“Your life is a work of art, so enjoy the current brush stroke, relish past ones, and plan future ones.” This is one of the statements I meditate upon daily when I wake up. I’ve been quite happy for 14.5 months now and have not had existential doubt for 3 years, but this realization that my life is not a mission to complete but rather a work of art has given embellished meaning to what it means to be alive to me. I feel like this thought came to me during my travels across 33 countries. An unrelated point that I’d like to stick in here is that the coverage of those travels are a spec compared with the vastness of the universe.

The purpose of this blog I am starting is to give some sort of tangible form to that work of art, to document my experiences, my travels, my thoughts, my projects, and my ideas. I’ve had a couple false starts due to technical issues, but hopefully this time I will stick to writing approximately once a week. It’s very important to me — for me to read to myself — even if nobody else reads it. While I live, this blog will craft my own image of myself. I’m new to blogging, but I think the act of blogging and journaling are the antithesis of an identity crisis. When I die, this blog will document my story.

My roadmap is to discuss my digital nomad experience between Sep and Dec 2015. Next, I plan to write about my entrepreneurial pursuits, namely learningdollars.com. Then I plan on writing about my life experiences from my conception till now. Finally, I plan to maintain this blog as a place that I will journal in on periodically. Vlogs are more fun for interviews rather than personal narratives, so I’ll try to interview clients and other interesting people through them at some point, though probably not soon.

I look forward to telling my narrative which is interconnected with other narratives, ideas, and tangible items and locations. I will leave with the following points that I meditate on daily:

• prioritize but don’t chase happiness (dispassionate pursuit of passion)
• avoid competition aka jealousy
• detachment but maintain relations (try to be friends with everyone) and yet make your own decisions, don’t be afraid to change mind if it means protecting your own decisions, don’t get lethargic and waste time when with others – respect your own time
• mindfulness – your happiness is only dependent on yourself because you can choose whether or not to let thoughts harm you
  • divert (delete) negative (and ocd) thoughts and feelings by instead focusing on writing your own script – engage in flow (focus – focusing means making your work environment also focus-friendly, follow every word) – in the moment
  • practice new habits to replace old ones (trains unconscious)
• trust life without making self vulnerable – bird in hand
• mental health > physical health so diagnose self (i.e. use internet research, healthtap)
• listen with humility (always accept criticism – don’t argue back ever), talk less, imbibe positive imagery, fight temptation, control esp anger (wait overnight to send anything), avoid conflict at all costs
• weigh pro-cons objectively for making decisions, parallel process, practical short term > impractical long term
• take life one step at a time, cup half full, your life is a work of art so enjoy the current
• be gentle with self – thinking and worrying too much is a waste of time, privacy, consider listening to authorities – quality and standards, sit up & try – small problems one at a time
• don’t say what you wouldn’t want said to you; take the extra step to be kind and make people feel good about themselves in a genuine way — it will make you very happy
• don’t sign up for more than you can chew — this strategy will make you very happy
• hold your tongue, literally bite it, and look at the positive benefits of losing the argument

These may change over the course of my life and I’ll publish the “Schedule” google doc (a live document that I myself refer to for these points) at a later time after doing some refurbishments.