I read 25 books in a year. And yes, I know that number is a bit anticlimactic when compared to those who read 100+ books a year, but my experience taught me this: small habit changes can have a much broader impact than you initially intended. Let me explain.

A year ago, I was in a reading drought. Well, more accurately, I was addicted to one fictional series whose books are absurdly long and thus did not leave much room for other books; I’m more of a one-book-at-a-time type of person. …

Two months ago, I tried to write a post about why perfectionism is a terrible standard to live by. I ended up not posting it because I didn’t feel it was good enough. The irony should be obvious.

When I took my initial stab at the subject, I felt there was a missing piece in my understanding. While those writers who claim “trying to be perfect is limiting you” make a valid point, I knew there was more to it. Why exactly do we aim for perfection in the first place?

Well, I think it’s because we project that expectation…

When was the last time you let yourself be sad or upset and didn’t seek a remedy? You let yourself cry without a shoulder to lean on or a bottle to drown yourself in because, damn-it, you will make that pressing sorrow go away.

I’m currently reading Pema Chördrön’s When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, not because my life is in dire straits, but more so because I recognized my life was in transition and wasn’t sure how to handle it. …

If history has taught us anything…

In the past year or so, I feel this phrase has made an abnormal resurgence. Beyond being an obvious cliche, we use this saying as a catch-all explanation to capture anything complex. We use it to explain why people make certain choices or why trends come and go; to belittle our enemies and uplift our closest friends. …

Reading Marcus Aurelius's Meditations (translated by Gregory Hays), his words emphasized that in the almost 2000 years since his existence, societal circumstances surely changed, but not people. Modes of thought come and go, but human nature is constant.

For me, Meditations surfaced one realization: people have strayed so far from staying in their own lane. The advent of social media has blown age-old gossip out of proportion, to the point where we are more concerned about what other people think of us than what we think of ourselves. …

In a few days, I will be heading back to school to pursue a graduate degree. As I make this known, it is easy to default in seeing this as one moment in time, as if I made the decision yesterday. But that is not the case; it took me two years of internal debates, research, and contemplation to come to this conclusion, but the mere fact of starting tends to get all the credit.

Many people may be questioning if they should go back to school; we are told it is a great place to learn new ideas, gain…

The human relationship with time is interesting. Often people clamor, “Life is too short!” Other times, the sentiment is “Life is long, there is no need to rush.” I believe this dichotomy is a reflection of how people live their daily lives. This is similar to Newton’s First Law of Physics, which says:

an object will not change it’s motion unless a force acts upon it.

If we translate this to people’s relationship with time, those who feel life is short must feel short on time in their daily lives, unable to slow down their tumultuous sprint. …

We live the smallest portion of our lives in pure curiosity and wonder about the world. At least most of us, and yes you probably guessed it, it is during our childhood. When we are children, everything in the world is new, fascinating, peculiar; we are filled to the brim with inquisitiveness, but as we age, and as the external expectations lay heavier on our shoulders, we lose this curiosity of the world. We take whatever knowledge is already stored away to apply judgments to people and objects throughout our life. …