Relationships rarely explode. They dissolve, one quiet letdown at a time. You ask for support, and it doesn’t come. You bring up a concern, and it’s dismissed. You start expecting less, stop asking, stop hoping. Until one day, you realize the version of love you’re living is just a husk of what it was supposed to be. What’s dangerous isn’t the fights—it’s the slow acclimatization to disappointment. When neglect becomes normal, when loneliness is just part of the package. And then, when it finally falls apart, people are stunned. As if the …
The Wilderness Had a Clarity That Included Me
There are things I’ve done that I’m not proud of. Not because they were wrong in some universal, moral sense, but because I did them knowing I shouldn’t. I did them because I wanted to. Because, in that moment, it felt like the only thing to do. And for years, I carried the weight of that, believing that regret was a form of penance, that self-recrimination was the price of redemption. But what if I never needed redemption in the first place? What if the things I thought I needed to atone for were just stepping stones to where I am now? What …
Continue Reading about The Wilderness Had a Clarity That Included Me →
The Trap of Playing It Safe
We like to think of ourselves as rational beings. We make decisions based on facts, weigh pros and cons, and navigate life with a clear head. But let’s be honest—most of the time, we’re just reacting. And lately, those reactions are looking more and more like retreat. We used to be curious. We used to explore, whether it was wandering through new places, striking up conversations with strangers, or questioning what we thought we knew. Now, we huddle. We cling to what we know, filter out what challenges us, and convince ourselves that staying …
The Mountains We Climb
Success isn’t about brute force. Push harder, hustle more, never back down—that was my formula. It worked until it didn’t. Trekking broke that illusion. You can grind your way up a mountain, but if you ignore the signs—the shifting weather, the thin air, the exhaustion settling deep in your bones—you won’t make it. Or worse, you’ll make it and regret it. Real success isn’t about suffering for the sake of it. It’s about knowing when to push and when to pause. I’ve gotten it wrong plenty of times. Forced my way through when I should have …
The Goals You Should Fear More Than Failure
For years, I treated goal-setting like a high-stakes game. Pick a target, charge ahead, and deal with the fallout later. And for a while, it worked—until I started achieving my goals and realizing they came at a cost I hadn’t accounted for. That’s where Non-Negotiables come in. They aren’t just guardrails; they’re the invisible lines I refuse to cross. The things that, if lost, would make any achievement feel hollow. Like the time I was so focused on hitting a major career milestone that I ignored the creeping exhaustion. My workouts? …
Continue Reading about The Goals You Should Fear More Than Failure →
All or Nothing, Done Right
There’s a moment, right before the final push, when everything inside starts screaming to stop. The summit is right there, 100 steps away, but those 100 steps stretch into 10,000. The pack on my back, a mere 6 kilos, swells into an unbearable 100. My mind turns against me, whispering all the reasons why this was a bad idea to begin with. Every time, the battle is the same. Every time, the answer is the same. Keep going. Not because someone is watching. Not because there’s applause waiting at the end. Not because of some grand meaning …