The more you fear something, the more it hunts you. When it starts to consume you, it becomes an obsession, and that obsession eventually consumes you.

Maybe it sounds cliché that when you fear something, you attract it. But it’s quite literally true.

When you buy a new car, suddenly all you see on the street are those kinds of cars. It’s not because more of them appeared. It’s that now you NOTICE them. The brain works the same way with your deepest fears. Once it decides something is true about you, it finds evidence everywhere. And quietly ignores the rest.

This is true about other things too. For example, when you are constantly obsessed with food, how you eat, how you look, the more obsessed you become, the more likely you are to feel bad when you eventually slip a bit and end up just giving up. You quit. Not because one bad day matters. Because it confirmed what you already believed about yourself. Same with money. Same with love. If you have the underlying belief that you are someone who can’t be fit, or wealthy, or find love, your brain will literally filter out how you see the world based on that.

The brain is obsessed with predictability. It’s always going to revert back to the default, whatever the automatic belief about yourself is, because the brain is always going to be aligned with what you expect.

I was sad for them, but you can’t convince someone using reason if they are not willing to change. They just dismiss everything you say…

What do you keep seeing everywhere? Because that's the belief running your life right now.

After weeks of stress and worry, i was dreaming of the day I will wake up and be able to breathe freely. Free of the feeling that I need to maximize my productivity as much as possible, free of the need to rush through my day, free of the feeling that I am not smart enough, disciplined enough, good enough. Dreaming of waking up slowly, opening the window and admiring the morning. Of making breakfast, with my favorite cup of tea and sipping in slowly while listening to jazz. Of getting ready slowly, no need to rush. Of finally feeling at peace.

But what I didn’t understand is that in the absence of stress, instead of peace, I was left with emptiness. Without a list of tasks running through my mind, what I thought would feel liberating, actually felt quiet. Too quiet. The unsettling kind that makes you want to pull your hair and scream until you fill that void.

The thing is, that when your happiness relies entirely on external validation, whether that is from your family, partner, friends or just academic achievements, that happiness is not yours. Not in the ways that count at least. Because it can be so easily snatched away from you, you forget it ever existed. And that absence hits you a hundred times harder. Like an addict being taken away from their substance, that is what not having external stimuli for your happiness, when that is all you’ve ever known, feels like.

My day started great. Tea, healthy breakfast, music, great makeup and hair day. I felt beautiful. I felt excited. I was meant to go to another city, pick my passport up, then wander on the streets, savour a coffee in the city square, go shopping and enjoy a day fully to myself. And I felt happy. But even that small happiness is not entirely yours if it’s so easily taken by someone or a change in your environment.

That is thin ice to walk on, to allow yourself to exist more on the outside than on the inside. To be an addict of the external world. A single conversation, sentence, a few words, a change in your environment, are enough for you to forget any emotion you felt earlier. The world feels small and you just want to get home and lock yourself in your room.

I came rushing back, cooked myself a good meal, i made tea, i did a face mask, but suddenly what once would have brought me joy is now overshadowed by feelings of guilt. I am now on my third cup of tea. I feel a sudden flame burning down my throat. I let it.

It’s said that we shouldn’t search for happiness outside, that we keep searching, when all along it was inside us. But the thing is not that I didn’t try that. It’s that I looked inward and found the lights off.

I don’t know how to turn the lights on. But at least I’ve stopped pretending the room is already bright.

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If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you’ve probably seen the flood of videos about dreaming of the soft life. Girls saying they can’t wait to marry a rich man, spend their days at pilates, drink matcha, get their nails done, go shopping, and never have to worry about anything. Hundreds of posts and millions of likes.

And honestly? It’s getting on my nerves. Not because there’s anything wrong with those things - but because of what’s being sold underneath them. These posts are packaging a life and handing it to young girls as the dream, without mentioning what’s missing from it. There are a hundred reasons not to marry purely for money, but that’s not what this is about. What bothers me more is the story these videos tell about life itself - that your options are either to work, or to do nothing. That those are the only two paths. And I find that genuinely problematic.

And I’m not here to judge the activities. I enjoy all of those things and would find it fun to spend my day like that. But I cannot imagine maintaining this lifestyle for more than a few days. I believe it would get quite repetitive and boring. The problem isn’t pilates or wanting to be provided for. The problem is the story underneath it and the mindset, the idea that the best possible life is one where you do nothing.

These videos are selling freedom from struggle as the ultimate goal. And on the surface, especially if you’ve come from a life of hardship or poverty, that’s an understandable fantasy. Of course you want to rest. Of course you want to be taken care of. But there’s a difference between wanting rest and making rest the entire point of your existence.

Because here’s what I think actually happens in that life, past the first few weeks: boredom. Not the boredom of having nothing to do, the boredom of being a passenger in your own life.

And I think this reveals something fundamental about what humans actually need - not comfort, but authorship. The feeling that you are steering toward something. That your choices carry weight. That you are building, however slowly, something that is yours. Take that away and it doesn’t matter how beautiful the lifestyle is. You will feel hollow. You need a game to dedicate your life to, a reason to wake up every morning that excites you.

And what’s beautiful is that it will be different for everyone. I don’t mean necessarily to be productive in the official sense. But just do what matters to you. What is great about the initial scenario is that now you have the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want. If you get the financial aspect out of the way and have infinite time, what would you do? If you have all the resources to pursue any creative endeavour, sport or passion project without having to worry about monetizing it, what would you do? What weight would you bring into the world? You can definitely still relax and go shopping and whatever you want, but what else?

Like I love to take care of myself and get pretty and do girly things and be taken care of, but I would also feel incredibly unfulfilled if that was my ONLY goal in life.

We don’t actually want a life without struggle. We want a life where the struggle is ours.

But here’s the turn: I think the same trap exists on the other end of the spectrum.

There’s a version of ambition that is just the trophy wife fantasy in a blazer, trophy employee, I would call it. You fill every hour with productivity, optimise relentlessly, define yourself entirely by output - and call it meaning. But if you strip away the busyness, is there actually anything there that you chose? Or did you just absorb someone else’s definition of success and execute against it? That’s not purpose.

The real question is: if the financial pressure disappeared, what would you actually do? What would you build, create, pursue, explore, if no one was measuring it and nothing was at stake except the fact that it mattered to you?

That’s where your life actually is. Everything else is noise - whether it comes dressed as luxury or ambition.

You can still get your nails done. You can still go to pilates. But those things are texture, not substance. What’s the substance?

Do not let work or “doing nothing” consume your life that you forget to do things that matter.

Don’t just be a trophy wife. Don’t just be a trophy employee either. Figure out what you actually want to bring into the world - and then go do that, relentlessly, on your own terms.

Our brain does not store information like a hard drive. It builds patterns, pictures, models. Most of what we take in every day is noise, and we have started mistaking the sheer volume of it for actual knowledge.

There is a difference between knowing something and understanding it. Most people treat them as the same thing. They are not even close.

Knowing the right answer means you can recognize it when you see it. Understanding means you know why every other answer is wrong.

Knowing is borrowing. You read something, it sounds right, you nod, you move on. You have taken someone else’s conclusion and filed it under things you believe. But you never questioned it. You just accepted it because it came from a book, or a teacher, or someone who seemed like they knew what they were talking about. That is not thinking. That is storage.

The clearest sign of this is what happens when you get something wrong. If you only know the right answer, being wrong just feels bad. You correct it and move on. But if you understand it, being wrong is actually useful, because you can see exactly where the thinking broke down. You know why the wrong answer is wrong, not just that it is. That is a completely different relationship with the material.

I noticed this most when studying. I would go through my notes, see the right answer, recognize it, feel that small validation of yes, that’s it, and move on feeling prepared. But that click was lying to me. Recognition is not understanding. Seeing something and nodding is not the same as being able to produce it from scratch, or explain why the alternative fails, or connect it to something in a completely different subject. I was not learning. I was pattern-matching against things I had already seen.

Understanding is when you can take what you know in one place and use it somewhere else. When you can draw a line between an idea in economics and something you observed in a friendship, or between a principle in physics and how human relationships work. That kind of connection does not come from memorizing. It comes from actually sitting with an idea long enough to see what it is made of. Most people never do that. They collect the conclusion and skip the part where you figure out why it is true.

The internet is manufactured to make our minds scattered, to give us the illusion of understanding while keeping us more confused than ever. Gen Z is the most academically educated generation and has the most credentials, but less depth of thinking, attention, and memory. It’s the first generation that has an IQ score lower than the previous one.

