Month: January 2021

After reading my journals I saw that I repeat a lot of things. I’ve written down a list of things over the years and I wanted to share it. These are the points that I learned in life but mainly from reading and watching self-help material and they capture a lot of self-help information on the internet. I hope you learn something from it and gain new insights.

The Brain

1. Anything you do changes your brain. So, watch you input and output. You can choose what information you take in every single day. We live with an overabundance of information and to process this brings in loads of anxiety and stress. Focus on yourself first. Focus on nothingness.
2. Constantly looking at images of things you find extremely attractive can lead to you viewing more average things/people as being less attractive. When dopamine and related neurochemicals are properly regulated, sexual attraction, socializing, concentration, sexual responsiveness, and feelings of wellbeing are more effortless.

Emotions

1. Stop trying to control your emotions. The less you fight your emotions, the faster they dissolve and make space for the next.
2. Take a couple of minutes each day to just sit with yourself, for example after meditation. You can learn incredibly much about yourself and improve yourself.
3. Your outer world reflects your inner world.

The Self

1. Waking up means to suddenly recognize that the thoughts that go through your head continuously, but also the emotions that reflect those thoughts, are not who you are. You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are. And I am not what I think and feel, I am witnessing what I think and feel. The solutions our minds sometimes come up with can be the very problem that keeps us paralyzed.
2. The whisper in the back of my mind telling me that people around me are judging me is just me judging myself and no more. Worrying about what other people think of you will prevent you from being your true self and pursuing your true calling.

Growth

1. Life on earth is never meant to be easy. It is in the moments of struggle with emotion and pain that humans grow as people. Pain is part of the process and stress is an opportunity of growth. It is important to feel it. Because if you just chase after highs to cover up the pain, if you continue to indulge in entitlement and delusional positive thinking, if you continue to overindulge in various substances or activities, then you will never generate the requisite motivation to actually change.
2. To go further, you need boredom. You need to have the excess dopamine available to channel into new endeavors. We’ve become unable to handle boredom.
3. Do not share your future goals and wins too much. It will make you feel successful even though you have not done a thing.
4. Be the small fish in the big pond, not the big fish in the small pond.
5. If you cannot do it for yourself, then do it for the person you love. Put yourself second and others first. Train your conscientiousness.
6. Suffer now -> Reward later, instead of: Pleasure first -> Pain later. Delayed gratification is often better than instant reward.

Life

1. People with a positive outlook on life tend to live longer, more fulfilling lives than their mean grumpy neighbors.
2. Exercise is good for learning, stress, anxiety, mood, and focus. It releases BDNF, which is very important for all the basic processes related to learning and memory in the brain.
3. Have low expectations. Try to compare only with yourself. To how you did yesterday, compared to today. Detach yourself from making these unending comparisons with others and focus on yourself.
4. Constantly wanting to change yourself can become an addiction too. Each cycle results in the same failures.
5. We are on earth to work, just like ants, bees, and other animals. So why would you stay in your cozy bed? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? Nature set a limit on sleep, as it did on eating and drinking. And you are over the limit. You have had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you are still below your quota.
6. This is our challenge, our calling: To act without hope. To not hope for better. To be better. In this moment and the next. And the next. And the next. You will always have some sort of pain. That is the challenge of life. Do not hope for a better life. Simply be a better life.
7. Happiness is not about getting what you want all the time, it is about loving what you already have.
8. Why wait for something bad to happen before doing something meaningful?

Choices

1. We can choose to be people of peace, people of love, people who do not give up on doing the right thing, and people who never stop learning.
2. Concentrate your energy on the things you can control, care less about the unimportant things.
3. Between stimulus and response, there is a place. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Find out what works for you. Everyone is different.

Worrying

1. If you can solve the problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?
2. Training in uncertainty is letting go of the certainty that we know how everyone else should behave and having no concepts of people.
3. Most people do not care what you are doing or look like, they are just thinking about themselves.
4. Meditation helps overthinking. The more you meditate, the stronger it helps.
5. Be so busy that you will not have the time to worry.

