak, bored, angry, or exhausted without knowing what the reason could be.

If you’re interested, stay with me through the following sections. I’m going to give you a simple framework for how to start living deliberately and free so you can be the leader of your own life again.

Understanding Autopilot: Your Brain's Default Mode

Autopilot is when your behavior runs automatically based on habits, routines, or learned patterns.

It’s like the brain executing a stored program that we or somebody else installed.

There’s no active decision or evaluation about whether the program is needed or useful, but it still gets executed on a regular basis.

For example, when you wake up and reach for your phone as your first move in the morning, or when you make coffee.

You don’t think about these things before you do them.

Autopilot is actually a helpful feature of the brain. It frees up mental energy for other things, and you don’t need to think about what you should do next because the brain simply runs the familiar program again and again.

It helps to avoid decision fatigue and also helps us become better at things we’re learning.

The Problem: When Autopilot Controls Your Life

The problem is that this state of mind reduces our awareness.

If we’re not aware of our actions, we don’t question them either.

We simply do them.

For example, if you’ve been driving the same route to a destination for a long time, you’ll probably never ask whether there’s a better way to get there.

Or even why you’re driving there at all.

That’s the most interesting part of autopilot mode.

Not the feature itself, but what program has been put into it and by whom.

Some of these programs are installed slowly by our environment.

Parents, teachers, friends, partners, or social media.

Habits we picked up from other people, or routines we never consciously questioned, can quietly turn into default behavior. Over time they become so familiar that we execute them without noticing.

This can turn into a problem because we’re running habits on autopilot that might work against our goals, happiness, physical and mental health.

For example, when you’re a smoker just because your parents were smokers too.

Or you picked up the social drinking habit after work, but you don’t even know why you’re drinking and suffer from the consequences.

Other programs, however, can be installed intentionally.

Someone might decide to read every morning, go for a short walk after work, or spend a few minutes reflecting at the end of the day.

At first these actions require effort, but after a while they become automatic as well.

In both cases, the same mechanism is at work. The brain simply runs the program it has learned.

The difference is not autopilot itself.

The difference is who wrote the program.

And that raises an important question:

If autopilot quietly runs so much of our daily life, how can we tell when it’s taking over in a way that no longer serves us?

There are several small signals that suggest someone might be living mostly on unconscious autopilot.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly. Thank you. — David

Subscribe now

10 Signs You're Living on Autopilot

1. Every Day Feels Exactly the Same

If you look back at the last week and can’t remember anything specific that stood out, life may be running on autopilot.

This happens because routines repeat without reflection. The brain simply executes the same schedule every day without questioning it.

The problem is that when days blend together, time starts to feel like it’s passing very quickly.

Example: You wake up, go to work, come home, watch something, sleep, and repeat the same pattern every day. Months later you feel like the year disappeared but nothing happened.

2. Reaching for the Phone Without Thinking

One of the most common modern autopilot habits is grabbing the phone immediately after waking up or whenever there’s a moment of boredom.

This is autopilot because the action happens before any conscious thought. The habit is triggered automatically without looking for anything specific.

The problem is that it allows external input to control the start of the day.

Example: Someone is waiting in line at a store or sitting on the train for a few minutes. Instead of simply observing their surroundings or letting their mind rest, their hand immediately reaches for the phone. They unlock it, open social media, and start scrolling without even thinking about why they picked it up in the first place.

3. Saying Yes to Things Automatically

People on autopilot often accept invitations, responsibilities, or requests without asking themselves if they actually want them.

The response becomes a default reaction.

The danger is that life slowly fills with obligations that were never consciously chosen.

Example: I was one of those people who always said yes to everyone. Party? Yes. Poker? Yes. Day-drinking? Yes. Then I ended up with exhaustion and shaking hands because I didn’t choose how to spend my time - other people chose for me.

4. Complaining About the Same Problems for Years

When you keep repeating the same complaints but never take action, it often means you’re stuck in an autopilot pattern.

Your mind keeps replaying the same story instead of looking for change.

Example: A person complains about their job every week but never explores other options or develops new skills.

5. Living According to Other People’s Expectations

Autopilot can also come from social pressure.

Instead of asking what they truly want, someone simply follows the path that seems expected by family, culture, or society.

Example: Choosing a career, lifestyle, or goals mainly because it’s considered the “normal” path. The problem is that years later the person may realize they built a life that doesn’t actually feel like their own.

6. Avoiding Quiet Moments

People who live on autopilot often keep themselves constantly distracted.

Silence creates space for reflection, and reflection can challenge existing routines.

Example: Whenever there’s a free moment, someone immediately opens social media, plays a video, or fills the silence with noise. Without quiet moments, it becomes difficult to notice whether life is moving in the right direction.

7. Acting from Habits Instead of Values

Autopilot behavior usually comes from habits that were formed long ago.

The person may no longer ask whether those habits still match their current values.

Example: Someone continues spending evenings the same way they did ten years ago, even though their goals and priorities have changed.

8. Never Trying Anything New

Autopilot keeps people inside familiar routines.

Trying new experiences requires awareness and a conscious decision.

Example: Going to the same places, eating the same food, watching the same types of content, and never experimenting with something different. Over time this can lead to a feeling of stagnation.

9. Feeling Busy but Not Progressing

Many people on autopilot are actually very busy.

However, their actions aren’t connected to a clear direction.

Example: A person spends the entire day responding to emails, notifications, and small tasks but never works on things that truly move their life forward. The activity feels productive but doesn’t create meaningful progress.

10. Never Asking the Bigger Questions

The clearest sign of autopilot is when someone rarely stops to ask fundamental questions about their life.

Questions like:

Why am I doing this?

Is this the direction I want?

What would I change if I started again?

Example: Someone keeps following the same path for years simply because they started it earlier. Without reflection, autopilot can keep a person moving in a direction they never consciously chose.

How to Take Control of Your Autopilot

Once you decide to review your life and the habits that are running on autopilot, you have already taken the first step in the right direction.

It means you are aware of the existence of this feature. And believe me, many people spend their whole lives without even noticing that their entire life runs on autopilot with the wrong software.

But now you can go further than that and start designing your own life the way you want from scratch by following a few basic steps.

Daily Self-Checks: The 5-Minute Habit That Changed My Life

This very simple, almost laughable daily habit changed my life.