We live in the most information-rich era in human history, yet we may be the least equipped to actually hold and use knowledge. More access has created less retention. More information has produced less understanding. People have become reliant on technology not just to access information, but to store their sense of intelligence itself. In essence, we outsource our thinking to Google and AI the same way we'd outsource physical labor to a machine. People have started relying on technology not just to find information, but to feel intelligent. The volume went up, the depth went down, and we barely noticed because the feeling of being informed never went away.

I have done this. More times than I want to admit.

I would be working through a problem, get to the hard part, and instead of sitting with not knowing, I would peek at the answer. I would basically manufacture the positive feedback. And then I would tell myself I had solved it. I had not. I had seen a solution. Those are not the same thing, and somewhere underneath the good feeling I gave myself, I knew it.

I did the same thing with AI. Ask for an explanation, get one, feel like I understood, move on. But if someone had asked me five minutes later to explain it myself, in plain language, I would have had nothing. The understanding never happened. I had created the feeling that comes with understanding, without doing the work that actually gets you there. The feeling was real. The learning was not.

This is how most people learn right now, in a world where the answer is always one search away. The struggle that used to force real understanding has been almost completely removed. But that struggle was not the enemy. Take the friction away and you take away the learning.

The deeper question is why we do this. Why fake the feeling of understanding instead of actually going after it?

My answer is identity. When being smart becomes part of how you see yourself, not knowing something stops being a neutral state. It feels like a threat. And when something feels like a threat, the mind shuts down before it can process what just happened.

This is why people get defensive when they come across something that challenges what they already believe. It is not really about the idea. It is about protecting a sense of self. The mind closes, the insight gets thrown out, and the person walks away feeling right. Most arguments are not actually about ideas. They are about egos that do not want to be wrong.

Technology makes this easier to hide. People reach for Google not just to find answers, but to feel smart. They ask AI not just to learn, but to feel like they already know. What comes back is a version of confidence they never actually earned. And over time, the reflection starts to feel better than the real thing, because the real thing takes work.

I am not going to pretend I have fixed this. I still feel the pull of the easy answer. What has changed is the honesty. Now I keep it simple: either a) I worked through the problem myself, or b) I looked at the answer. I am allowed to do that, but if I looked at the answer, I just have to confidently admit that yes, I do not understand it yet. That is not a failure. It is just the truth, and knowing the truth about where you are is the only way to actually get somewhere.

The bigger shift is trying to start from a place of genuinely not knowing. The moment you think you have figured something out is when you stop thinking about it and evolving. You go from curious to defensive. And once you are in defense mode, thinking is over. So remove your ego as much as possible regarding knowledge, and remove the need to be right. Because often when people stumble upon information that threatens their beliefs and views, they become defensive, which may influence them to act impulsively, making them miss out on what they just found.

Real clarity does not come from consuming more. It comes from organizing what you already have so it actually connects. It means being able to reduce what you know to first principles. If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it.

Drop the ego around knowledge. Drop the need to be right. When something challenges what you believe, stay with it long enough to actually understand it before you decide what you think. That is not a complicated idea. It is just hard in a world that is designed to make it feel unnecessary.

You shouldn’t try to know everything. You should try to build increasingly accurate models of how things work so you can make better decisions with less information. That’s understanding.

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So how does one make the right choice?

The dilemma is small. I know the world is on fire right now in approximately seventeen different ways, and here I am agonizing over a few exams. But it’s still mine. And I think the smallness of it is actually what makes it interesting, because the mechanics of the decision are the same regardless of the stakes. The anxiety feels identical whether you’re choosing between exam strategies or something that actually matters to other people.

So: I have two exams coming up, back-to-back - one day apart. The second one is the important one. More points and more consequences if I mess it up. The first one is lower stakes, but failing it means next semester I’d face a harder version of it, plus an oral exam on top of that. If I skip it now, I will just retake the same exam next semester, not harder, no oral exam - though I’d have five exams total in the summer, which is its own kind of pressure (I meannn what if it falls on my birthday???????).

The “rational” choice seemed obvious at first: skip the first exam. Focus entirely on the important one. Don’t risk failing both by splitting my attention. Protect the thing that matters most.

There’s a version of playing it safe that is genuinely wise - knowing your limits, protecting your energy, not spreading yourself too thin. And then there’s a version that is just fear wearing the costume of strategy. I started to wonder which one I was doing.

Because here’s the thing I noticed: the moment I gave myself permission to skip the first exam, I stopped studying as hard. Suddenly there was an escape hatch, and some part of my brain walked straight toward it. I know for a fact that if skipping wasn’t an option, I would have figured out how to study for both. I would have found the hours. I would have made it work. But the option to opt out quietly eroded my willingness to try.

So the question I kept running with was: how do you tell the difference between a genuinely smart, self-aware decision and a comfortable excuse? How do you know when caution is wisdom and when it’s just fear of finding out what you’re actually capable of?

I kept asking myself: would the regret of not taking the risk be greater than the pain of taking it and failing? I don’t think there’s a clean answer, but somewhere during the run, I realized that the regret of not trying is almost always heavier than the pain of failing. Failure stings and then fades. The “what if” calcifies.

And maybe more importantly, I think we often already know what we want to do. We know it before we make the pros and cons list, before we ask our friends, before we go on the run. The deliberation isn’t really about gathering information. It’s about building up enough courage to trust the answer that was already there.

I got back, and I knew. I’m taking the exam.

Not because it’s the strategically optimal choice. But because giving myself the easy out was already changing who I was being about it, and I didn’t like that version of myself. The risk of failing is real. The consequence of failing is annoying and way worse than skipping it. But the consequence of quietly opting out of every hard thing, one reasonable excuse at a time, is worse.

That’s the thing about “playing it safe.” Sometimes the most dangerous thing you can do is protect yourself too well.

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Most people believe they stay consistent because they are logical, principled, or disciplined. In reality, consistency has very little to do with rationality.

People stay in toxic relationships, continue careers they secretly hate, keep playing video games hours after the fun has disappeared, repeating, bored, but unable to stop.

From the outside, this looks irrational. From the inside, it feels inevitable.

People persist in decisions long after they become harmful, defend beliefs even when evidence collapses, and stay loyal to identities that no longer serve them - not because these choices are correct, but because changing them is metabolically expensive.

Consistency feels virtuous, but it is often nothing more than the brain protecting its own efficiency.

This is why small commitments escalate into life-defining decisions, why people stay trapped in bad paths despite knowing better, and why persuasion works best before we notice it happening. The explanation is not moral or motivational. It is neurological.

Diving deeper

Robert Cialdini’s second principle of persuasion, Commitment and Consistency, describes the tendency to remain aligned with previous choices once a commitment has been made. While this principle is often explained in terms of social pressure or self-image, I have been trying to examine it through the lens of neuroscience, predictive processing, and cognitive energy regulation.

Identity is not abstract; it is biologically instantiated. When a person says “yes” to something, the brain does not treat this as a neutral event. It treats it as a self-updating signal. The mind is structured to perceive itself as stable, reliable, and coherent, and consistency maintains that internal coherence. Changing one’s mind generates internal conflict because it violates the brain’s predictive model of who it believes itself to be. To reverse a decision is not merely to choose differently - it is to admit error within the self-model.

This is why small “yeses” can lock individuals into much larger commitments (for example acording to Cialdni’s priciples why, signing a small petition can lead to later donating money, or starting a free trial makes it more likely to say yes to payment later, or saying publicly “I’m a gym person” makes it more likely to keep going).

Each act of agreement strengthens a neural pattern associated with identity. When someone says “I am” something (even if it’s unconsciously), they are not simply describing themselves; they are reinforcing a self-referential neural circuit. Through repetition - in thought, language, and behavior this circuit becomes increasingly efficient. According to Hebbian learning principles, neurons that fire together wire together, and identity becomes progressively automated.

Over time, identity is encoded in the brain as a collection of self-referential neural patterns, primarily supported by the Default Mode Network (DMN), or according to Kahneman - System 1. The DMN (active when the brain is at rest, thinking internally, daydreaming, recalling memories, imagining the future, self-reflection) governs autobiographical memory, narrative identity, and internal simulation. The brain treats identity as ground truth because it forms the foundation of its predictive framework. Violating identity produces prediction error, which the brain experiences as discomfort, instability, and threat.

So, your brain is not optimized for truth-seeking. Your brain is an efficiency machine. It’s constantly trying to automate as much as possible to save energy. It seeks patterns, automation, and minimal energy expenditure. (aka your brain is lazy)

Conscious effort requires a ton of glucose and oxygen. It’s metabolically expensive.

