-Some days are grey. But today, I learned how much peace lives in being present.-

Good evening, dear readers.

Today was grey, just like the last two days, but my mood wasn’t the same.
I feel happy. I feel grateful for who I am and for who I’m trying to become.

As you can see from the cover, this has been my setup for the past ten days. I have to admit that this mug has become something special to me. Making a bottle of tea before sitting down to write has slowly turned into my mantra.

I started my morning gently. I did a breathing meditation, wrote my journal page, and read a letter from a Stoic. Today, partly because I wanted to and partly because I didn’t feel the need, I left my phone turned off from 6 to 9 a.m. I chose to focus on what felt like a real priority. I’m learning to put myself first.

Lately, my sleep rating has been going up a lot. This morning it was 92, and I could feel it as soon as I woke up. I wasn’t tired. I felt ready to fully welcome everything good this day could give me.

If I’m writing Day 10 now, it’s because my creative energy and my inner dialogue showed up in the late afternoon.

For most of my life, I lived stuck in the past, thinking about mistakes, replaying moments where I wish I had acted differently. Or I lived in the future, thinking about things I wanted to fix or change. My life slowly took a bad direction. How could I ever be happy if I wasn’t able to live in the present?

Only now I’m starting to understand that the only moment we really have control over is now.
Right now is the only place where happiness exists.

We almost never pay attention to what we do during the day. We never congratulate ourselves for small things. Instead, we complain about how bad our life is, how much we want to change it, how unhappy we feel.

We need to learn how to live the present moment. Today, I think I managed to do that.

For the first time in years, I realized that happiness isn’t about the place we’re in or the place we’re trying to escape to. Happiness comes from making peace with ourselves and learning to appreciate what we do every day.

This morning I started a new book called Flow, about the psychology of optimal experience. It’s opening my mind and putting me face to face with things I never really considered. Reading is becoming something I truly enjoy. What I learn makes me feel like my mind is growing day by day.

Today I want to open up again and talk about something I’ve been carrying for a long time. That thing is consumerism.

Yes, I’m a very consumerist person. For years I tried to cover my sadness and insecurities with material things. Over time, I collected many objects that made me feel good for a moment, but later I understood they were just distractions.

What hurts the most is realizing that I often bought things thinking they would help me start something new. One example says it all. For a long time, I told myself I wasn’t creating content because I didn’t have the right equipment, because I didn’t have the right camera. I would buy something new, and right after that I would find another excuse not to start.

I was hiding my insecurities behind objects, hoping they would give me motivation. But they never did.

Now I have to face myself. I don’t want to hide my feelings behind material things anymore. I don’t blame myself. I just want to be aware of it and improve. I don’t want to be a consumerist person. I want to feel my emotions, understand where they come from, and deal with them without needing objects to fill the void.

This habit always left me with a heavy weight on my shoulders: fears, doubts, and insecurities that I never really solved.

Only now I understand that the real reason I never started posting on social media was my insecurity. I didn’t feel good enough. I didn’t feel attractive enough. I was scared of failing.

This phase of my life is helping me face emotions I’ve pushed away for years.

I’m really grateful I started this 75-day challenge. The rush and excitement of “finishing it” is slowly fading. What’s replacing it is something better: enjoying each day without pressure, without rules.

It’s no longer about completing a challenge. It’s about building a better version of myself, facing my inner conflicts, and finding my path.

After years of carrying this inside me, I decided to say enough and finally face the resistance that kept pulling me back into what I thought was my safe place. I now understand that I’m more than that. I don’t want to sit and watch life go by. I want to be the protagonist. I want to create my own story and live it in my own way.

What I’m most proud of is how I’m living right now. I’m learning to value the journey more than the result.

Yes, I’ve always been obsessed with finding my purpose, my ikigai. But that obsession is slowly calming down. I know I’ll find it, but I want to enjoy the process first.

It doesn’t make sense to spend every day asking ourselves what our purpose is if we’re not even working on who we want to become.

I need to stop focusing on the fact that I don’t fully know who I am yet, and start working on what feels closest to me.

Sometimes I spend more time thinking about my path than actually walking it.

So today I ask myself:
Am I really willing to struggle, to work hard, to reach my goals?

I don’t want to answer that now. I want to give myself time.

For today, I’m happy with how the day went. I’m putting myself first. I’m learning to enjoy the process instead of the outcome. And I’m learning to feel gratitude and love for the person I am becoming.

Good evening, dear readers.
See you tomorrow.