And I’m not exaggerating.

I usually start my day with a coffee (which I drink intentionally), and then before I do anything else, I sit down awkwardly at the kitchen table and ask myself loudly:

What’s the plan for today?

It takes only a few minutes to think through and adjust if necessary.

The goal is that everything I do, I do with intention.

I work because I need money to pay the rent, to invest, and to build my side projects.

I exercise because I pay attention to my health.

I read every day, at least one page of my book, because reading is important to me.

I also doomscroll, but with intention. I know that it helps me distance myself from work, so I don’t remove it completely from my life, but I do it with intention within a time frame (20 minutes).

I stretch in the evening because I want to stay flexible, it helps prevent injuries, and I sleep better.

Everything on the list is chosen by me. All the activities support at least one of the most important areas in my life that I want to pay the most attention to.

At the end of the day, I do the same review but in a more reflective way.

I ask myself loudly, usually at the kitchen table again:

How was my day?

I go through, one by one, all the things I’ve accomplished or spent my time with and think about whether I could do something differently the next day.

For example, when I realize that I was emotionally involved at work too much and that made me feel annoyed or angry, then I think about the strategy for how to approach the next day if it happens again.

When I feel too exhausted after my training, then I ask myself if I should do a bit less the next day so I can avoid being too tired again.

Think about this like a conversation with your best friend. In this case, you’re both, and the friend has the intention to support you as well as possible. It might feel weird at the beginning and it requires a bit more effort, but after a while this habit will end up in your autopilot mode, and that’s exactly what you want.

The Habit Audit: Aligning Your Actions with Your Goals

The daily checking is great to review your days and bring more awareness into them, but you can go one step further by auditing your habits.

This exercise requires more time and thinking because you not only need to review your habits but also your goals. The habits carry you toward your goals if you put the right habits into autopilot mode.

Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve? What are your goals?

Write them down and write your daily habits next to them without judging them.

This makes mismatches and contradictions visible.

For example, if you say that you want to have a six-pack but you start the day with a Frappuccino and a doughnut, then it won’t work out easily.

Or maybe you want to have a wonderful romantic relationship, but you’re chasing one-night stands every weekend in cheap clubs, you’re broke, and you can’t even say what you’re interested in except partying. (And yes, that is also a habit even if it doesn’t look like it.)

Ask yourself loudly:

Why are you doing these habits?

What purpose do they serve?

If your answer is “I don’t know,” then it can be a sign of an installed program by somebody else.

Once you’ve figured out what you want, then you can think about the habits that bring you toward your goals and put them into your autopilot program.

These changes will make you really content with your own life because you'll know what and why things are happening and who's in charge of those habits: YOU.

Track Your Energy: Finding the Habits That Drain You

If you always feel tired, then there’s probably a reason for that. Many people have poor sleep habits and they truly believe that sleeping 6 hours and drinking 10 coffees in the office just to survive the day is normal.

It’s not normal.

Normal is that you wake up in the morning well-rested and ready for the day.

Tracking your energy level is a great indicator to find blind spots regarding your habits in autopilot mode.

You can ask yourself the following questions while sitting down and being completely honest with yourself:

In the morning: How do I feel? How much energy do I have? Do I need the coffee because otherwise I would fall asleep, or do I just like how it tastes?

After work: How do I feel? Did the day drain my energy, or do I feel alright? Did I have fun, or did I just do the regular chore I hate?

After social events: How do I feel? Do I need a weekend alone after I spent an evening out, or do I feel energized by that?

Every single answer will help you understand your life better and identify if there’s something in your autopilot mode that shouldn’t be there because it doesn’t serve you but drains you.

Do Hard Things: Building Awareness Through Discomfort

This is something you read everywhere nowadays, especially where people talk about self-help a lot. Michael Easter wrote a book called The Comfort Crisis. Andrew Huberman talks on his podcast Huberman Lab about how doing hard things regularly grows the part of your brain called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, and it helps you deal with future challenges more easily.

There are plenty of arguments for doing hard things regularly, and there’s another one that’s relevant if you want to adjust your autopilot.

Doing hard things increases awareness drastically. When I run my interval sprints, I’m so deeply present in the moment that I exclude everything else from my consciousness.

These difficult tasks remind you that you can influence your life through effort. When you push through a hard workout, learn a difficult skill, or finish challenging work, you experience direct proof that your actions matter.

This shifts the mindset from passive to active.

Easy routines fade into the background of memory.

Hard experiences stand out.

The hard trainings, the marathon, the article I wrote, the yoga session that really challenged me are the things I won’t forget easily.

Your Life, Your Programs

Living on autopilot isn’t inherently bad. The brain uses it to save energy and make life easier.

But when autopilot runs programs you never chose, or programs that no longer serve you, it becomes a problem.

You’ll be frustrated and unsatisfied with your own life without knowing the reason for that.

The difference between sleepwalking through life and living deliberately is awareness.

Awareness that you’re on autopilot.

Awareness of who installed the programs.

Awareness of whether those programs still work for you.

Once you have that awareness, you can make a choice.

You can keep the helpful programs and delete the harmful ones. You can install new programs that carry you toward your actual goals.

You can take control.

The exercises in this article - daily self-checks, habit audits, energy tracking, doing hard things - are tools to build that awareness.

They won’t work overnight. I’ve been practicing them for three years, and I still catch myself slipping back into autopilot sometimes.

But the difference is, now I notice. And when I notice, I can choose.

That’s freedom.

Not living perfectly. Not never making mistakes. But having the awareness to see what’s happening and the power to change it.

So start small. Pick one exercise. Try it for a week.

Ask yourself the questions. Notice the patterns. See what’s running in the background.

Then decide: Is this the program I want?

If the answer is yes, keep it.

If the answer is no, rewrite it.

Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment. I read every one. — David

Read More:

People who are into self-improvement have probably read the story of the Mexican fisherman, but if you haven’t, here it is:

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “only a little while.” The American then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15 to 20 years.”

“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions!”

“Millions. Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

Author Unknown

This story tells an unteachable lesson about life that the fisherman already knew but the businessman needed to learn his own way. Sometimes what we’re seeking is something we already possess, but we have to learn how to see it while taking our own, sometimes difficult journey.