Once a behavioral or cognitive pathway is established, continuing along it requires less effort than disrupting it. Re-evaluating a decision demands conscious attention, inhibition of habitual responses, and executive control - all of which are metabolically costly. Consistency, by contrast, is cheap.

This efficiency bias aligns directly with Daniel Kahneman’s distinction between System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 is fast, automatic, intuitive, and low-effort; System 2 is slow, deliberate, analytical, and energy-intensive. Although these systems are conceptual, they correspond to large-scale brain networks.

System 1 maps primarily onto the Default Mode Network (along with other systems). System 2 maps onto the Central Executive Network (CEN), which enables focused attention, reasoning, inhibition, and conscious decision-making. Engaging the CEN requires significant metabolic resources, which explains why it is not the brain’s default mode of operation.

The Salience Network (SN) acts as a switch between these systems. Its role is to detect novelty, threat, or importance and determine whether the brain should remain in automatic processing or shift into executive control. If a situation does not register as salient, the brain remains in System 1.

Cialdini’s principles of persuasion - particularly commitment and consistency - are effective precisely because they avoid activating the salience network. When a request aligns with prior commitments or existing identity, it feels familiar and coherent. There is no perceived threat, no novelty, and no reason to expend energy. The brain therefore stays in System 1, allowing behavior to unfold automatically. By the time System 2 could intervene, the action already feels justified.

In this way, persuasion operates not by overpowering rational thought, but by preventing it from being engaged at all. Commitment works because identity is treated as non-negotiable, patterns are preferred over reevaluation, and consistency preserves cognitive economy.

What appears as loyalty, discipline, or integrity is often the brain defending its internal architecture.

Cialdini’s commitment principle works because Kahneman’s System 1, rooted in the Default Mode Network, treats identity as ground truth, while the salience network rarely signals the need for executive override - allowing consistency to prevail even when it is no longer rational.

So, besides the obvious persuasion and social advantages of these reflections, how can you use them in a deeper self-focused way? The question remains: how do you use these principles and systems to stay consistent? I suppose the true answer to this question is personal and dependent on each one of us, but from my own reflections and what helps me, is using the fact that our brain is lazy. You need to design your environment to do the heavy lifting for you. Put systems into place that make having the desirable outcome easier than the opposite. Make the desirable outcome the easiest, most obvious choice. Plan your week ahead, make the appointments, tell someone, make it a pain in the ass to change your course.

So, want to stay consistent with the gym and eating healthy? Book the membership, invite a friend with you, lay your gym clothes the night before, mealprep, and don’t keep any snacks in the house. Are you really going to call your friend and bail on them? Or will you really go in the middle of the night to the store for a snack? Maybe you will, but it’s definitely less likely. ( or the less smart way is to spend a hell lot of money on gym clothes, that now you just need to go).

Disclaimer: I do not claim all these ideas as mine; they are simply concluded from my curiosity regarding Robert Cialdini (which started with a random post I saw), a Substack post on neuroscience, a Huberman podcast on Neuroscience and the Salience Network, and some simple research on the more scientific parts.

Anyways, this was extremely fun to write and research, and was more of an exercise for myself to try to understand and express my opinion on the matter. Which, like usual, writing helps a lot.

i have faith that will end up exactly where I am meant to, whatever that may look like. I do not have my life set in stone and that is beautiful about it.

i just know i need internal peace and direction.

i want goals that give me goosebumps.

love that gives me peace and confidence.

friends that give me energy.

and a mission that makes it impossible to sleep , and irresistible to wake up.

a life that feels like fireworks.

this year tested me, changed me, made me stronger, taught me to live alone, taught me to love, taught me that the only limitation to my life is my mind and taught me that life is fucking amazing.

in 2026 i reject

living without direction.

i reject waiting for the perfect moment.

my mind and body will be my top priority.

my thoughts, emotion and attention will be aligned.

i will stop fighting old patterns.

intrinsic motivation and momentum will become my only response.

everything will align to support me.

(and this post is low key just me trying to convince myself to actually stick to it)

From what I understand, and me trying to make a vague comparison, our brain is like a supercomputer.

But it has a limited amount of processing power. Like the RAM in a computer. If you have one hundred tabs open on your desktop, the computer will become extremely slow.

No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to do anything of practical value without closing all your tabs first. Because your brain will try to allow power for all those things running in the background.

Just like you cannot fill an overflowing glass with more water and expect it to stay in the glass. You need to drink from it first before you can add some more.

When you reach cognitive overload, new dots and connections are trying to be formed, but instead, there’s too much going on in order for you to deliberately make those connections yourself. Information is flowing through your senses and getting binned straight away. If you want new information to connect to your knowledge web - to get integrated - you need to process the information. You almost have to stop and physically make these connections yourself through thinking and questioning.

When your mind reaches cognitive overload (brain gets overwhelmed, too much information), you need to reduce it. And if you don’t do that, your brain will be in a constant state of stress and run slowly.

But if you instead have a clean slate, you will be able to concentrate and learn things much easier. I have been struggling with my attention span, but also with staying in silence with myself. And even though I recognize the problem in that, I still struggle with being consistent with it. I know the problem, I know the solution, or at least a remedy for it, or what would help, yet I sabotage myself.

However substack has been helping a little with it. I am still not writing every day, but it’s helped me pull some thoughts together, even the things and essays that I do not post, and I feel like it’s a tiny bit easier to express my thoughts.

I used to do scrapbooking. I remember spending hours at a time cutting things, writing, and being creative in such a unique way. The end result really wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, but I genuinely enjoyed the process so much. The creativity that went into the process was what brought me real joy. Maybe I will find a way to combine them, who knows.

We don’t usually think of beauty as essential. We treat it like decoration - something we enjoy when we have the time, the money, or the energy. But what if beauty isn’t optional at all? What if your brain actually depends on it?

Aesthetics can actually alter our mood, our confidence, even the way we learn and move through the world. The study of Neuroaesthetics (or also called Neuroarts) has emerged from this idea, revealing that regular creative and aesthetic experiences can literally change the brain.

But before explaining how, let me start with a story.

In middle school, I was arguing with my teacher about the school wanting to implement a dress code. I was explaining to her how I do not like that, because it would hinder my ability to learn. My argument was the following: clothes are a form of art and self-expression - everyone has a personal style, so it’s also a pathway for self-discovery and decision-making. She responded that I can “self-express” outside of school, and that at school we come to learn and not “să arătăm moda” (to do a fashion show).

The thing is, it’s not only that. Choosing my clothes, dressing how I want, besides the fact that it allows me to let my creativity out, which is known to be an important factor in learning, is also making me feel better. I get to choose how I look and dress in a way that I find aesthetically pleasing —> I feel prettier. Because I feel prettier, and because I am making decisions —> my confidence increases. When you like how you look, your brain’s reward system is activated and dopamine is released. As a result, you are happier and more confident throughout the day. So getting ready is basically aligning reality with that internal picture that your brain has regarding how it wants to look and feel today, so when they match, you feel more coherent and less awkward, which ultimately leads to better concentration and confidence in your ability to learn and do well in class.

So basically if you feel aesthetically aligned with yourself, you often speak more clearly and avoid hiding. Basically, the feedback loop says: “I look like the version of me I respect” —> I behave more like that person.

Let’s imagine the opposite. I wear a uniform, one that I hate; the colors clash with my color palette, they wash me out, and the fit of the clothes is not right for my body type. Generally, I don’t like how it looks on me and I feel ugly. If I feel like this, I will feel more anxious, more shy, and less likely to answer questions. Because if I am not satisfied with myself, how can I have the confidence to share my thoughts? Also, I am very self-aware, so the whole day I will think about the fact that I hate my outfit, that I look ugly, constantly adjusting, constantly wishing I could change into something that felt like me, and I will not be able to concentrate much because of how much mental space this self-consciousness occupies.

When our external appearance aligns with our internal identity, our brain enters a more confident, regulated state. When the alignment breaks, stress rises and cognitive performance drops. A uniform might seem like a piece of fabric, but if it disrupts someone’s sense of self, it can interfere with learning just as much as noise, or lack of sleep.

Sure, this take might seem shallow, and you might tell me that I should love myself and be confident regardless of how I look, that confidence should come from within. But confidence is not something that floats in a vacuum. It is influenced by every signal our brain receives from our body and our environment. Looking like a version of myself that I respect and recognize helps me act like the version of myself that I want to become. If I feel uncomfortable or unhappy with how I present myself, that discomfort follows me throughout the day. It’s not about being obsessed with appearance; it’s about feeling aligned with myself so that I have the mental space and emotional stability to focus and learn. It doesn't have to be perfect or Instagram-worthy. It’s about creating enough visual and sensory comfort that your brain calms down and lets you function.

