i finished the final version of my book a few days ago. like finished finished – sent off to the printers, to be rendered on ink and paper over the next 4 weeks.
it’s been a milestone over a year (!!) in the making, but when i closed my laptop for the night, ready to pass out after another long day of poring over the 300-page manuscript, from top to bottom—
i couldn’t sleep.
i suppose this is what happens when you finish a project. your mind is still buzzing (i hadn’t been so stressed since high school) from being on for months. so i lay there, my mind racing a million miles per minute, reflecting on some of the ways i choose to live my life these days – 2 years after leaving everything behind in hawaii, 1 year after backpacking across the world.
and as with anything written on the notes app at 5am, it came out pretty good. and so here we go:
1. stop performing for other people. just do the shit you want to do
the paths before you – they are scripts, and the truth is that people only stick to them because they appear familiar.
but in reality, everyone – literally everyone – is just figuring it out as they go along. a “stable” path does not shield you from the tides and turns of life: a crappy economy, sickness, family emergencies, loss. in fact, it does not really guarantee you anything.
who knows where the world will be in ten years? anything could happen – another pandemic, global warming, war, ai taking over everything. so why spend your one life living someone else’s idea of what it should look like?
an australian nurse – who spent years caring for the dying – listed the most common regret people had on their deathbeds:
“i wish i’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
you only get one chance to live your life. don’t wait until it’s too late.
2. choosing positivity is free
the only difference between a horrible day and a day that “could have gone better but hey we’re still here” is how you choose to see it.
life is a series of fortunate and unfortunate events. in between the spells of beauty, there will be the bad: people you love will leave. shit will happen. things will fall apart.
you can’t control everything that happens, but you can control how you respond. you can live under constant anxiety, with a grey cloud constantly looming over the horizon – or you can live with hope. with positivity. with light.
3. gratitude is a constant wellspring of happiness
my gratitude practice helped me see that happiness isn’t something you chase: it’s something you slow down and notice. because most of the time, it’s already here.
gratitude allow you to see how much you have to be grateful for – and it’s more than you know. even the simplest things we take for granted: sleeping with a roof over our heads. having enough to eat. the time to be perusing some idiot’s substack article in the middle of the day.
here’s how to get started: every morning, write down 3 things you’re grateful for. at night, write down 3 nice things that happened that day. don’t overthink it; “nice” can mean your coffee, a stranger’s smile, the way sunlight hit your wall.
4. select for kindness
surround yourself with people who are truly kind – the ones who treat everyone with respect, who show up, who give you a shoulder to cry on without even asking.
when we’re young, we tend to pick friends for their coolness, their looks, their aura. but as i’ve grown older, i’ve realized that kindness is the quality that matters most. because when the shitstorm of life comes your way, these are the people in your corner, helping you back up. friends that aren’t just here for the good times, but the bad, too.
before you select for coolness, artsiness, athleticism, or whatever qualities are important to you – select first for kindness.
5. go deep in nature
there’s something almost holy about being somewhere without cell service, without buildings, without any of the modern day technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier.
a friend once told me hiking is “being hugged by the mountains”; i’ve never heard a better description. being in nature reconnects us to the earth in an age where asphalt streets and concrete have all but severed our connection to the wildness around us.
what immersion in nature looks like is completely up to you. i find a different kind of calm between the ocean and the mountains: the ocean is where i go to escape, to clear my mind. the mountains are where i go to think, reflect, and face myself.
both remind me that i belong to a world that is vast and alive.
6. trust your gut
intuition is the wisdom of your lived experience – accumulated over the course of every minute you’ve spent in this body on earth. when something is wrong, or going very right, your body senses the pattern and makes a instinctual judgement that precedes the beginnings of any rational thought.
your brain will attempt to rationalize your intuition, to fight against it. but learn to trust it: intuition is the most ancient language you know. and it is almost always right.
7. read books. travel. talk to strangers
to catch a glimpse of another person’s world – that is one of the great joys in life. read people who lived before you. walk in places that rearrange your perspective. ask questions that open windows into another human being’s soul.
in the dolomites i spent an afternoon listening to a physicist talk of particle colliders and detectors and atoms and other things i know nothing about – and from that encounter was born a kind of kindred love.
there are eight billion people on this planet. each one of us contains an entire universe.
8. empathy is recognizing that everyone is human instead of getting pissed off
as i’ve grown older, i’ve realized that no one does things without reason. there’s always a reason behind any behavior: that reason just isn’t immediately apparent to you.
the cashier who didn’t smile at you is tired from working all the time. your friend snapped at you because he has family stuff going on at home. the guy honking at you on the highway might have just had the worst day of his life.
it’s easy to write someone’s actions off as that of a crazy person. but actually, everyone’s behavior is driven by some reason that makes sense in their head. recognizing this is empathy: you have your good and bad days too. everyone else is just as human as you are.
9. give without expected outcomes
in the age of capitalism and hustle culture, we often precede every action with “what’s in it for me?” before we even ask “what can i offer?” it seems easier, safer to take rather than give.
but i’ve learned that giving – freely, without expectation – always finds its way back to you. give in ways that lift others, creating shared momentum rather than competition. through my work with EXPERIMENT, i’ve seen how curating spaces for others to grow has a way of circling back in time: people show up, support you, open doors you didn’t even know existed. not because you asked, but because generosity ripples outward.
love isn’t a zero-sum game. the more we give, the more there is for everyone.
10. touch grass. touch a wall. touch something, anything.
take off your shoes run in the water touch a leaf
walk through the city streets run your fingers along the concrete
listen to the sound of kids laughing, the flutter of swallows overhead, the rustling of pine trees
the world is here, you are here. what surrounds us is vast and oceanic and unimaginably beautiful.
and amidst all this, against all odds, you are here.
i repeat: you are here.
(a scene from nomadland that reminds me how vast and beautiful the world can is)
love always,
kora
book update: i can’t believe i’m saying this but my book will be published at the end of november. next post is the announcement post. stay tuned :))
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I'm proud of you! And your wisdom is unearthly, and your writing style is so cozy.
Welcome back to Substack :)