I collected 15 other unteachable lessons about life that I wanted to share. You can reflect on them and embrace them earlier in your own life.

1. Money Does Not Create Happiness

People without money believe it will fix everything. People who make a lot of money realize it only removes some problems and creates new ones.

This is common wisdom. Everyone knows it. Still, most people seek money even when they already have enough, hoping that more money in the bank will make them happier.

But the truth is, if you’re not happy with less money, you won’t be happier with a lot of money either.

It’s important to note that money can solve problems, and those problems can make you unhappy. That’s true. But buying cars, designer clothes, or eating in the most expensive restaurants won’t increase your happiness baseline ever.

2. No One Is Coming to Save You

Another common wisdom from the self-help world. What does this say? Advice helps, support helps, but responsibility is yours. This usually hits after waiting too long for change.

I fell into this trap too many times.

I hoped that a relationship would help me deal with my own demons.

I hoped that somebody would call me and give me the job I really wanted.

I hoped that somebody would solve my problems.

The truth is, if I don’t get up and do something about these things, nothing will happen.

It can be really hard, especially when you hit rock bottom, to stand up again. But if you don’t do it, you can’t expect improvement either.

Taking responsibility is one of the most important characteristics of being a mature adult. Start today with it. Try not to learn it the way I learned it.

3. Trying Harder Is Not Always the Answer

Sometimes the problem is not effort but direction. You learn this after burning out.

If you become the unstoppable force and push against the unmovable object, at some point you’ll give up and you’ll have wasted all your valuable energy on the wrong thing.

I tried too hard to convince women to love me. I tried too hard to get a raise while working more and more. Then I didn’t understand why the other guy got the promotion even though he worked less but smarter.

It’s always important to question the direction and intensity of your effort. Sometimes you just need to pivot a little bit or even do less to get the same or better results.

Don’t try too hard.

4. Being Liked Is Expensive

People pleasing costs energy, authenticity, and self-respect. Most people learn this only after exhaustion.

This unteachable lesson describes my 20s completely. I wanted to fit into the community around me so badly that I said yes to everyone. I helped people move. I said yes to every drink. I played the clown so they’d like me a bit more.

These behaviors ended up in shaking hands, panic attacks, and the realization that people didn’t like me at all but my performances and service.

Not a great way to learn this. Fortunately, today I don’t want to be liked anymore. And funnily, more people like me now than when I tried so badly.

5. Comfort Slowly Kills Ambition

Nothing dramatic happens. You just wake up years later wondering where your drive went.

I know a lot of people who started to settle around 40. They don’t exercise anymore and are never cold. The fridge is always full, and cuddling on the couch became the symbol of well-being.

On the other hand, they complain. No energy. Back pain. Fear of change. Belly fat. Bad sleep. Feeling sluggish all the time.

They think it’s aging, but it’s lifestyle.

Comfort doesn’t only kill your ambition. It kills you literally, way earlier than you want.

Having goals, being active, doing hard stuff regularly are key elements of a longer life while feeling alive.

6. You Cannot Change People

You can explain, help, and push, but people only change when they want to.

This is learned through frustration.

And how frustrated I was when I wanted my girlfriends to be different human beings than what they were.

I forced people to do things

I wanted them to do.

To behave differently.

Be more like me.

It never worked.

People got frustrated because I pushed, and I got frustrated because it didn’t work.

A lose-lose situation that led to bad endings of relationships.

The same applied to my parents. I spent years trying to fix them. Sending them articles about alcoholism. Offering to pay for therapy. Explaining how their behavior affected me.

Nothing changed. Not because they didn’t understand.

Because they didn’t want to change.

7. Time Is More Valuable Than Money

You only understand this when time starts to feel limited.

The realization comes at the same time as the problem with too much comfort.

The perception of time changes drastically around 40.

In our 20s, we feel like we have all the time in the world, and we waste it recklessly while dreaming about a lot of money.

Then we age, and the view of our life gets different.

Around 40, we realize we’ve passed halftime.

Free weekends or free days become more valuable. Money is still nice, but I wouldn’t exchange two weeks of vacation for a Gucci sweater.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

8. Freedom Matters More Than Status

Titles, recognition, and admiration feel good briefly. Freedom feels good every day.

At work, sometimes I check my boss’s calendar. He has around 20 minutes of “free” time besides his lunch break, and he works on weekends as well.

He has a great salary, but honestly, I wouldn’t do his job for a second.

Knowing every day that I can close my laptop and go to the gym is extremely valuable to me. Being able to work from anywhere, not being disturbed on my vacation, are much more important than any level of status.

9. Avoiding Pain Creates More Pain

Distraction works short term. Long term, everything comes back stronger.

I spent years avoiding my childhood pain. I drank. I smoked. I worked constantly. I dated four times a week.

But the pain didn’t disappear. It accumulated. It grew.

When I finally stopped running and faced it in therapy, it was much harder than if I’d dealt with it earlier. The years of avoidance just made the reckoning more brutal.

The thing you’re avoiding today will still be there tomorrow. Except tomorrow it will be bigger, and you’ll be more tired.

10. Consistency Beats Intensity

Most people learn this after failing with motivation-based bursts of effort.

I used to go hard at the gym for three weeks, then quit for six months. I’d write five articles in a week, then nothing for two months. I’d save aggressively for a month, then spend it all.

Nothing stuck. Nothing grew.

Now I run five times a week. Not because I’m motivated. Because it’s Tuesday, and I run on Tuesdays. I write every week. Not when inspiration strikes. Every week.

The intensity of a single session doesn’t matter. The boring repetition over years creates everything.

11. Loneliness and Being Alone Are Not the Same

You can feel lonely in a relationship and peaceful alone. This usually comes after heartbreak.

I felt lonelier in some of my relationships than I ever felt living alone.

Sitting next to someone who doesn’t understand you is worse than sitting alone understanding yourself.

Being alone is a state.

Loneliness is a feeling.

You can be alone without being lonely. You can be surrounded by people and feel completely isolated.

I’m alone most of the time now. I’m rarely lonely.

12. Your Body Keeps the Score

You can ignore sleep, stress, and health for years. Eventually, the bill arrives.

I ignored everything in my 20s. Two cans of energy drinks for breakfast. Four cigarettes. Pizza for lunch. Alcohol every night. No exercise. No sleep.