But what exactly is this called?

Let’s look at this from a more scientific perspective, and more exactly through the lens of neuroaesthetics. As shown above, through my younger self’s experience, aesthetics quietly shape your day and can lift your motivation and mood.

Let's start from the beginning, what are neuroaesthetics? Neuroaesthetics is an interdisciplinary field that studies the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experiences by combining principles from neuroscience, psychology, and art. It investigates how the brain responds to art, beauty, and other creative stimuli, exploring the neural basis of emotions, pleasure, and valuation that occur when we experience art and beauty.

So how did I become interested in this? Obviously, it is something that i have always felt, but couldn’t really prove it. My arguments started forming shape due to 1. seeing some very short tik toks (not so proud of this) and 2. watching a very interesting podcast, that touches a lot of subjects. And while very briefly, Dr. Tara Swart also talks about neuroaesthetics.

She basically says that says that neuroaesthetics is about making sure you have some form of creative or aesthetically rich activity in your regular routine. According to her, research shows that engaging in something creative at least once a week - whether it’s dance, music, painting, drawing, reading fiction, going to the theatre, or even spending time in nature - has a huge impact on both mental and physical health. Nature counts too, she explains, because unlike taste in art or music, the human love for natural beauty is universal. She mentions how even simple things, like waking up to fresh flowers with a nice scent, having objects of beauty in your home, or listening to birdsong in the morning, all fall under neuroaesthetics. In other words, it’s about living a life that is aesthetically pleasing to your brain, which is genuinely good for your health.

Neuroaesthetics also questions whether we have an instinct for beauty. Research shows that newborn infants only hours old will gaze longer at faces that are rated as attractive by adults. Similarly, a study found that one-year-old babies will play almost twice as long with dolls with attractive faces than those with unattractive faces.

It appears that viewing something beautiful, like an attractive face, activates the pleasure and reward systems of the brain. It doesn’t seem to matter what the source of pleasure is - these different pleasures all appear to be processed through the same brain systems.

So why does it work?

Neuroaesthetics suggests that small encounters with beauty - such as reading in the morning, walking in nature, listening to birdsong, or keeping fresh flowers beside one’s bed - are not only acts of decoration. Instead, they engage neural systems that influence emotional regulation, stress responses, and long-term well-being.

From an evolutionary perspective, humans have always been attracted to beauty as a signal of safety. Early humans sought environments that supported survival like running water, open skies, green landscapes. These features were not merely attractive; they indicated the presence of resources, shelter, and safety from threats. Because of this, our nervous systems became conditioned to interpret natural beauty as calming and reassuring. So basically beauty signals safety.

If your house is covered in paintings and fresh flowers and candles, obviously that signals safety. It signals that you’re not just surviving. It signals to your brain that you are at peace.

The other thing is time, which is a luxury. So if you have time in the morning to even just read a book for 20 minutes, or listen to music, or do something just for the sake of your pleasure, that signals again to your brain that you’re not just surviving and you’re not in fight or flight, but you actually have like a moment to read a book, paint, go on a nature walk, like anything that’s aesthetically pretty for your mind. It signals again to your mind that it is in a whole different realm of happiness, safety and health because you have that luxury. So basically: I have time to do something for myself —> I am safe.

Aesthetics may appear like a luxury, yet many forms are inexpensive and accessible. The point is not extravagance but signaling to the brain that life contains moments of pleasureand beauty. Neuroaesthetics, therefore, is not about superficial decoration but about leveraging the brain’s ancient wiring to cultivate feelings of peace and safety.

Time for specific actions

So how to implement neuroaesthetics in everyday life?

Understanding the science behind neuroaesthetics is only half of its usefulness; the other half lies in integrating it intentionally into everyday life.

One accessible approach is to incorporate simple natural or sensory experiences into the morning routine. For example, I love listening to music or a podcast in the morning (which sometimes are so interesting that they make me lose track of time), while I cook breakfast or do my make-up. I also love going to study in little coffee shops and enjoying the atmosphere there, which is such a small luxury, but can be a really great change from the mundane look of your bedroom.

Of course there are a lot of things you can do, depending on each person, but the main thing is to find at least like 10 minutes that you can dedicate in your day to essentially calm down your brain a little bit and be nice to yourself.

So I am going to do my girly things and get ready and wear nice outfits and enjoy flowers and music, and now I have even more arguments to do so :))))

In truth, much of our “dislikes” are actually dislikes of judgment, failure, or comparison. Strip away the social context, the performance anxiety, the ego threat, and the activity itself might be enjoyable. But we never get to find out because we’ve associated the thing with all the painful feelings surrounding it.

I am struggling with understanding myself and questing whether I made the right choices. I am convincing myself that I hate this country, the universty, the language, the courses, the people. I am starting to doubt myself and make imaginary connections through my life. Starting to portait different life events as arguments for my struggles now, and reasons to quit: “I loved art growing up, so I am not meant to pursue a career in STEM, so that is why i am struggling right now”. Or maybe, these are just elaborate defences my brain is trying to make to protect itself. Because naturally it is wired to avoid discomfort. Struggle signals danger, so we naturally move away from it.

But the only way to know if you truly dislike something is to get good enough at it that difficulty is no longer the dominant experience. You have to push through the discomfort long enough to experience the activity without the fear of incompetence drowning everything else out.

And the funny thing about this essay is that there is no great idea yet. But that also proves my point about it being energy, a state of being, rather that a tangible plan. So here i am just randomly spilling thoughts because I feel charged and feel alive.

I am often a procrastinator, but only about things that bore me, things that don’t set my soul on fire. Because when I truly feel something calling my name, I will obsess shamelessly over it.

Maybe it’s the mundane rhythm of university that made me realize I do not want to live like the usual student. And I don’t mean that I necessarily want to drop out, I just mean that I don’t want my degree to be my whole life and the most interesting thing about me. I want other experiences too. I like the math, and it’s challenging for me, even more so doing it all in German and understanding only 50% of it on a good day. But I don’t want my life to be university 24/7, then internships, a master’s degree, a job, and nothing else.

There’s a difference between having a life and building one. Between existing and living. University wants to mold you into a shape that fits neatly into the system. But the mass of people lead lives of quiet desperation, never asking what makes them come alive. I refuse to be a passive passenger in my own life. And this sounds very hypocrite from me, since I am studying in uni, but I just mean that I don’t want it to become my whole life. You will never find me studying from morning till night, or scarifying experiences for grades.

Or maybe i am just growing older. Or maybe i am just realizing that any moment you can be left completely alone, your parents can die, your friends can leave you, your partner can break up with you. It sounds pretty to rely on someone and never have work or worry, but life can be unpredictable, so you better be prepared.

Doing things yourself builds discipline and knowledge like nothing else. You have to cultivate things that cannot be stolen away from you: your mind, your resilience, your ambition. These are your identity and can’t be taken away like money and power can.

Remember Viktor Frankl? In the concentration camps, everything was stripped from him, his family, his manuscript, his freedom, his dignity. Yet he survived because of one thing they couldn’t take: his mind. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

And through this i don’t mean to tell you be stubborn and never accept help, because it’s really nice receiving support from your parents, or being provided for by your spouse. I just mean that if you are left alone you don’t need to drown. There’s a profound difference between accepting help from a place of strength versus clinging to it from a place of fear. Imagine not being able to follow your own life, because you depend on your parents, or not being able to leave a relationship because you depend on your partner financially.

When you receive help because someone loves you and wants to give, not because you’ll collapse without it, that’s beautiful. When you’re provided for and you know you could provide for yourself if needed, that’s partnership, not dependency.

Use the peace and time you have today to build a better self for tomorrow. Because one day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Become who you are.

My story wasn’t in the winter tho, it was a warm beginning of October. It’s been two weeks since moving away, since stepping into a new life. But it felt more like stepping outside in winter and realizing you forgot your coat. Exposed, unprotected, and too far from the door to turn back now.

As I am entering this empty room alone, sitting on a much too stiff bed, sharing a bath with strangers, and speaking in a language that does not belong in my mouth. I realize that i didn’t just choose university abroad, i didn’t just choose a “quirky little side quest”, but I chose my life’s greatest teacher. Its a bittersweet feeling really. Between cries and laughs, I am trying not to lose myself in the process, and find the girl that was excited for this experience, the one who made this decision with hope instead of heaviness, before the reality set in.