Confidence

1. The reason we overthink is to alleviate fear from ourselves, but the more we think, the smarter we are, the more possibilities our minds generates about how things can go wrong, and it is a vicious cycle. You never overcome your fear of failure, you act despite it. When you start acting despite things, instead of trying to fix them before you act, then you will stop being stuck. Because you want to fix everything before you do anything. Confidence is about acting in the face of uncertainty because you believe that you can manage what comes.
2. A big aspect of not caring is being detached from both the negative as well as the positive feedback you get. Suffering comes from attachment.

Law of attraction

1. You need to see yourself being that person before you will get results. Do not behave like you are depressed; walk with your shoulders straight. Change beliefs. Go from thinking you suck to thinking you are great. Believe in yourself and you will become better in anything.
2. Positivity breeds positivity: Your life only gets better when you get better. If you do not feed your mind with positive motivation, inspiration, something that moves you towards your goals, practical, useful information to feed your mind; weeds grow. The more you give energy to something, the more you attract those things.
3. Being evil makes everyone around you evil.
4. We seek information that confirms what we already believe. Be careful and stay open-minded.

Seek discomfort

1. Vulnerability is not a weakness; it is a strength. It is a prerequisite for progress. You simply cannot hope to achieve anything unless you are willing to take risks. Every compromising gamble could end up in success, or failure, but you will never find out which unless you have the guts to throw the dice.
2. Anyone who has grown mentally, physically, or spiritually knows that growth is not found in comfort.
3. Decrease bad habits by making the cue weaker.

Progression

1. The need for of progress can be the enemy of enjoying the process.
2. Consistency is key, and so is patience. Long term thinking is the key to getting what you want. Be open minded. Do not feel ashamed for working hard.
3. Think about your actions, how will it bring you value. Inspiration is found through action.
4. Your brain is programmed to resist change. But, by taking small steps, you effectively rewire your nervous system so that it creates new connections between neurons so that the brain enthusiastically takes over the process of change and you progress rapidly toward your goal.
5. Knowledge is not power. The application of knowledge is power.
6. The more time you spend improving your craft, the higher your chances of having creative breakthroughs.
7. Work to achieve results rather than to pass time. Sharp deadlines can really improve your work and how much you finish.

People

1. If you can reserve just twenty minutes a day to sit down and think about how you can improve the lives of the people around you, not only will all of your professional problems disappear, but so will your personal ones. You need to make others happy to be happy yourself. Acknowledge people and respect them. That is why smiling, holding doors, and saying hello to strangers are such powerful gestures. It makes you stand out.
2. You cannot hang around negative people and expect a positive result. People will criticize you if you stick your head above the crowd. Which is totally normal. People do not kick dead dogs. It is a compliment if someone tries to put you down. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
3. If you want to be interesting, be interested. If you want to become a good conversationalist, you must become and investigator of people, because they mostly care about themselves.

Living in the present

1. Life happens right at this moment. The less energy we waste regretting the past or worrying about the future, the more energy we will have for what is in front of us. Truly focus on the individual steps and process. Never look at the outcome. Do not get overjoyed by that. Stay focused on improving and having fun with it. We can only do that by clearing our mind. By restricting ourselves of the abundance of information and distractions online: By living in the present. It is called present for a reason. When presence is in the foreground, you do not need as much stimulation. You are more likely to achieve those outcomes, because you’re not wasting time, you’re not disempowered, your focus isn’t scattered; you can actually be attuned to what you want, rather than being brainwashed into what somebody else wants.
2. Literally every day could be our last, so try to live in every one of them. Life is not about the destination; it is about the journey.
3. If you have a bad day, sit with it in the now and do not let it move you to the future or past. Be careful of your thoughts, you are not them. Notice what you think, and move on, instead of falling for your thoughts and staying in the fight with them
4. True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. Anxiety cannot live in the present, only in the future.