I thought I was invincible.

At 35, the bill arrived. Panic attacks. Hair loss. Dry skin. Constant fatigue. My body had been keeping score the whole time, and I hadn’t been paying attention.

Now I sleep 8 hours. I exercise. I don’t drink. I eat well. Not because I’m disciplined. Because I learned what happens when you don’t.

Your body will forgive you for a while. Then it stops forgiving.

13. Most Fears Never Happen

But the fear still steals years of life before you realize that.

I was terrified of going no contact with my parents. I thought I’d regret it. I thought I’d feel guilty forever. I thought something terrible would happen.

None of it happened. I felt relief. I felt free. Nothing terrible occurred.

I wasted years afraid of a consequence that never came.

Most of what you’re afraid of is fiction. But the time you spend afraid is real.

14. Not Choosing Is Also a Choice

Staying stuck feels safe until you realize time moved on without you.

I stayed in wrong relationships because I was afraid to choose to leave. I stayed in wrong jobs because I was afraid to choose to quit. I stayed in wrong cities because I was afraid to choose to move.

I thought not choosing was neutral. It’s not. Not choosing is choosing the default. And the default is usually whatever you already have.

Time doesn’t wait for you to feel ready.

It moves.

And if you don’t choose, life chooses for you.

15. Self-Respect Is Built, Not Given

No amount of validation replaces living in alignment with yourself.

I chased validation for years. From women. From employers. From friends. From my parents.

It never worked. Even when I got it, it didn’t fill anything.

Self-respect only came when I started living according to my own values, not other people’s expectations. When I quit drinking even though my friends thought I was boring. When I went no contact even though society said I owed my parents. When I chose my life over approval.

You can’t earn self-respect through other people’s opinions.

You build it through your own actions.

The Thing About Unteachable Lessons

I wish I’d believed these things when people first told me.

I would have saved years.

But that’s not how it works.

Some lessons require living.

The pain teaches what words cannot.

The time wasted teaches what urgency cannot.

The mistakes teach what advice cannot.

You’re probably reading this and nodding at some, skeptical of others.

That’s normal.

I did the same thing at 25.

The ones you resist the most are usually the ones you need to learn.

I can’t teach you these. But maybe I can save you a few years of finding out.

Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment. I read every one. — David

Read More:

A recruiter contacted me last week about a role at a tech startup. I opened the email, scanned the first paragraph, and saw two words: “fast-paced environment.”

I deleted it immediately.

At 25, I would have responded within an hour, excited about the opportunity.

At 38, I knew within 30 seconds it wasn’t for me. Wrong culture. Wrong pace. Wrong life.

I know exactly what I want now.

And that’s becoming a problem.

Open to Everything, Wanted Nothing

In my 20s, I didn’t know what I wanted.

At that age, that’s usually normal.

There were only a few people around who knew what they wanted at that young age. They studied medicine or architecture to follow their parents, or they always dreamed about a specific professional path like saving the world as a scientist. They had strong opinions about life, politics, and social problems.

But the majority of people were more like me. I had no clue what I wanted. Not only professionally but in general in my life. I didn’t have my own opinions. I ordered the same drinks and food that other people ordered and just followed the crowd.

Most of the time, I sat at the table with others and listened without forming my own opinion.

I nodded frequently. When people asked me, I agreed with someone at the table because that was an easy way out.

I wasn’t selective at all and said yes to almost everything because I didn’t have any preferences. House party, rave party, day drinking, road trip, vodka, whiskey, soda, steak, burger, sushi.

Yes, yes, and yes.

I was open to everything. But I wanted nothing specific.

That openness felt like freedom, but it was actually confusion.

I wasted time on things that didn’t matter because I couldn’t tell what mattered. Time wasn’t as precious a resource as it is in adult life, so wasted time on poor choices didn’t seem like a huge problem.

But then, after graduating and starting adult life, the pressure and expectations started to grow.

Learning to Order Like James Bond

I heard from many people that I should figure out what I want. I got older, and in online dating apps, I saw that women put into their descriptions: “Only men who know what they want.”

Not just women.

Family, friends, and the whole society gave me this feeling that I had to figure out what I wanted. I read a lot of dating advice for men where people said that women expect me to decide. If they ask whether we sit outside the restaurant or inside, I have to have an answer even if it doesn’t matter to me at all.

I started learning how to order a drink properly like James Bond did. When the waiter asked me which vodka I wanted in my cocktail, I had an immediate answer. People nodded approvingly around me, and I felt great. I pretended to be the guy who knows what he wants, even if I didn’t care about the sort of vodka in my drink.

But knowing what I want wasn’t just something I learned to pretend.

It’s part of maturing. An inevitable process of pattern recognition we acquire based on positive and negative experiences.

Something bad happens, so we decide differently next time. The number of options decreases, and we collect a bunch of emotional associations in the back of our minds.

We get choosier and decide faster.

At a certain age, we’re able to answer more confidently about what we like and want.

We start saying no more often.

We stop considering the unknown as an option because we don’t feel we need it anymore.

Life becomes safer. Novelty turns into predictability and stability.

We order the same food in the restaurant. We drink the same cocktail. We travel to the same place every single year.

Everything that doesn’t fit into the things we know we want gets filtered out automatically.

I get a job opportunity via email and delete it immediately when I spot one keyword that implies something I know I don’t want.

This is efficiency. This is clarity. This is knowing what I want.

But what if this knowing (or believing to know) what I want keeps me stuck?

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

When Knowing What You Want Becomes a Prison

I believe that knowing what we want can expire without us noticing it.

We change during our life, and something we thought we wanted can become something different today. But if we don’t give ourselves the chance to try, we’ll never figure it out.

At some point, knowing what we want turns into rigidity and fear.

We start saying no automatically to new and unknown opportunities while claiming we know what we want and this isn’t part of it.

For example, if somebody asks me if I want to try acro yoga, I say no automatically.

That’s not what I like. Without knowing exactly how it feels to actually do that kind of yoga practice.

I’ve had the situation so many times where I had the choice to watch a movie and I chose one I’d already watched 100 times over a new movie I’d never seen before. Just for safety reasons. The movie I’ve watched so many times, I know I’ll like it again. But the new movie can be bad, and then I’d waste my Sunday evening watching something I don’t enjoy.