If you are anxious or you are going through something or you need somebody to talk to, you don’t have anyone at home waiting for you at the end of the day, to regulate yur nervous system. Sure you could call or text someone, but its not the same. Everyone is busy with their own lives and it kinda feels like you are intruding and bursting into someones life with your negativity. So kind of end up keeping everything to yourself, and when you are alone at night and are sitting with yourself in the silence of your room, you take a deep breath and ask yourself how do I feel better now, because you have no external input anymore.

But I do feel that every single person should live alone at some point in their life. The amount of growth and confidence you you can build when you realise that you are good on your own and can take care of yourself, the better your life get, the higher your standards are and the better you feel about yourself. You form a different identity, one that isn’t shaped by who you’ve always been in relation to others, but by who you discover yourself to be when no one is watching.

Well I am definitely not at that phase lol. Yes, I am still longing for communication, for conversation, for touch, for someone to sit across from me and care about the small, meaningless details of my day. Maybe because I am human, but also maybe because I am still subconsciously waiting for someone to cry myself out to, someone who will hold the weight of my feelings so I don’t have to carry it alone. And some people would say its good, to talk about your feelings to someone. But at the end of the day everyone is busy chasing their own goals, and no matter how close you are to someone, you will never be first priority. And your own thoughts are just a random intrusion of their day, a pause in their own narrative that they’ll return from as soon as they hang up the phone.

Maybe its a pessimist thought, thinking that no one loves you enough to long to get to know your soul, to seek out the depths of who you are without being asked. But you realize this when you call your parents and realize they are having a life besides you, a better one even, because they do not have to worry about you anymore.

And maybe that is extremely egocentric, thinking that everyone’s world stops spinning once I am no longer in their lives physically, that my absence creates a void rather than just... space. But I guess its a defence mechanism, because the truth hurts much more.

So i moved out from home forever. Next times will be just visits, holidays, short expiration dates marked on a calendar. I’m becoming a guest in the place that used to be mine. But also a guest in the place that is mine right now. But it’s been only two weeks. So I am just left floating in between spaces, trying to build the strength to let go and start over. For my body to adapt to the cold, instead of dying from frostbite.

Besides all of this, I would still 100% recommend everyone live alone at least once in their life, at least for a short period. Because the confidence it gives you is unmatched. You learn to take care of yourself and be happy without depending on anyone. You need to step away from outside influences and distractions to hear your soul, to reach your full potential and truly understand who you are underneath all those voices. And solitude offers you exactly that.

And so you can learn and learn and learn and learn. But the more you learn, the more you realise that nothing is truly black and white. And there is no definite, this is the way things are. And this is the way things aren’t.

And I think that that’s really cool because I think to be closed-minded is to be less intelligent. I think the more open-minded you are, and the more sides of the coin you can see, the smarter you’ll be. And the more empathetic you are (because you’re able to understand different perspectives), the smarter you’ll be.

But it definitely is an interesting feeling once you realise that, wow, I used to have such strong opinions about that, or I really thought I knew this. And it’s like, the more that you learn, eventually you realise that you just don’t know anything. And it’s very interesting.

But there is also the other part of it (which proves my point of different perspectives), that you cannot go through life without opinions about anything. That, on the contrary, makes you even less intelligent than having opinions about everything. But also, more importantly, it pushes you farther away from yourself. We, as humans, are made up of our opinions, our values, the way we view and interact with the world. When you have no opinions about anything in your life, you will live in constant chaos and contradictions with yourself. You will feel like you are constantly floating because you have no ground to stand on. So you will just absorb what everyone is telling you and will live in a constant state of unsatisfaction with your life because 1) you won’t be able to fulfil everyone’s idea of you (which is, what is this scenario you are basing your life on, as you have no dream of your own) 2) you won’t even be able to fulfil YOUR dream life, because you don’t know what it is. Which is actually exhausting, constantly being in a battle with yourself.

So the version of you that you see in the mirror, that you hold in your head, does not exist anywhere else but in your mind. Every person that you encounter will hold a different view of you, and what they see will depend entirely on them, so you might as well just be yourself. But to be yourself, you have to find out who that is first. By holding your back straight, rooted in dreams, values, thoughts…

I used to want everyone to like me, maybe I still do to some extent. But what I did and I don’t do anymore, consciously at least, is mirror people’s behaviours and agree with them on everything. Because when you see every side of the coin and all perspectives make sense, it’s easy to validate the one that the person you are talking to chooses. And you may fool yourself that it’s not lying or hiding your true self because you still believe that, but isn’t withholding information still a type of lying? Why shrink yourself to be liked?

I love to argue in these kinds of situations. Tell me you like the sea and I’ll tell you a thousand reasons why I love the mountains, even though I love both. Bring back the fun in conversation people !!!!

Anyways, I really deviated from the initial thought, my mind is like that sometimes, a dozen scenarios running through it at once haha.

BUTTTTT to sum it up. Stop being a scared ass chicken letting everyone push you around. DEFEND WITH YOUR LIFE WHAT YOU TRULY BELIEVE IN, but make sure it’s stuff that counts! So don’t be naive enough to be stubborn about everything. It’s enough to analyse, learn and understand that in truth, YOU KNOW NOTHING.

What does it mean to be productive tho? Couldn’t it be argued that nourishing your body, enjoying a moment of silence or resting is just as productive as reading, working or studying? After all, they are things our body and mind couldn’t function without them so why are they dismissed as mechanical actions and overlooked.

In fact, you’re not as lazy as you think you are. You actually do a lot every day. It’s just all in the wrong direction. What is a lazy day? Oh my god, I did nothing today. I just napped and sat around and doom-scrolled and door-dashed food. Well, that’s not doing nothing. That’s actually doing a whole lot because there’s no such thing as inactivity. We have this really annoying bias where we think the only things that count as action are things that are either productive or physical. Of course, this is taught to us by our economic structure, but it’s actually completely incorrect. Scrolling on your phone is just as much of an action as answering emails. Even if you don’t move your body at all, lying in bed and overthinking, rationalizing, justifying, that counts as action. It’s mental activity. So here’s the problem. When the only difference between action and inaction is our appraisal of it, we quickly turn it into a mental cop-out.

Because you think action must be physical or productive, in your head, you create a higher barrier to entry. Doom scrolling and folding clothes take the same amount of energy, but folding clothes is productive, so it’s higher safe. So in contrast, inaction is always gonna feel like the easier route. But in practice, inactivity is never the easier option. After a full day of bedrotting, you still feel exhausted and drained because you’re still doing something intensely all day. You’re running at full speed, you’re just doing it backward. Lying in bed and just thinking can exhaust you. Staring at a screen can make you tired. These aren’t the easier options just because they’re lazy. So, if your life sucks and you feel like you’re lazy, it’s not that you’re not doing enough.

And you can’t fix that by doing more because your day, you, your energy is already at capacity. You’re already doing a whole lot. Napping, doomscrolling, smoking, gaming, whatever it is, the contents of your actions don’t matter as much as the direction does. If you’re doing a whole lot of negative activity, the solution to that isn’t layering on the extra expectations of positive action, like exercising, eating clean, reading, whatever it may be. You can’t nullify your vaping addiction by eating veggies. If you’re on a full sprint backward, the solution to that isn’t trying to tear yourself forward at the same time, because then, when it inevitably doesn’t work out, you go, oh, I guess I wasn’t meant to change anyway. Yes, you were, but if you want to be better, doing more starts with doing less. Stop gooning on your phone. Stop door-dashing every night. Hit a neutral point before moving forward. Your life sucks not because of a lack of action, but because you’re doing a whole lot of bad.

When you are always trying to be productive, your brain is running at its full speed looking for ways to do as much as possible, because it is in emergency mode, which creates a need for increased electrical activity in the brain. A kind of fight-or-flight response, which in short term is great, because it helps us achieve many things in a short period.

However, if we remain in “emergency mode” for a long time, our brain waves (the so-called Beta waves) knock us far out of balance, because maintaining it requires an immense amount of energy-and because this is the most reactive, unstable, and volatile of all brain patterns. When we are in constant stress, the brain gets juiced up beyond the healthy range.

Unfortunately, this state is terribly overutilized by the majority of the population. We are obsessive or compulsive, insomniac or chronically fatigued, anxious or depressed, forcibly pushing in all directions to be all-powerful or hopelessly holding on to our pain to feel utterly powerless, competing to get ahead or victimized by our circumstances.

Many people spend their waking days in a sustained high-frequency state (Beta state). To them, everything is an emergency. The brain stays constantly on a very fast cycle, which taxes the entire system. Living in this thin margin of brain waves is like driving a car in first gear while simultaneously stepping on the gas. These people “drive through” their lives without ever stopping to consider shifting gears into other brain states.

