“A healthy man has a thousand wishes, a sick man only one.”

When Confucius said that thousands of years ago in ancient China, he left behind lifetimes worth of wisdom in a single sentence.

Because more often than not, we don’t ‘live’ our lives. We ‘chase’ a version of it that takes on many names: goals, dreams, visions, aspirations, and a thousand other words that mean the same thing.

And in that chase, we forget that the point of it all is not to achieve an elusive status and endless applause, but to live with meaning, joy, and fulfillment.

For many of us, that realization comes when it’s too little, too late. Like the sick man who only longs for a healthy body, we only long for the one thing we can’t have: a time machine that takes away that status, the recognition, the exterior achievements in exchange for years where we truly ‘live’ the life we wanted—not chase the one we think we want.

I hope that today, at the midpoint of 2025, this email can help you recognize that truth so that living is not ‘too little, too late’ for you.

Ready for some uncomfortable truths?

You’re In Control:

For some of you control freaks out there, this sounds like good news.

Until you see the plus one it brings to the party. Then the music comes to a screeching halt, the dancing dies, and you groan, “Oh no! Not again, responsibility, not you!”

But, you see, control is a little too close to responsibility and can’t seem to go anywhere without it.

So even if it’s boring and hard, you have to accept responsibility if you want to accept control of your life.

And that ‘if’ is just a statement to soften the blow. Because you can’t really choose whether you want to accept the control of your life or not. YOU ARE IN CONTROL.

Logically, that means you are also responsible for everything that happens in your life. You may not have caused it, you may not have had a say in it, you may not even survive it, but if it doesn’t kill you, then you are responsible for how you deal with it.

You don’t have to voice those excuses bubbling in your head right now. I can already hear them—the sweet justifications that give you permission to avoid responsibility, to be a victim of your circumstances.

To that, I’ll just mention a sentence Anne Frank wrote in her diary while she was in hiding from Nazi German Soldiers, “In spite of everything I still believe people are good at heart…that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”

She didn’t choose the cruel, hate-filled Nazi Regime or their invasion into the Netherlands. She didn’t choose to go into hiding. She didn’t choose to die in the concentration camps. For the last five years of her fifteen-year life, she had no say in the fate that befell her.

The only things she could choose were her thoughts and beliefs. And if you give her diary a read, you’ll know she chose kindness, empathy, and humanity. Despite everything, she refused to make herself a victim and held on to hope—even with imminent death hanging over her head. That’s why…

You Always Have a Choice.

I’m not discrediting your challenges, suffering, or problems. They are valid. And you deserve all the compassion in the world to feel empowered and supported. But you don’t give that to yourself. You give self-pampering instead. You choose to wallow in pity and blame life, circumstance, or other people for your misfortune.

And that may be true, but the past is the past. If you’re still choosing to live in it, you’re the reason for your lack of growth (and that’s why you’re suffering).

That’s also why you’re chasing these ideals and ‘versions’ of yourself. You keep delaying your happiness by holding onto a false belief: “When I achieve XYZ, when I clear this exam, when I marry the love of my life, when I make a billion dollars, when I travel across the world…then I’ll be happy, then I’ll live.”

But that won’t happen. By then, you’d find something new to hold onto, a new dream to chase, a new goal to achieve. Because if you stopped there for a moment, you’d have to come face to face with the truth: The achievement didn’t make you happy. And you knew that it couldn’t. You just believed that to make sure you had something except yourself to blame for your suffering or pain.

Ouch.

I have been where you are. Just two years ago, I was suffering emotionally, mentally, and physically. Everything was fine on the outside, but my internal world was a wreck. I lost my dad a few months ago, and I felt guilty every time I felt a positive emotion or when a smile formed on my face. Grief took its toll on me.

I never thought I would wake up one day to the news that I’d never be able to talk to my dad again, especially not when I was just fifteen years old. But it was the truth, and it was out of my control. 

I could have easily spent the rest of my life walled in by that intense grief I was feeling. And I could have blamed my father’s death for it. But I didn’t. I understood that although I couldn’t bring my dad back to life, I could choose to honor his legacy by becoming someone he would be proud of. That was the only thing in my control, and I chose it. And here I am today, writing to you!

I implore you to look at your choices as well. Are suffering, pain, and the elusive ‘chase’ really the only options in front of you? Because I can tell you, a fulfilling life is always an option, it just demands you to take responsibility for your future, and to believe what Amanda Gorman beautifully captured in her poem, The Hill We Climb:

“So, while we once asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?”

We are halfway through the year, my friend, and it’s high time you embody this courage, for you know that it is within you. Let it see the light of day 🙂