I also like to book single rooms for myself in hostels or surf camps. I don’t sleep in a room with other people anymore. Not even giving it a chance.

So while living with the belief that I’ve figured out what I want, I’ve also started making my life smaller and smaller. I only repeat the well-known things I truly like and try to exclude novelty at all costs because it can be risky.

And there’s a self-strengthening process that makes it even worse.

We’ve all had that situation when somebody convinced us to do something we didn’t want to, because we already knew it wasn’t what we liked. And it turned out we were right. The experience was bad, and we say: “Never again. I knew it would be bad.” These moments lead us deeper into a less flexible and more rigid life.

And there are hidden costs to that rigidity:

What if the job I deleted had a culture I’d actually love, just described badly in the email?

What if the person who doesn’t fit my “type” could become someone important in my life?

What if the movie I skip becomes my new favorite film?

What if the shared room leads to a friendship that changes my perspective?

I’ve become so good at knowing what I want that I’ve stopped discovering what I might want.

The Narrowing: Age 20 vs. Age 38

Here’s what happens with age and clarity:

At 20:

• Open to everything

• No preferences

• Said yes constantly

• Tried everything

• Confused, but flexible

At 38:

• Clear about what I want

• Strong preferences

• Say no constantly

• Try only familiar things

• Decisive, but rigid

Neither is better. Both have costs.

At 20, I wasted time on things that didn’t fit me because I couldn’t tell what fit.

At 38, I miss opportunities that could fit me because I’ve decided in advance they don’t.

The filter that protects my time also blocks my growth.

The Grumpy Old Man Problem

If I don’t pay attention to these behaviors, I’ll end up as a grumpy old man who complains about everything that’s different from what I want and what I’ve gotten used to along the way.

This is obviously something I don’t want.

So I started including new experiences into my life, going against what my mind says in autopilot mode.

I went on a date with someone who didn’t fit the picture of what I want. The date was better than I thought. We didn’t date again, but we had a great time talking about life and sharing experiences about our dating lives.

When I went to a surf camp, I booked a shared room with one other person. It turned out great. There was a guy from the UK. We talked about movies and life, and it was fun.

In restaurants, I try to order something I’ve never tried before. Otherwise, I’d always eat the same thing and never expand my experiences.

I also say yes to social invitations I’d normally decline. I travel to places that don’t fit my “type” or try hobbies that seem unappealing at first.

Not because I’m confused about what I want.

But because rigidity masquerading as clarity is just fear.

Finding the Balance

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not something I push all the time.

It’s about balance.

I keep the clarity:

• I know my core non-negotiables

• I protect my boundaries

• I stay decisive on obvious mismatches

• I don’t waste time on things I know won’t work

But I rebuild flexibility:

• When I realize I haven’t tried anything different in a couple of months, I do it consciously

• I tell myself: this weekend is about trying something new

• Then next time, I can stay in my comfort zone

• But maybe my comfort zone changed or expanded from that last new experience

The goal isn’t to go back to my confused 20-year-old self who said yes to everything.

The goal is to hold both: knowing what I want while staying open to what I don’t yet know I need.

Why?

Because life is beautiful.

Experiences are the things we’ll never forget. They shape us and make our time here richer. Believing that we know what we want is not the same as truly knowing what we want. That’s why it might be worth challenging that belief from time to time.

The Paradox Remains

At 20, I was open but lost.

At 40, I’ll be clear but rigid.

The work isn’t choosing between them. It’s managing the tension.

Knowing what you want is power. But knowing what you want and refusing everything else is prison.

The real maturity isn’t just knowing what you want. It’s knowing what you want while remaining flexible about how it might show up.

Maybe the person who doesn’t fit your type teaches you something your type never could.

Maybe the experience outside your comfort zone expands what comfortable means.

Maybe the opportunity you delete contains exactly what you’re looking for, just packaged differently.

I still know what I want. But I’m learning to question my automatic nos.

Because clarity without curiosity is just another way to stay stuck.

Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment. I read every one. — David

Read More:

It’s morning, and after waking up, I head into the kitchen. The morning sun shines through the window and turns the kitchen into a warm, yellow-colored space. I make coffee and look out at my backyard. The grass is vivid green, and my sheep have already come out of the stable. I’m smiling, thinking about the day ahead of me.

No meetings. No computer. No cell phone or any kind of annoying nonsense work.

Just me and my farm.

I often have this fantasy.

Funnily enough, I’ve heard this from many people who work in similar roles. Office workers who get up in the morning and work 9 to 5.

They start their day with some kind of stand-up or Monday morning meeting.

They have titles like business intelligence manager, chief of staff, or growth marketing manager. Meetings after meetings.

The output is usually some kind of slides nobody will look at.

They create documentation nobody will read. They spend most of their time in meetings with others who do similar things with similar meaningless outputs.

One day after another.

These people, including me, often reach the moment where they think:

“I would love to work on my own farm.”

“I would like to work in a zoo with animals.”

“I would love to have a vineyard and produce delicious wine.”

“Something physical with my name on it. Something I can look at, give to other people so they can enjoy it.”

The absurdity of this fantasy is that none of these people have ever worked on a farm or done physical labor at all. They don’t know what it takes to run a farm or work in a zoo.

Still, the idea of a slow, non-digital life with visible output makes the fantasy extremely compelling.

This is a recurring fantasy. Usually after another meeting with managers where we define some kind of technical roadmap, create tickets for the backlog while knowing that all the ideas and plans will be obsolete tomorrow.

It feels meaningless.

It’s Rarely About the Farm

As you probably suspect, it’s not about farming.

It’s not a life vision people are heading toward with a well-thought-through strategy. It’s more like a signal that something is missing, something most humans want to feel in their life: meaning, being useful, producing something that stays and matters.

In those office jobs, people rarely have visible results.

Most of the work is abstract.

Sitting in meetings and talking through the same problem again and again.

Sending emails or setting up automations.

My days often end with the feeling of missing accomplishment, even if I feel mentally exhausted. When I ask myself what the outcome of today’s work was, I can barely define it.

Besides the lack of meaning, physical movement is also missing. I have back pain after sitting eight hours at my desk. My eyes are dry, but my body is completely unused. The accumulated stress works through my entire body. I always think I would implode if I didn’t do sports regularly.

