Life after 36
There’s a magnificent Turkish poet, Cahit Sitki Taranci, who said that 35 is “halfway through the road.” The poem that laments the loss of youth and recognizes the creeping existential dread that one feels as the concept of their mortality becomes increasingly real. Taranci’s verses address the physical changes in the mirror, the loss of feeling, the constant worry and day-to-day struggle, and the hard truths that one discovers as one ages. My favorite verse, and one I agree with: “I discover...
LA or New York?
A question that stuck with me for days after the two times I’ve visited LA: should I move here? While I was in LA, I experienced this question as a certainty. I belonged in LA. Everything about it fundamentally nourished me: from the sun to the coffeeshops where no one was in a rush, where people called each other by their name and healthy options were the default rather than something you had to seek out. Plus, there was Abbot Kinney Boulevard and Erewhon’s breakfast burritos and the palm-li...
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant: Is it better to forget?
The most recent book I finished is Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, in which an elderly Briton couple leave their village to visit a son who they have not seen in years. This is a perilous journey in post-Roman Britain, where distances are yet unconquered by advanced transportation, and where people are frail. Still, the story hints that the couple is strong for their age yet, and devoted to each other. There is one quirk: the couple is missing their memories, owing to a dragon’s spell cast...
Discovering, remembering, and clarifying my thoughts through writing. Writing to find joy.
Life after 36
There’s a magnificent Turkish poet, Cahit Sitki Taranci, who said that 35 is “halfway through the road.” The poem that laments the loss of youth and recognizes the creeping existential dread that one feels as the concept of their mortality becomes increasingly real. Taranci’s verses address the physical changes in the mirror, the loss of feeling, the constant worry and day-to-day struggle, and the hard truths that one discovers as one ages. My favorite verse, and one I agree with: “I discover...
LA or New York?
A question that stuck with me for days after the two times I’ve visited LA: should I move here? While I was in LA, I experienced this question as a certainty. I belonged in LA. Everything about it fundamentally nourished me: from the sun to the coffeeshops where no one was in a rush, where people called each other by their name and healthy options were the default rather than something you had to seek out. Plus, there was Abbot Kinney Boulevard and Erewhon’s breakfast burritos and the palm-li...
Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant: Is it better to forget?
The most recent book I finished is Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, in which an elderly Briton couple leave their village to visit a son who they have not seen in years. This is a perilous journey in post-Roman Britain, where distances are yet unconquered by advanced transportation, and where people are frail. Still, the story hints that the couple is strong for their age yet, and devoted to each other. There is one quirk: the couple is missing their memories, owing to a dragon’s spell cast...
Discovering, remembering, and clarifying my thoughts through writing. Writing to find joy.
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Subscribe to Serra S.
Subscribe to Serra S.
<100 subscribers
<100 subscribers
I used to wait for a “perfect time” to get things done.
Regardless of the activity, everything was supposed to have its perfect time that just felt right. I would know how to respond to a text when the moment came. I would have the perfect peace of mind to make that call.
One day, I would have an uninterrupted stretch of two or three hours, and I would sit down and write beautifully and with inspiration. I would know exactly what to write about.
I would sit down and read all about personal finance and be very educated.
You can probably see where this is going.
Tasks piled up. It took me hours, if not days, to get back to friends over simple things. No short stories appeared in the New Yorker, in the New York Times Modern Love section, or even on Medium.
The floating shelves didn’t get hung. I didn’t go to Japan. I just existed, the same, year after year.
Until I realized the one simple thing that somehow took me a ridiculously long time.
There is no perfect time for anything in this world.
And if you encounter it, it is simply by coincidence after many times of not being ready.
That the only “perfection” you can expect in this world is to show up with the commitment to do something, with whatever you’ve got at that moment.
And that your life improves in proportion to the moments that you were not ready, that you were too tired, scared, busy (with bullshit stuff) but committed to doing something anyway.
After this realization hit me, I’m taking the opposite approach: trying to sprinkle everything from boring tasks to learning and long-term vision building into my day to day.
And the more I do this, the more concrete the absence of the “perfect time” becomes.
In fact, the only things I’ve been able to do are the things that I squeezed in when I had a few minutes, when I was too tired to write but sat down anyway, or all the things I did that I thought I could have done later, but did anyway.
That night when I finally ordered the floating shelves because there was no reason not to.
When I got my tattoos fixed, even though there was no real urgency. (And the joy and enjoyment I got out of them instead of the long wait for the perfect time.)
Those random Wednesday nights when I finally tried to learn about budgeting or concentrated liquidity, instead of waiting for the weekend.
In short – all the times I committed to doing something or thought “why not now,” instead of waiting for the perfect time, are the times that enriched my life.
I used to wait for a “perfect time” to get things done.
Regardless of the activity, everything was supposed to have its perfect time that just felt right. I would know how to respond to a text when the moment came. I would have the perfect peace of mind to make that call.
One day, I would have an uninterrupted stretch of two or three hours, and I would sit down and write beautifully and with inspiration. I would know exactly what to write about.
I would sit down and read all about personal finance and be very educated.
You can probably see where this is going.
Tasks piled up. It took me hours, if not days, to get back to friends over simple things. No short stories appeared in the New Yorker, in the New York Times Modern Love section, or even on Medium.
The floating shelves didn’t get hung. I didn’t go to Japan. I just existed, the same, year after year.
Until I realized the one simple thing that somehow took me a ridiculously long time.
There is no perfect time for anything in this world.
And if you encounter it, it is simply by coincidence after many times of not being ready.
That the only “perfection” you can expect in this world is to show up with the commitment to do something, with whatever you’ve got at that moment.
And that your life improves in proportion to the moments that you were not ready, that you were too tired, scared, busy (with bullshit stuff) but committed to doing something anyway.
After this realization hit me, I’m taking the opposite approach: trying to sprinkle everything from boring tasks to learning and long-term vision building into my day to day.
And the more I do this, the more concrete the absence of the “perfect time” becomes.
In fact, the only things I’ve been able to do are the things that I squeezed in when I had a few minutes, when I was too tired to write but sat down anyway, or all the things I did that I thought I could have done later, but did anyway.
That night when I finally ordered the floating shelves because there was no reason not to.
When I got my tattoos fixed, even though there was no real urgency. (And the joy and enjoyment I got out of them instead of the long wait for the perfect time.)
Those random Wednesday nights when I finally tried to learn about budgeting or concentrated liquidity, instead of waiting for the weekend.
In short – all the times I committed to doing something or thought “why not now,” instead of waiting for the perfect time, are the times that enriched my life.
No activity yet