what i've learned so far
don't listen to me tho...
I’ve experienced some beautiful, strange, and deeply meaningful moments lately. More than anything, they’ve left me feeling grateful. Grateful to be alive. Grateful for the people I’ve met. Grateful for the journey itself.
If there’s one thing I hope to do, it’s pass some of that feeling along. Because the more people who feel free to be themselves, the better this world becomes.
What follows is my attempt to summarize years of self-discovery into three parts.
Not a universal truth. Just a map that has made sense of my own life.
Phase 1 — Asleep
This is where most of us begin.
It’s often said that the less you know, the more certain you are that you know everything. You move through life without questioning much. Your beliefs feel obviously correct. People who think differently seem mistaken. The world appears simple.
But beneath the surface, there’s often a quiet discomfort. Anxiety you can’t explain. Emotional reactions that seem to come from nowhere. A feeling that something isn’t quite right.
The challenge is that you don’t know what you don’t know.
And that’s okay. We all start here.
This phase can look like becoming completely attached to an ideology, religion, political identity, or worldview. The mindset becomes: we’re right, they’re wrong.
The need to be correct becomes more important than the desire to understand.
The irony is that certainty can become its own prison.
Phase 2 — The Search
Something cracks open.
Maybe it’s heartbreak. Maybe it’s failure. Maybe a success. Maybe it’s a conversation, a book, a loss, a miracle, or an experience you can’t explain.
Whatever it is, life stops fitting neatly into the story you were telling yourself.
Questions appear that can’t be ignored.
This is where the real work begins.
For me, it looks like journaling, meditation, reading, traveling, meeting people from different cultures, taking risks, and facing parts of myself I’d spent years avoiding.
You fall apart.
Then you put yourself back together.
Then you fall apart again.
This phase is messy. Emotional. Nonlinear. It’s less like climbing a mountain and more like throwing yourself into a tornado and trusting you’ll land in a pile of hay eventually.
The tools matter here.
Curiosity matters.
Intuition matters.
Courage matters.
Most importantly, failure matters.
Failure is not evidence that you’re lost. Failure is how wisdom is earned. Every mistake carries information. Every setback teaches something that success never could.
One of the biggest traps during this phase is becoming attached to the first idea that gives you clarity. When something finally works, it’s tempting to believe you’ve found the answer.
But I’ve found that growth comes from remaining open.
Explore ideas. Test beliefs. Keep what resonates. Discard what doesn’t serve you.
There are no permanent right or wrong answers here. Only perspectives that evolve as you do.
Over time, you stop borrowing someone else’s worldview and begin building one of your own.
Find peace in that. Become comfortable with uncertainty. Learn to stay clear in the chaos and turmoil of life, and suddenly very little can shake you.
Phase 3 — Freedom
How do you describe the feeling of everything you’ve ever imagined being true?
It's difficult to talk about fulfillment because it can easily sound like bragging.
But every now and then, life gives you glimpses of something deeper.
Moments where you’re so grateful to be alive, so connected to the people around you, and so aligned with who you are that external validation loses its grip on you.
Imagine being naked in a grocery store and feeling like you’re fully clothed. You have nothing to hide.
Fear doesn’t disappear but it stops running the show and you learn how to transmute it for energy and focus.
You realize the tools and life lessons got you here but they’re not the destination.
Life itself becomes the practice.
Beyond that, words start to fall short. It's something deeply personal that each person has to experience for themselves.
The only way to communicate it is through how you live. By living a life so undeniably full, authentic, and positive that it inspires others to begin a journey of their own.
As a final note,
if any part of this resonated with you, follow that feeling.
There may be more waiting for you down the river than you can imagine.
Life is short. There’s no reason you shouldn’t feel like you’re on a mission and living with purpose, we all are, in our own way.
If you’ve been following mine, I’m very grateful to have you along for the ride. Still only the beginning ;)
And when you’re done following mine, yours will be so full and alive that it will have your full attention anyway.
peace n love,
n8