The responsibility feels ridiculous. We talk about key performance indicators and objectives and key results (office workers know what that is).

But what are we really responsible for?

Numbers on a dashboard?

A project timeline?

Meanwhile, the farm fantasy offers responsibility for actual living beings.

Animals that need you. Plants that depend on you. Real consequences, not just missed deadlines.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

What’s Really Behind the Desire

When I dig deeper into this fantasy, it’s not actually about sheep or vegetables.

It’s about what those things represent.

Visible results instead of abstract work.

You plant a seed, and you see it grow.

You feed an animal, and it’s healthy.

You build a fence, and it stands there.

Compare that to: you attend a meeting, send an email, update a document, and nothing tangible exists. Your effort disappears into systems you can’t see or touch.

Physical movement instead of constant sitting.

Your body gets tired from actual work, not just from stress.

You use your muscles.

You move.

You sweat.

At the end of the day, your body is exhausted in a satisfying way, not just your brain.

Natural rhythms instead of calendar pressure.

The farm runs on seasons, weather, daylight.

Not on quarterly targets, sprint cycles, or arbitrary deadlines someone invented in a conference room.

Simplicity and repetition instead of complexity.

The same tasks, done well, every day.

No pivots.

No sudden strategy changes.

No reorgs.

Just: animals need feeding, plants need watering, fences need maintaining.

Quiet instead of constant stimulation.

No Slack notifications.

No email pinging.

No back-to-back Zoom calls.

Just wind, birds, the sound of your own breathing.

For me, it shows up as: I want to see something grow that I planted. I want my body to be tired, not just my brain. I want to finish a day and know it’s actually finished.

Why Office Work Triggers This Fantasy

This isn’t office-bashing. It’s observation.

High abstraction: You solve problems you can’t see. Results disappear into systems. Your effort becomes invisible. You never touch what you make. I create data models and dashboards. Where do they go? Into servers somewhere. Who uses them? I often don’t know. What impact do they have? Impossible to measure. It’s ghosts working on ghosts.

Permanent availability: Work never truly ends. Email at 9pm. Thinking about work on weekends. Messages during vacation. No clear boundary between work and life. The expectation that you’re always reachable creates a constant low-level anxiety.

No real completion: Projects morph into new projects. Goals shift constantly. Nothing is ever done. The work regenerates overnight. You finish one roadmap, and immediately someone asks for the next one. There’s no moment of “we did it” before moving to the next thing.

Identity tied to performance: You are your output. Your worth equals your productivity. Being, not doing, feels impossible. When someone asks what you do, you say your job title. Not who you are. What you produce. And if you stop producing? Who are you then?

Here’s the deeper issue: Your nervous system wasn’t designed for permanent abstraction.

It expects physical threats you can see and respond to, problems with clear solutions, effort that produces visible results, and natural light cycles and movement.

Office work reverses all of this. The threats are invisible (deadlines, performance reviews). The problems are abstract (alignment, strategy). The effort disappears into screens. The light is artificial. The movement is minimal.

Your body experiences this as constant low-level danger with no release.

The farm fantasy is your nervous system screaming for regulation.

The Farm Dream as Escape Fantasy

Let me be honest here.

Farms are hard physical work. Low margins. Responsibility seven days a week. Financially unstable. No vacation. No sick days. Weather-dependent chaos. Animals die. Crops fail. Equipment breaks.

I know this. Everyone who has this fantasy probably knows this on some level.

But that’s not the point.

The fantasy isn’t realistic planning.

It’s a counterweight to your current reality.

Your mind is creating the exact opposite of what you have because what you have feels unsustainable.

The farm represents regulation.

Tangibility.

Rhythm.

Purpose.

Even if the reality would be just as hard, in a different way.

The Real Question to Ask

The question isn’t: “Should I quit everything and buy a farm?”

The question is: “What am I missing so deeply that my mind escapes to animals and soil?”

This is where the real work begins.

Because once you understand what the fantasy is actually asking for, you can give yourself pieces of it without burning your life down.

Integration Instead of Escape

I didn’t quit my job to work on a farm. But I changed how I work and live.

More physicality: I run 5 times a week. Not gentle jogging. Hard running. Interval training that makes my lungs burn. Physical exhaustion my office job never provides. My body gets tired the way bodies are supposed to get tired.

More nature: I spend time outside every day. Even if it’s just 20 minutes walking. Natural light on my skin. Weather. Wind. Rain. Not just temperature-controlled office air.

Clear endings to the day: I have hard stops. 6pm, I’m done. Laptop closed. No email after hours. I protect my evenings the way I would protect sleep. Because rest is just as real as work.

Work with tangible outcomes: I write. I create articles people can read. I run marathons I can finish. I track things I can measure and complete, not just endless process work. My newsletter has my name on it. It exists. People read it. That’s tangible.

Fewer artificial stimuli: I deleted Instagram. I reduced screen time. I sit in silence sometimes. I let myself be bored. Boredom is regulation. The constant stimulation was making me sick.

These aren’t farm work. But they’re what the farm fantasy was actually asking for.

Visible results. Physical tiredness. Natural rhythms. Quiet. Completion.

I gave my nervous system what it was screaming for, just in a different form.

The Body Knows

The farm fantasy doesn’t go away completely. It still appears, usually after a particularly abstract week. After three days of back-to-back meetings where nothing was decided. After creating another presentation that will be ignored.

But now I understand what it’s asking for. And I give myself pieces of it.

Maybe it’s not about where we work. Maybe it’s about how far we’ve drifted from what keeps us regulated.

The body knows what it needs. The daydream is just trying to tell you.

Listen to it. Not by quitting your job and buying sheep. But by understanding what the sheep represent.

Then give yourself that, in whatever form makes sense for your actual life.

Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment.

I read every one. — David

Read More:

A Note Before You Read

This article is not an attack on parents. It’s about bringing visibility to patterns that create difficulties in our adult lives and relationships.

Throughout this article, I’ll use examples from my own childhood. These aren’t shared for sympathy, but to help you recognize similar patterns. What felt normal to me for decades turned out to be deeply damaging.

If you recognize yourself in these descriptions, know that recognition is not weakness. It’s the beginning of understanding.