Their continual repetition of survival-based thoughts creates feelings of anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, depression, competition, aggression, insecurity, and frustration, among others. People become so caught up in these intoxicating emotions that they try to analyse their problems from within these familiar feelings, which only perpetuates more thoughts overfocused on survival. We can turn on the stress response by thought alone. The way we are thinking reinforces the very state of the brain and body, which then causes us to think the same way ... and the loop goes on. It’s the serpent eating its tail.

Additionally, this constant need to always do something puts our body in the stress mode and we actually end up doing less. Think about this, imagine you aren’t sleeping for days constantly working, you may feel like you are productive, not wasting time on sleep, but in reality with each waking hour, your performance decreases. Your body wasn’t made to be 24/7 in emergency mode, so when you ignore its needs, it slowly becomes dysfunctional. Finally, due to the lack of sleep, you will collapse, and you might sleep for days after that, or even have health issues. Thus, you actually lose more time resting, also losing performance during the time you are awake, than you would have lost if you maintained a healthy schedule initially.

The problem comes when we categorize things that way and we lose focus of what is actually important. We wire our brain to ignore every action deemed as unproductive and focus itself on the tasks deemed as productive. We become desensitized to everything outside of that category and we do everything in a robotic manner. We are not present. We do them as quickly as possible and then we realize that half of our life is spent thinking either of the past or the future, but rarely on the present.

That leaves us little processing power to grow and pay attention to the changes that we truly want to make, to go inward... to observe and monitor our thoughts, behaviour, and emotions.

So as i am going on about my day, i am trying to beat myself up less about not being occupied every second of the day, and enjoy the stillness, the slow moments and actually hear my thoughts. Because writing this I realize how rushed and automatic my life is sometimes. We need to think and give ourselves some grace.

its currently 3 am ( i have to wake up in 3 hours. my head hurts. i told my mother and my sister goodnight at 10 pm. i wanted to go to sleep early. i really tried to. because i have to wake up at 6 am tomorrow to go to the other end of the city. and also because i slept bad the last few days. just like today, i couldn’t fall asleep, despite being horrendously tired the whole day. i tried to take a nap today. yesterday too. i took magnesium, i drank tea, i read before bed. futile attempts. i lay awake staring at the dark ceiling with the only light in sight being the small red dot on the tv facing my bed. i think. about what exactly? I don’t even know. random thoughts pop into my head. i tried to quiten them, to scare them off so I can keep my mind empty for long enough to fall asleep. negativity and insecurity peep from the corners of my mind. I try to reframe them. afterall thoughts don’t just describe your reality, they generate and influence it in the possibilities you attract from the world. so i force myself to shove them down and think positively instead. works for a few moments, but the moment I close my eyes again and relax, they push harder. I think about my day. what a waste. did i do anything productive? depends on the perspective. but i feel disgusting as i am thinking about how another day has past and i still didn’t become the best version of myself, read 100 books, made a billion dollars, retired my parents, lost 10 kilos, ran a marathon or solved world hunger. this is ofc an exaggeration. I don’t expect to fix myself and the world in a day, but I still could have made steps toward it. Instead of failing once again the promises i made myself.

my mom asked why i stayed home all summer and didnt get a job. i could have not wasted my time as she said. am i a liability to my parents? am i behind in life?

i think about my boyfriend. told him goodnight a couple of hours ago, but instead of going to sleep i was waiting for him to respond. checking constantly. after all, we didnt talk for almost the whole day. i feel a slight resentment within me. and i felt the need to be petty and not tell him goodnight at all. I am asking myself again if i am too stubborn. or am i too free and he is too busy for me?

most of us grew up believing that love should be easy. that it should feel effortless if itss right. that the right person would never make us question our worth. or test our patience. but what we were never told was that loving someone deeply is a series of choices made over and over again, not just when itss easy, but especially when its not. that to truly be with someone means learning how to navigate the waves of another person’s emotional weather without abandoning them when the storm begins.

we talk so much about finding someone who gets us. but how often do we acknowledge that even we don’t fully get ourselves? i dont always know myself and how i am feeling. i start crying trying to explain it sometimes. we are still learning who we are and what we need. and in the middle of that, we expect another person to show up and navigate all of that chaos without stumbling? thats not love. thats fantasy. real love begins where fantasy ends. real love is not flawless. its full of messy apologies, awkward silences, and uncomfortable truths. its the kind of space where both people are allowed to be messy, complicated, and real. where no one is asked to be perfect in order to be loved.

because let’s face it, we re not always lovable. some days we re anxious and short-tempered. some days, we get distant without realizing we’re pushing people away. some days, we need reassurance and hand-holding and someone to remind us that we are not as broken as we feel. and it’s in these moments, the unpretty ones, that the depth of a connection is revealed. can you sit with someone’s silence? can you listen when the words are clumsy and the emotions are raw? can you stay when it’s inconvenient? can you make time when you are busy? can you remind someone of their worth when they’ve forgotten it themselves?

i love real love. and i hate fake connections and the games people be playing. be my friend only when you can see me. in the darkness too like the red light in front of me.

after an hour and a half of waiting i decide it’s time to stop. 00:38 i close my phone. but jokes on me i am wide awake. this is when i start dissecting my life in my mind. spining and spining.

i open my phone - 2:36. where have 2 hours have gone? i dont turn my wifi on, instead i open the notes app and start typing.

i think i give myself too much importance. really, humans think they are too important. my problems are nothing in the grand scheme of things. we are 99% energy, so why are we focusing on the 1% of material things? we are literally born with nothing. we spend your whole life chasing everything. and still leave with nothing. life is strange.

Idk between which sentences, but i fall sleep finally.

What is your label?

How can I get an idea about you, without putting in any effort to understand you?

With the rise of social media, especially visible on platforms like Pinterest and TikTok, the need to fit into a category has begun to consume us. Take aesthetics as an example. People are romanticizing being the exact definition of “clean girl”, “old money”, “cottage core”, “dark feminine”, “office siren”, etc. They spend thousands on clothes marketed to fit their aesthetic, only for the trend to change again next season. And for what? A sense of belonging? To feel like you are someone else? Like you are better than others for having a perfectly curated fake life? Or out of insecurity about who you really are when no one is watching?

We compare our inner experience in its raw form, with all its doubts and contradictions, to others' highlight reels and public performances, then wondering why we feel inadequate.

The truth is, we will never fit into an exact category. Yes, even those seemingly perfect aesthetic girls online. We are complex individuals, and trying to define ourselves blindly by labels, is stupid.

We stick each other into categories to remove the burden of having to make decisions and take agency. These aesthetic boxes and social patterns become excuses for our failures, instead of admitting that we will never fit into a single aesthetic or pattern.

Why are we trying to simplify everything? We simplified housework, jobs, and even creative tasks. Please stop trying to also simplify human connection.

Where has the need to know someone deep to their core gone? Or are we afraid it might be rotten?

We want the illusion of knowing someone, without the effort. We want the illusion of knowing OURSELVES, without the hard work of understanding. How can one define themselves? Can you truly know anyone? Can you even truly know yourself? These questions still persist, yet we have the audacity to reduce humans to simple “marketing labels”, which categories they fit in and what can I sell best to them?

Everyone knows a different part of ourselves. To my parents, I may just seem little girl. To my friends, I might appear as a bundle of joy. To strangers who have never spoken with me, I may seem cold and mean (have been told that multiple times before lol). Each person knows a different fragment of who I am, yet none, including myself, possesses the complete picture.

Another example is the concept of gender and gender roles. And my problem is not their existence, but the fact that you are not allowed to deviate from them. When gender is so weakly defined that a simple departure from these norms causes the whole concept to collapse. The whole categorization of femininity and masculinity traits. Because we are dual individuals and in fact possess both of them. I am pretty feminine presenting, I like wearing skirts, make-up, I can be nurturing, emotional, and gentle, I am creative and I like to cook. Yet I can also be very opinionated, stubborn, harsh and protective. Does this make me any less of a woman? Does a mother who screams and kills to protect her babies become any less of a woman? Is a man who cries any less of a man? Everything in nature possesses both feminine and masculine energy. We are capable of holding contradictions of being both gentle and fierce, both vulnerable and powerful. Why do we try to stick only to one? Won’t we reach further as a society?

We are dual individuals, constantly at odds with our complexity. Why not accept it? Why not embrace our shadow parts and find power in that? We are afraid of the unknown, that is why we do not admit that, in truth, we will need to spend our whole lives discovering ourselves. You're scared of your duality because you don't understand what lives in it, which makes you feel out of control. But, what you understand is less scary. Especially when you understand it is there to protect and empower you, not hurt you. Living and accepting your complexity means depth, integrity, and beauty. Because isn’t it absolutely beautiful that we are so intricate?