Suffering

1. Accepting reality is difficult when life is painful. No one wants to experience pain, disappointment, sadness, or loss. But those experiences are a part of life. When you attempt to avoid or resist those emotions, you add suffering to your pain. You may build the emotion bigger with your thoughts or create more misery by attempting to avoid the painful emotions. You can stop suffering by practicing acceptance. Life is full of experiences, some that you enjoy and others you dislike. When you push away or attempt to avoid feelings of sadness and pain, you also diminish your ability to feel joy. Avoidance of emotions often leads to depression and anxiety. Avoidance can also lead to destructive behaviors, such as gambling, drinking too much, overspending, eating too little or too much, and overworking. These behaviors may help avoid pain in the short run, but they only make the situation worse in the long run. Acceptance means that you can turn your resistant ruminating into accepting thoughts like, “I’m in this situation. I do not approve of it. I don’t think it’s OK, but it is what it is, and I can’t change that it happened.”
2. When you practice acceptance, you are still disappointed, sad, and perhaps fearful in such situations, but you don’t add the pain of non-acceptance to those emotions and make things worse. Practicing acceptance in these situations also helps you prepare for more difficult circumstances.
3. We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
4. My suffering is caused by my desires and cravings for being liked an accepted by everyone. A common fear in the world is the opinion of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd, you become free.
5. We suffer not from the events in our lives, but from our judgement about them.
6. Our suffering teaches us our limitations and teaches us in ways our happiness never could. When our highest priority is to always make ourselves feel good, then nobody ends up feeling good.
7. Life is one never-ending stream of pain, and to grow is not to find a way to avoid that stream but, rather, to dive into it and successfully navigate its depths. These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.

Gratitude

1. Some people’s life can be way tougher than yours. Keep that in mind. Use your own power for good.
2. Empathy over everything.
3. You are enough and you have enough. More will not make you so much happier cause you keep wanting more.
4. I want to be forever proud of who I was as a man.

Self-Awareness

1. I am flawed, weird, and crazy, just like everyone else.
2. Your body is a gift. Do not burn yourself out. Do not treat yourself like an overworking machine, treat yourself as a human being.
3. What is rare is not raw talent, skill or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness.
4. Money does not make you happy. Focus on your goals, that will make you happy.

Ego

1. You need to eliminate the need to be the best artist in the room. The ego is the enemy. When you try to learn as much as possible, none of that matters. You are no more special than anyone else.
2. The ego starts as a defense mechanism. The mask we wear is a manifestation of ego. Ego kills what we love. Sometimes, it comes close to killing us too. True mastery begins where individual ego ends. Take responsibility for your own mistakes.
3. If your creativity is driven by a desire to get attention, you are never going to be creatively fulfilled. There is no amount of attention you can get where you feel like, ahh… I am good now. The reason so many of you want to win right now, so fast, is because you want to show other people you won. Be aware of your jealousy and desires, they can ruin you. Focus on your values instead. What do you value? What do you really care about?

Anger

1. Anger is not an option in almost all cases. To let go of anger, is to get hold of compassion. You have to take a deep breath when you’re angry and feel why you get angry. While meditating you can think of a person that makes you angry and see that they need compassion instead of anger. If you change your anger to compassion, you will be a better person.

Even though Corona spread over the world, forcing me to often stay inside, it was quite an action-packed year. This post is more personal and aimed on my experiences through this year, but also what my plans are for 2021.

In April, me and my brother bought and moved into an apartment in Amsterdam. This was the first time moving for me and now I know that it is stressful and picking furniture even more; we still don’t have nice ceiling lights. And Corona didn’t help either, or maybe it did, because a lot of items were ordered online so we didn’t have as much to travel and carry to our apartment. Switching from a quiet place and small town where the new rumors spread like fire, to a fast-paced city full of opportunity was something to get used to. But I’m feeling more and more at home now. 

I pretty much stopped producing music from I think Juli, and I’m fine with that. I can always continue when I’m motivated again, but currently I don’t feel the need or motivation to do it.

I’m still busy with my masters but 2020 went really well; I got a lot of grades that I’m proud of. However, it’s pretty sad that we can’t go to school and meet up with friends from school. Just being at school changes your whole mood and can motivate you more than sitting at home in your pajamas, having all the distractions in the world besides you. Also, partly why I moved to Amsterdam was because it’s closer to school, which I couldn’t make use of unfortunately, but fortunately it wasn’t the only reason I moved to Amsterdam. I am also glad I was able to go on a small vacation in the summer, because the Coronal rules were less strict back then.