“You were such a disappointment when you were born. I always wanted a daughter. Look at the pink blanket I bought back then because I was sure you would be a girl.”

My mother told me this with a smile when I was around six years old. Not just once. I heard it many times throughout my childhood.

Today, I’m almost 40 years old, and those sentences are still in my mind. Instead of fading, they grew into an underlying feeling of being wrong and unwelcome, regardless of whether I’m at work, in a relationship, or with friends.

When I confronted my mother in my 30s, she said she never said that. She told me I made it up and asked why I was so ungrateful anyway.

The Problem With Criticizing Parents

Parents wear a shield that society gives them. They are often idealized, and questioning them means questioning everything you believed about your childhood.

“They just did their best,” they told me.

“Don’t blame your parents for your problems!”

“Take responsibility, David!”

That protection creates a problem. The pain builds inside you, waiting for release. The anger, disappointment, loneliness, destroyed self-worth.

And when it finally comes out, you usually aim at the wrong people. Unconsciously.

You scream at your wife. Your kid. Your coworkers. You don’t realize that this anger arises because your manipulative mother always criticized you or because your drunk father terrorized your family for years.

What Are Toxic Parents?

Toxic parents are parents whose repeated behaviors harm a child’s emotional, psychological, or relational development. This harm is often unintentional and can coexist with love and good intentions. That’s exactly why it’s so hard to recognize.

Toxic parenting is not about occasional mistakes. It’s about consistent patterns that undermine a child’s sense of safety, self-worth, or autonomy.

The problem: Everything we learn at home becomes universal truth. Children always believe that when something happens in the family, it’s their fault.

The symptoms: Damaged self-esteem, suppressed anger, constant guilt, feeling worthless, unlovable, inadequate.

Important to mention: The cause of these behaviors is usually dissatisfaction with their own lives. They have unsolved problems, and the children become victims of how they deal with those problems.

Why You Can’t See It

You often don’t recognize the problem because either your parents or you live in denial.

They just did their best, right? How could they be the cause of your problems?

Most people start looking for solutions elsewhere: drinking, drugs, excessive behaviors. They believe something is wrong with them, which I did for a long time.

Children always blame themselves. They internalize the dysfunction as proof that they’re wrong, not that the situation is wrong.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly. Thank you. — David

Subscribe now

The Patterns

There were many recurring patterns in my childhood, but I’ll focus on the three most damaging: control, manipulation, and an alcoholic parent.

The Controller

My mother tried to control everything. She read my teenage love letters behind my back. She knew who I partied with and investigated my brother’s girlfriends, criticizing his relationships until they broke up.

When my brother started working, she took all his money, saying she’d save it for him. When he bought new clothes instead, she withdrew love as punishment.

I learned that I always have to pay the price for anything. Asking for help? That’s a problem. Gaining control? I pay with guilt and frustration. Having my own opinion means losing love, so it’s better to nod at anything.

Lasting damages:

• Overdeveloped sense of responsibility

• Your emotions become unimportant

• Difficulty making decisions

• Constant guilt

• Choosing controlling partners later

The Manipulator/Martyr

I remember my mother screaming that she would go to the basement to hang herself. I tried to stop her while crying.

When I moved to Hamburg and told my parents I felt great and happy, they called me. My mother wore a big scarf, coughing, and said, “Good for you. I’ll die at work here.” She always wanted to take my joy away.

When I asked for money to go out with friends, I had to listen for an hour about how she’d die at work, how miserable her life was. Then she’d throw her purse on the table and say I could take what I wanted because she might not be living tomorrow anyway.

This was a usual start to going out with friends.

I felt tremendous guilt my entire life until I turned 32 or 33. I was the emotional caretaker of my mother throughout childhood. I felt responsible for her well-being so she didn’t take her life.

I learned that experiencing joy upset her, and I didn’t want to hurt her.

In all my romantic relationships, I put myself aside. All my emotions, wishes, and needs became secondary. I also became the victim because that was the instrument I learned from my mother.

Lasting damages:

• Feeling responsible for others’ emotions

• Difficulty saying no

• Constant guilt for living your own life

• Putting others’ needs first always

• Choosing needy partners

The Alcoholic Parent

I never had a birthday party because it was never possible to bring friends home. My father could come home anytime, and I had to be prepared. He was jealous, loud, physical. He burned my mother’s clothes, destroyed plates, and attacked her verbally and physically.

That’s why I don’t celebrate my birthday as an adult. I have no idea how to. Not celebrating is normal for me.

From age five to fifteen, I lived in a terror house, standing on the frontline trying to protect my mother.

I had to develop the skill of pretending. I lied at school that I had a good life at home, that my father didn’t drink, that we did vacations every year. Everything was a lie.

Once I climbed a tree in our garden and told my parents I wouldn’t come down until they got divorced. I was seven.

I learned early that alcohol is an accepted way to numb feelings, and it was part of my life until I turned 37.

Lasting damages:

• High tolerance for accepting bad things

• Choosing alcoholic or unstable partners (it’s familiar)

• Need to control everything

• Difficulty trusting people

• Terrified of closeness

• Developing insecurities from constant lying

The Symptoms You Carry

It took time, effort, and money to notice and work through the symptoms I carried.

What toxic parenting created in me and might have created in you:

• Damaged self-esteem

• Constant guilt

• Feeling worthless, unlovable, inadequate

• Anger transferred to others

• Overdeveloped responsibility for others, underdeveloped care for yourself

• Belief that your emotions don’t matter

• Codependency

• Becoming invisible

• Fear of not being needed

• Choosing partners who replicate the dysfunction

If you experience several of these, it might be worth taking a closer look, even if it’s painful.

What You Can Do Now

If you saw yourself in these patterns, you’re not broken. You were broken into by people who should have protected you.

You are not responsible for what was done to you. But you are responsible for taking steps to heal.

That might mean:

• Therapy to process what happened

• Setting boundaries

• Learning that your needs matter

• Unlearning the guilt

• Breaking the patterns before you pass them on

For me, it took 35 years to get rid of almost all the negative effects, but I’ll never be completely damage-free. There are things like hypervigilance I’ve learned to live with.

For now, know this: Seeing it clearly is the hardest part. And you just did that.

Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment. I read every one. — David

Read More:

I’ve been planning to write this for a long time. About the wisdom I acquired on my bumpy road. Things I wish somebody had told me when I was young so I didn’t waste years learning them the hard way.