We can try to fit into a box, but we are just fooling ourselves, because under the right circumstances, everyone will prove that they aren’t that simple. The "introvert" who becomes bubbly talking about their passion. The "logical" person who makes emotional decisions about love. The "independent" individual who craves validation.

Under the right circumstances, we will beg to get into a heaven we do not believe in, as we are all just contradictions within ourselves.

I find myself constantly rushing and being stressed about my next task, that I forget to live in the moment. I was at a sort of party for my cousin last night and while everyone was dancing and having fun, I was finding myself thinking about everything else other than that. I just wanted to sleep honestly and have a moment of peace. But when I am at home, I often think about going out and socializing.

Perhaps it’s about who I am with, as I will always value deep conversations with people I love over meaningless small talk with those who act as my friends. But nonetheless, even then my mind starts to ruin the moment sometimes.

Whether it’s stress, anxiety, or god knows what, I want to take a moment to journal and sit in gratitude for the people, the little joys, and the quiet routines that make life feel meaningful.

So this month, I’m starting with a simple list of the things that make me smile, that excite me, or bring me peace, the things that remind me I’m alive and present. Some random thoughts on things that excite me in no particular order, written quickly and messily, but that is the beauty of it.

Nature, peace, good music. Stillness. The wind, the rain.

Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.

Building and creating myself. Reaching my dream life. Not living a mediocre life.

Quality time with people I love. Good conversation, memories and adventures. Warm hugs, kisses, safety. Laughing, inside jokes, acting childish without fear of being judged.

Becoming extremely smart. Being able to speak about any topic, news, books. Constantly studying and researching new topics.

Improving myself, both spiritually and physically. Becoming healthy, intelligent, elegant, feminine, strong, soft-spoken.

Loving fully and passionately without fear or the need to shrink myself.

Travelling, discovering new places, cities, mountains, cultures, people.

Long showers, relaxing, and full body routine. Covering myself in lotions, oils and perfume. High-quality products and smelling good.

Realization of sonder. Meeting new people and hearing their stories.

Getting ready, doing my makeup, being overdressed everywhere. Skin care and good hair days.

Acting out of love, rather than pure discipline or punishment.

Home. whatever form it comes in.

Multiple cups of tea per day. Sipping coffee while reading or studying. Late matcha with my boyfriend.

Sport and activity. There is something special in looking forward to going to the gym or running. Moving my body. Being healthy and in alignment with myself. Pushing myself, yet listening to my body signals. Creating my dream body brick by brick.

Jazz background music while I do my morning routine

Spontaneity. Fun, too many drinks and silly jokes.

The brain studying the brain.

Good food, trying new restaurants and dishes. But also home-cooked food, healthy high protein meals that align with my goals. Food as a form of self love but also for socializing purposes.

Shopping. Good, long-lasting, quality pieces. Making up outfits. Fashion.

and many many many people and moments worth mentioning

This is because results don't care about effort, they care about adaptability. When we're overly invested in an exact idea or plan, being right, maintaining control or proving that the initial path we took is the correct one, we lose the flexibility necessary to respond creatively to life's constant changes. In other words, our best work emerges when we're deeply committed to the process while remaining unattached to our ego's investment in the outcome.

So what if the very intensity of our pursuit is the problem? What if our greatest achievements and deepest fulfillment emerge not from pure determination or hard work, but from the way we approach our ideas? From that curiosity and lightness we live life with. From rediscovering something we knew instinctively as children - purposeful play and humour. When we stop taking ourselves so seriously, we finally become free to take life seriously in all the ways that truly matter.

By returning to humor as a baseline when things become chaotic, we discover that playfulness isn't escapism, but rather a sophisticated coping mechanism that allows everything to flow rather than stagnate

We've been conditioned to believe that growing up means growing heavy, but truthfully, much of life's seriousness is self-imposed. Life is not that serious. Frankly, from an absolute perspective, it’s not even real. And to back that up, here is a quote from a book I am rereading right now: “From the Absolute viewpoint, of course, the Universe is in the nature of an illusion, a dream, a phantasmagoria, as compared to THE ALL in itself. We recognize this even in our ordinary view, for we speak of the world as “a fleeting show” that comes and goes, is born and dies—for the element of impermanence and change, finiteness and unsubstantiality, must ever be connected with the idea of a created Universe when it is contrasted with the idea of THE ALL”. Sure, for the finite minds of humans, life IS pretty much real, but my point here is that in the grand Universe it doesn’t fucking matter. You might say that this is depressing, but I find it liberating. Life is play, unserious and full of humour and magic.

Nietzsche wrote: "Maturity is to recapture the seriousness one had as a child at play." Children playing are utterly absorbed and naturally resilient. They approach challenges with curiosity rather than dread, and they recover from setbacks hella fast. This is what approaching life with a dash of humour can result in.

Of course, I am not saying to be careless, but rather to be deeply absorbed and engaged and not view life as a contest of who suffers more.

Our subconscious and interpretive framework shapes our reality more than the circumstances themselves, because everything is mental and can be influenced from within. By choosing play as our default mode, we don't escape life's genuine challenges, instead we approach them in the most optimal way possible. Because if you believe life is hard and unattainable, you bet it’s going to be fucking hard. So play the game of life with full engagement and passion, but never forget that it is, in the end, a game.

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Since the moment you are born, you are constantly asked what you want to be when you grow up. And when you are a kid, you love that question - you are allowed to dream and say the wildest things. You can say you want to be an astronaut, a singer, a pirate, or a princess, and every adult will just give you a wholesome smile and tell you how cute you are. But once the years pass, it all becomes more real. The question presses down on you as you are forced to choose. You are not allowed to dream like a child anymore, and you are told to be realistic. To choose something respectable like a doctor or an engineer so you can make enough money to support your family. The focus shifts from the dream to the money and influence. The years pass and the answer becomes more imminent, especially when you are in your final year of high school - the year you officially start being an adult, so therefore you have to plan everything out, right?

It was the beginning of spring this year, and I had no idea what path I was choosing, while most of my colleagues had already applied to university. If you saw the faces they were making after I told them I didn't know yet...

A lot of my decisions in life were impulsive or out of stubbornness. I chose the high school I studied at just because it seemed like a fun plot and because I knew it would be hard and therefore would force me to grow and adapt.

10th grade was hell, but I couldn't quit because I chose this myself and I was too stubborn to leave in the face of difficulty, when I chose the lyceum BECAUSE of that difficulty.

I chose the class I was going in very impulsively. The day of the admission, I didn't know if I wanted to go into the STEM route or the humanistic subjects. Literally my mind was "Real or Uman, Real or Uman, Real or Uman." I liked both history and maths, so how could I choose? I chose Real only because it seemed harder, therefore, more plot. The second important decision: do I choose the class focused on maths and physics or biology and chemistry? My logic was the following: I LOVE maths and HATE physics very passionately; I like biology and I like chemistry a decent amount. Obviously I chose the first variant. I'd rather have a life filled with love and joy even if it comes with hate and hurt, than have a mediocre one that I like just fine but never enough (and surprise - I also ended up loving physics). So my high school path was chosen in a few minutes, irrationally, some would say, but full of emotion.

This is the same way I chose my major for university and the country I am going to. Because it really isn't that deep. I am not afraid to make impulsive decisions because they do not define me. I can choose something else at any moment.

I am going to study in Germany this fall, alone, not knowing anybody, but that is the fun. My mom was concerned that I chose a pretty hard subject, new environment, living alone. She asked me if I will be fine and if I would come back to Moldova if things got hard. My answer was that if it will be hard, I am not leaving—I am sucking it up and finishing what I started. But I am not saying I wouldn't leave. Like, I am definitely staying for at least a semester, but if I decide that this uni, country, or major is not what I want to do, I am fucking leaving. I am not bound by anything. I definitely won't leave because it is hard, but I will leave if it's not fun. I told my mom I might drop out, that next year is not bound by what I am choosing today. If I wake up one day and decide I want to pick papayas in Thailand, I am booking that flight. If I decide that Data Science is not for me and I want to be a philosopher, you bet that I am doing that. Of course, I still wouldn't make these decisions without thinking first, but what I am saying is that I won't let myself be a spectator of my own life.

Again, my mom asked me where I want to live after I graduate. Everywhere. Maybe stay in Germany, or go back to my homeland, or maybe move to a little island in the middle of the ocean—who knows?

The truth is I don't know what I want to do with my life because I want to do everything. I want to visit every country, eat every food, read every book, watch every movie, experience all emotions, climb every mountain, swim in every ocean, try every hobby, and have every job. How am I supposed to choose? I would love to own a cute bakery in Paris and bake bread and croissants, or a coffee shop that is also a bookstore in London. I would love to be a florist in the Netherlands and watch people buying big bouquets for their loved ones, or a volunteer for children in Africa, or an activist who fights for climate change. I would love to be a best-selling author and have my own fandom and obsessed readers. I would love to be a scientist that finds the cure for cancer, or a yoga instructor in Bali. I would love to be famous, rich, dress well, and post everything. But I would also want a private life that only my husband and my family know about.

The list could be endless. I don't know what I will do with my life, but I know wholeheartedly that it will be MY choice, and not just what society expects me to do. I only know my plan for the short term, but a year from now? I could be anywhere, be anything. The only long-term plan is: don't have a mediocre life and live it to the fullest. Because there is never going to be a perfect time for anything. You are never going to be this young or healthy again. Money comes and goes, but the memories stay. And you have so many to make! So many people to meet and goals to achieve!

So don't get stuck in a life you hate and chasing just money. Chase feelings, chase memories, chase things that fill you with energy, so you are not 40 and realizing that all that money you made is worthless in a life you hate. That you neglected your health and your family all these years, staying up all night, telling your partner you are too tired to take them on a date, or your kids that you will play with them later. So cry, laugh, love, hate - I don't care, but don't stay stuck. Life doesn't have a template of how it should look like; it is entirely yours, and don't listen to anyone who tries to put you in a box. So next time anyone asks you what the plan is, just smile and answer: TO LIVE.

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Is this a review? I don't know. I'm not going to pretend I'm smart enough to dissect the inner world of Frankl's work when so many brilliant psychologists and writers have already done so. I simply can't do it justice. To give this book the recognition it deserves feels like an impossible task. So instead of writing a surface-level review, I'll tell you how this book reviewed me. Welcome to a short (or rather long) collection of quotes, humble thoughts, and experiences I encountered while reading.

There are books that are to be read and reviewed, and some that are to be read, mulled over, and revisited multiple times, until you can get to some semblance of understanding. Viktor E. Frankl’s "Man’s Search for Meaning" falls in the latter category.

Finding Meaning in the Midst of Horror

Viktor E. Frankl’s account of his years in Nazi concentration camps is a stunning examination of what it means to be human in the most degrading circumstances. Not surprisingly, the book has sold millions of copies worldwide in multiple languages and reprints. Although classified as a memoir of his years as a prisoner, it is a deeply considered meditation on human existence and a reminder that man’s will to meaning serves as a primary motivator for his life.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing,” Frankl later wrote, “the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

This book is a meditation on what the gruesome experience of Auschwitz taught him about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning, which sustained those who survived. For Frankl, meaning came from three possible sources: purposeful work, love, and courage in the face of difficulty.

A table for two: me and Frankl

I stumbled upon Viktor Frankl's book in an attempt to find a piece that could rock my understanding of the meaning of life. My good old pal, Goodreads, recommended this book to me in a collection about life back in April. Like so many books, I added it to my reading list and let it "pickle" there among the hundreds of others, waiting for the right moment to resurface. So how did I find my way to it then? I was in the middle of an existential crisis, and like any individual who has nobody to talk with about my silly little thoughts, I started chatting with Claude. After a long debate about the meaning of life, I asked it for some books that could serve as my "bible" in this search for meaning. To no surprise, Frankl's book was there, and I decided to finally read it. It was then that I finally pulled "Man's Search for Meaning" from its digital shelf, driven not only by academic curiosity but also by genuine need.

What I loved about the writing was that there was no fluff associated with what was presented. The suffering was described in graphic and vivid detail, without any emotion or pity plastered to the words. It seemed he was describing the horrific event in the camps just as you would talk with an old pal about the weather. The lessons were first stated in a manner that any novice could understand and then advanced descriptions were added as a way to scientifically introduce the hypothesis.

The second part of the book goes deeply into the theories of logotherapy, but I won’t go too deeply into that because I simply cannot explain it better than the expert himself, so I suggest you read the book. However, I will touch on a chapter that caught my attention.

An interesting method that Frankl is talking about is paradoxical intention: “Logotherapy bases its technique called “paradoxical intention” on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes.” In essence, this technique involves deliberately intending or even exaggerating the very thing you're trying to avoid. If someone suffers from insomnia, instead of desperately trying to fall asleep, they would try to stay awake as long as possible. If someone fears sweating in public, they would intentionally try to sweat more. The counterintuitive logic is that by removing the anxious struggle against the symptom, the symptom often diminishes or disappears entirely. Frankl discovered that our efforts to control or eliminate certain experiences often fuel their persistence, while paradoxically embracing them can break the cycle of suffering: “The reader will note that this procedure consists of a reversal of the patient’s attitude, inasmuch as his fear is replaced by a paradoxical wish. By this treatment, the wind is taken out of the sails of the anxiety.”

Other philosophers

Frankl quotes other philosophers but expands their ideas in light of his own experiences, and often disagrees with them.

Nietzsche’s Existentialism

Nietzsche believed life is driven by the will to power , a deep desire to grow, create, and rise beyond conformity. He criticized herd mentality and morality that suppresses vitality, urging individuals to become the Übermensch(Superman) — one who creates their own values and lives courageously.

Frankl quotes Nietzsche quite often, even in the first few pages of the book, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how”, highlighting the value of having a purpose in life.

Frankl’s life echoes what existentialists believed: we are not defined by our circumstances, but by our response to them. Even in the darkest of places, we can choose purpose. And in that choice, we discover freedom.

Disagreeing with other philosophers

His disagreement with Freud’s philosophy is stated multiple times throughout the book:

“Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.”

“That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle (or, as we could also term it, the will to pleasure) on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the will to power on which Adlerian psychology, using the term “striving for superiority”, is focused.”

“Sigmund Freud once asserted, “Let one attempt to expose a number of the most diverse people uniformly to hunger. With the increase of the imperative urge of hunger all individual differences will blur, and in their stead will appear the uniform expression of the one instilled urge.” Thank heaven, Sigmund Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside. His subjects lay on a couch designed in the plush style of Victorian culture, not in the filth of Auschwitz.” ( this is so funny like they got beef and or something)

HOWEVER, thanks to Freud, Frankl pursued his career as a psychologist:

“began a correspondence with Sigmund Freud that led Freud to submit a manuscript of Frankl’s to the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.”; “Under the influence of Freud’s ideas, Frankl decided while he was still in high school to become a psychiatrist.” because Frankl believed in admiring a person outside their ideas or religion: “his admiration for Freud and Adler even though he disagreed with their philosophical and psychological theories”.

Love is the view of Frankl

In examining the “intensification of inner life” that helped prisoners stay alive, he considers the transcendental power of love:

“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.”

Frankl illustrates this with a stirring example of how his feelings for his wife — who was eventually killed in the camps — gave him a sense of meaning:

“I was again conversing silently with my wife, or perhaps I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings, my slow dying. In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. “Et lux in tenebris lucet” — and the light shineth in the darkness. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong: she was there.”

His ultimate definition for love:

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

Quotes that made me think

• The salvation of man is through love and in love. Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire

• As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before. Under their influence he sometimes even forgot his own frightful circumstances

• What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life…. It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us

• Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual

• Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of human freedoms —to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way

• Suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative

• In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice

• Live as if you were living a second time and as though you had acted wrongly the first time

• Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

Conclusion

I have a lot more to say and especially a bunch of quotes to share, but I will stop here, because this essay is getting too long and I don’t want to spoil the whole book to you in case you decide to read it (strongly recommending you do).

Going back on how this book reviewed me.

Frankl’s words allowed me to radically reframe the question I had been toying with for years.

What is it I want from my life?

While I had a vague idea, I was still confused. I AM still confused.

But after reading this book, I have chosen to reframe the question itself – what does life want of me?

Turning the question around has freed me from working myself up in a frenzy, trying too many things or nothing at all, and having daily mental breakdowns.

However, the ease of surrendering, of being open to the answer that life will present to me, has removed a huge burden.

I still worry. I still dissect my thoughts. I still make plans.

But now I do it with a sense of wonder and freedom.

And it’s not perfect, even this evening I was crying because I am so lost and so scared. But this book gives me a sense of peace and makes me feel less alone.

Now my goal is to actually implement Frankl’s teachings in my everyday life (like the paradoxical intention he was talking about, but not limiting only at that), and not let this memoir be another forgettable story in my mind.