Mentally November and December were the toughest, I think. I had to do lots of preparations for my master thesis in 2021, for example looking for a fun/challenging project. I worried intensively about what I would do in the future and what project would be nice for me. It took me out of the present. Got rejected pretty harshly by a company which caused me to feel down and insecure about my abilities, but I’m working on them and feel a lot better. I’m actually glad it happened; it made me stronger and more resilient. It gave me some much needed concrete feedback.

In 2020 I’ve also learned that I don’t like sharing some of the things I do because of peoples reactions. I just still worry a lot about what people think of my actions and me. But I am working on that. I learned that it is part of a burden I carry with me. And I’m trying to identify this burden to let it dissolve, mostly through meditation and talking about it. A couple days before new years I started using Headspace, and it has been genuinely helpful. I’m still using it now.

One of my favorite things I’ve written down in my journal this year is: “My suffering is caused by my desires and cravings for being liked and accepted by everyone.”

One thing I haven’t shared with most people is that I’m learning Japanese. A friend of mine and I started learning it at the same time because we both are very interested in Japanese culture and of course Japanese shows. I find it a lot of fun to learn a language, especially one so interesting (although it is hard). Getting better at reading the characters is so motivating to me. In the future I would definitely like to go there for couple of months. 

Some things I improved in 2020:

• Using less social media and less on my phone
• Watching less YouTube videos
• Watching less porn
• Created more structure in my life
• Learned more about myself
• More mental clarity
• My IT skills
• The last months I started jogging almost every other day (still doing it as of today)

My most important goals for 2021 are:

• Consistency & seeking discomfort
• Increase mental clarity through structuring my life and meditation
• Get to know myself better through meditation and writing
• Get great at programming in Python by doing exercises on AlgoExpert and CodeSignal and reading books
• Improve my Japanese
• Improve my writing
• Keep running every other day
• Finish my master
• Get a job

To support my search towards mental clarity and happiness, it doesn’t feel right to upload as much as possible. So much clutter and information exists on the internet, so it should be concise. I want to create helpful, quality content. Therefore I will revise my articles when outdated, or delete ones I think are less helpful. Ultimately, my content this year will be mostly aimed at mental clarity and less is more. 

Thanks for reading. I hope this motivates you to work hard in 2021, or just was a fun read :). 

2020 was quite the year huh. I’m planning on writing a reflection on 2020 (it’s here), but first I would like to share 2 books that influenced me the most in 2020.

The first one is The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, you can read my review if you want, but it is a reminder to me that consistency is key. I’m currently interested in learning Python and algorithms, learning Japanese, and improving my writing, and I have some small tasks each day that will help me improve these points. It also gave insight of having a philosophy in life, which the next book did too. I recognized that I often am consistent for a couple of weeks, and then come to a halt when I don’t see something shiny already. The end-goal isn’t that important. If you keep going consistently, have some trust, and you will reach it nevertheless.

The second book is Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. My blog post already gives some insights in his life, but he inspires me to keep improving and pushing myself. Seeking comfort was like an automatic process to me. Oh I don’t like that, I don’t want to go to that party, well then I will find an alibi. Staying in my room gaming was life to me. Now I still game for fun and relaxation, but I keep in mind that I should be aware of overdoing it and only allow myself to game if I feel like I did enough that day. 

Combining both books is where the real treasure is.

Combined they’re like a map and using them together, you get so much insight about the brain and how to reach happiness and your full potential. However, they might be a map, but there ain’t a red cross. You will learn the roads and the exciting tips of where to go and where not to go in life, but there is no end. You have to keep being consistent, keep getting out of that comfort zone, keep expanding the map, keep hitting the same roads, otherwise you could lose it all in no time. Routes will fade away, you will lose while stuck in the wildernis, wanting to stay in your cave of melancholy.

Sounds like a tough, but a worthwhile, purposeful and happy life.