These might be obvious to you. Hopefully, you’re already well-equipped.

If not, the experiences I’ve had in 38 years might help you avoid the same mistakes.

Here are the 6 things I wish I knew when I was younger.

1. A Healthy Body Is the Highest Priority

I grew up in a family where smoking, drinking, and eating heavy, unhealthy food were normal. The reward for a work week was alcohol and chain smoking. I lived the same way in my 20s.

My regular breakfast was 2 cans of cheap energy drinks and 4 cigarettes. My lunch was the cheapest pizza delivered to my apartment. I put on weight, became unfit, and had panic attacks every day.

If somebody told me to pay attention to my health, I would have laughed. I thought I’d stay 20 years old forever.

Don’t make the same mistake.

There’s a line that says how you lived in your 20s shows itself in your 30s. I couldn’t agree more. I started getting gray hair and losing hair. My skin became dry. I looked old and burned out.

Fortunately, I realized it in time. I quit smoking. Stopped drinking. Started exercising regularly, running, stretching. And most importantly, sleeping well.

Since then, my hair loss slowed down. My skin cleared up. I have energy again.

If you’re healthy and fit, you can do anything in your life.

You can work more, travel more, be there for the people you love. Your body carries you every single day. Everything else is built on your health.

Treat your body as a temple.

2. Nobody Is Coming to Save You

I was the victim of my life. The victim of circumstances. Poor family. Schools where teachers didn’t like me. Employers that didn’t reward my value. Unfaithful women.

I had an answer for everything, but it was never about me. I blamed everyone.

I said loudly: “If life won’t get better, then I won’t do anything at all.”

Nobody cared about my whiny threat.

After years of victimhood, I had to face the conclusion nobody wants to hear:

Nobody cares about your problems.

People might listen, but then everyone returns to their own life. And you’ll still be on the couch, but nothing will happen. No miracle. No sudden improvement. The woman or man of your dreams won’t ring the bell. The employer won’t call with a great offer. Your muscles won’t grow. Your business won’t build itself.

If you don’t do something about your life, nothing will happen.

This applies to you too.

It’s hard to accept, but here’s the positive side:

If nobody is coming to help you, then you’re the only one who can do something about your life.

You don’t need to wait. You don’t need to blame anyone. You can start today and change your life.

Forget living on hope. Hope won’t help you. Action will.

Quick favor: If this resonates with you, I’d be grateful if you subscribed to Running Home. I share more stories like this about growth, awareness, and the messy journey back to yourself. It’s free, and it helps me keep writing honestly.

Subscribe now

3. Get Help and Deal with Your Demons

In my parents’ generation, therapy meant you were crazy. Talking about emotions was weakness, so people swallowed it instead.

At age 24, I asked myself why I was such an asshole and treated people so badly.

I decided to go to therapy for the first time, and it was a game-changer.

That first therapist gave me the book Toxic Parents by Susan Forward. I couldn’t put it down. It helped me understand the family dynamics and why I felt so much pain.

That led to other therapies where I discovered more beliefs and painful memories I’d been carrying.

After 10 years of working on myself, I put everything on the table. All my negative behaviors came to the surface, and I solved the underlying problems or gained control by being aware of them.

That work helped me become the happy person I am today.

I know young men and women who have deep-seated problems but won’t deal with them because it’s painful. I know because I cried for months. I numbed myself with alcohol, smoking, and food. I tried to escape by traveling and dating four times a week.

But these things won’t help. The only thing that helps is facing those demons.

The reward is huge. It’s a life of feeling reborn, free, and light every day, being able to build everything on a rock-solid foundation.

If you’re not well or think there’s something worth looking at with external help, don’t wait too long.

4. Everything Is Temporary (The Good and the Bad)

We hope for the end of difficult phases, but the good times also have an end date. That’s hard to accept, but it helps you appreciate things and not take them for granted.

I stepped into this trap many times, thinking something would last forever. Relationships, good financial phases, friendships, places, opportunities.

They all end eventually.

But the new phase after a good phase isn’t necessarily worse than the previous one.

When we accept the nature of phases, it helps us survive difficult times easier. I’ve had many of those, and every time the turning point came, I became happier than before.

If you’re in a bad place now, remember: that phase also has an expiry date.

5. Your Callings Aren’t What You Expect

Everyone talks about passion and calling. “Follow your passion. Find your purpose.”

Most people expect some enlightenment moment that says you should travel to Hollywood and become an actor or start a billion-dollar startup.

Unfortunately, callings have a much wider range than we think.

I figured out mine through self-discovery: biology, geography, movies, reading, writing. I love watching movies. Maybe I’ll shoot one someday. Looking at maps gives me the feeling of being an explorer. I read books every day and write on Substack.

These are my callings, and they make my life richer and happier. They’re not what people would expect, but they’re mine, and I feel aligned.

The most important thing is that these are my callings, not someone else’s.

If you experience joy while doing some activity, even if you don’t want to accept it, take a closer look. That might be your calling.

6. Hard Work Usually Pays Off

It doesn’t matter if it’s your job, fitness, or side project, hard work probably pays off.

I know many people who work hard and have results. When I was lazy and surrounded by people with a “don’t work too hard” mentality, we didn’t have any relevant results.

There’s a line that you shouldn’t half-ass anything in your life, and I believe it’s true. If you say you want to be jacked, you can’t stop reps when it hurts a bit. You can’t quit the job when the first challenge arises.

Hard work usually won’t go unnoticed. I started working hard in the last three years, and the results are coming.

Here’s one important thing I realized: I always believed I worked hard, but it wasn’t true. I started complaining way too early because that’s what I learned from my parents and friends who hated their jobs.

Then I realized when I focus more on the work and less on my whiny thoughts, I can deliver great results and work harder than I thought.

Just give it a try. Next time ask yourself: Do I really work hard?

Final Thought

If you only pick one lesson from this and implement it into your life, I’ve already achieved what I wanted.

One more request: If you have experiences that taught you wisdom, please share with me. I’m always looking for insights that can help us live better, healthier, and happier lives.

Thanks for sticking with me through this one. If you’re going through something similar, or have your own experience with this, drop a comment. I read every one. — David

Read More: