Things I've written | Essays

Things I’ve Written

I also publish some articles exclusively on Thought Catalog and Medium

Essays

Your World Is About To Change… (And What To Do About It.)

If we trust in ourselves, it means we know that we have the skills to learn and adapt when things change.

You Can Have Anything, But Not Everything

We want everything, so we end up having nothing. We want to spend time with our friends, work on a new business project, all while in full-time Crossfit training and starting a new job.

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You Already Know What You Want.

Sometimes we really just can’t figure out what we want. But other times, arguably most times, we know what we want deep down. We just can’t put it into words.

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Why We Travel

Why we travel is most obvious in the popularity of resorts and cruises. We get to live in an artificial world, quite literally created for us — one that exists on repeat, that resets every day, every month, every year like clockwork.

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Why We Suck At Time Management.

Time is a non-renewable resource. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. This is also what makes it our most valuable resource. In a period of intense technological advancement and economic flourishing, we find ourselves with more choices and more opportunities.

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Why Certainty Will Destroy You

We spend way too much time planning out our lives that we forget there’s an infinite number of things that could happen that would flush our perfectly crafted plans down the toilet. The world is changing, fast.

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Why Are You Starting From The Beginning?

Remember the first time you ever had to write an essay in school?You probably started off thinking a bit about what you wanted to write about and the arguments you wanted to make. You might’ve even jotted down notes and a rough outline.

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What’s The Point of Advice?

The key to making any type of change is to find (or create) that moment of choice and own it.Your actions make you who you are, but its your choices that will turn you into who you want to become.

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What To Do When Your Brain’s Just Not Cooperating

We’ve all been there. Some days you just wake up and there’s nothing more you want to do than crawl back into bed and wait for tomorrow to come. And sometimes, it’s for no reason in particular.

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What It Means To Be Human

Being human is a funny thing. It’s not really something we are, but something we experience. And part of that experience is connecting with other humans. In fact, I’d argue that’s what it’s really about — connecting with other humans.

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To Those Of You Finding Yourselves,

Throughout your life, you will encounter new ways of thinking, new approaches to the world, and new ideas. Some you will reject outright, some you may mull over, and some you will absorb as your own.

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This Is Your Greatest Weakness.

When it comes to pain and pleasure, humans are short-term thinkers. We have a natural aversion to pain, even if it’s good for us in the long-term. The opposite goes for pleasure. Whatever feels better now, that’s what we’re inclined to do.

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The World Works How You Want It To Work.

Whatever goal you want to achieve, think beyond the artificial boundaries that have been imposed on you. However you think the world works, it doesn’t. You

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The Only 3 Things You Have Control Over

Do you ever feel completely out of control? Like the things you want to achieve, the people you want in your life, and the person you want to be just seem to be slipping away from you?

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Take A Look At Your Life In Low-Resolution

What is the essence of you? What do you look like when all the details of your personality are removed?

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Stop Focusing On Your Degree. You’re The Multiplier.

At every stage in life, there’s certain achievements that everyone says you need to have. And honestly, I wasn’t too surprised.

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Should You Do It?

Sometimes life is just a bunch of decisions being thrown your way. We’ve all been presented with opportunities we weren’t sure if we should take.

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Remember Your Original Mission

without remembering your original mission, soon your goals will start to stray. And even when you get to where you aimed for, you still won’t be where you wanted to be.

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Remember when you wanted everything you have now.

Remember when you wanted everything you have now.Because one day, you’ll have everything you want now.And you’ll feel the same.

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Look For The Question, Not The Answer

No one wants to be that person constantly peppering people with questions. They want to be the one always providing answers.

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Is Your Battery Running Out? : Lessons In Willpower

There’s a cheap little takeout sushi place near my apartment. It’s only $5 for 16 pieces! I know what you’re thinking… no it doesn’t give me food poisoning. Bonus right?

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If You’re Not At Your Peak, This Is Why.

whatever you think your maximum potential is right now… that’s not it. You can push the boundaries of your potential further and further.

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How To Get What You Want

Sometimes it’s good to think about what you want. Like in your annual review. Or when you’re coming up with a wish list for your birthday. Or when you’re choosing a degree for university.

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How To Find Your Strengths

Most of us don’t give enough thought to what our strengths are and how best to leverage them. But when we do and when we find them… it’s kind of like discovering a superpower we didn’t know existed. Isn’t it?

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How to (really) measure your success

We tend to measure ourselves by our achievements. We try to feel good about ourselves & remind ourselves that we’re “enough” because of all the challenges we’ve overcome in the past.

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Have You Lost Your Original Mission?

Whatever your goals are, never forget your original mission. It’s just as important.

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Fear: The Diagnosis & Cure You Need

This post was inspired by Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich where he discusses fear as though it was a disease.

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Don’t Be Unique. Be Useful.

Every single thing you’ve gone through, someone has gone through and survived. Someone is going through it right now. And someone will go through it in the future.

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Can You Survive Failure?

To be able to fail more times, you’ve got to be able to survive each failure. Instead of dumping all your life savings into your new businesses right away, invest a small portion.

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Brain Crack.

What’s brain crack? It’s a term coined by CGP Grey in an episode of Hello Internet. Basically the longer we procrastinate on something we want to do, the more our brains build up expectations of how awesome it’s going to be. It’s like crack for your brain.

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Being Productive Is Kind of Like Potty Training

Like potty training, focusing doesn’t come naturally or easily. It’s not particularly rewarding all the time, it’s boring, and it’s often uncomfortable. It’s easier to get distracted on Facebook (or pee your pants).

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Are You Injuring Your Mind?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a habit of overloading everything in my life.

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Are You In Pain? Good.

When I first started learning taekwondo (a Korean martial art), I was probably about 10 years old. After a few months of learning the basic principles, we were given some gear and told to kick the shit out of each other.

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Are You Going In Circles?

The myth is true. People walk in circles when they’re lost. Are you doing the same in life?

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Are You Creating The Right Stories?

I’ll preface this by saying that, I love How I Met Your Mother. I’ve watched the entire show twice through…

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Are You All Headline & No Content?

When I first started writing, I would brainstorm for ideas by brainstorming headlines. I figured, if I got a good headline, it’d give me a good prompt for what to write. But the writing that came out from that strategy wasn’t so good.

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All The Times You’ve Touched Me

When I write, I try to speak some truth that I feel like I’ve experienced. It may only be my truth, but the most I can do is share it and maybe it’ll help someone discover theirs.‍

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6 Truths That Could Change The Way You Approach Life

As we go through life, we have thousands of experiences and lessons that make us feel like we’ve glimpsed some truth about life for a moment, but only a fraction really moves us beyond that.

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6 Thought Experiments To Trip Yourself Out

Most of us have grown pretty accustomed to the world we live in, our houses, our cities, the bed we sleep in, and the food we eat. We go through most of our life on semi-automatic.

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5 Important Lessons Every Woman Needs To Unlearn

The truth is that as women, we internalize lessons we’ve picked up - both implicitly and explicitly - that need to be unlearned.

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“I’m Failing At Something I’m Only Doing So I Wouldn’t Fail.”

I recently found this journal entry from almost 2 years ago: “I’m failing. I’m failing at something I’m only doing so I wouldn’t fail. How ironic.”

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How taking a walk can boost your creativity by 5X

Diving into how you can narrow down your focus and niche into something people find relatable!

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How to Narrow Down Your Focus & Niche Into It

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Why We Travel

I returned to San Jose this year. A trip to clear my palate — an amuse-bouche, if you will. It had been an intense few months in the only life I had. So I returned to San Jose. I spent two months living here last year. I remember arriving that first time — turning the wrong way at first, confused by the litany of highways and crossroads which weren’t what was advertised.

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Are You A Generalist or a Specialist?

Some people are always jumping from one interest to another, starting new projects and finding new fields to dive into. Others choose a skill or area of study and achieve true complete mastery in it. Which one are you? I’ve always been the former. I’d start projects only to discover something else I was interested in. The problem was never finding new things to do or try but to focus long enough to become really good, let alone master, a skill.

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