We tend to live like we're climbing a mountain. We set goals, we work towards them. The present becomes just infrastructure, a corridor to the future. I am here, but I need to get there. Everything in between is just the cost of arrival.

Life is not a mountain climb. There is no summit where you arrive and say "Yeah, I've finally made it." If you see your life as a climb towards a future better version of yourself, you will end up not truly living a single moment of the journey.

"With dance, it is the dancing itself that is the goal, and no one is concerned with arriving somewhere by doing it. Naturally, it may happen that one arrives somewhere as a result of having danced. Since one is dancing, one does not stay in the same place. But there is no destination."

— Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, The Courage to Be Disliked

I realized I'd been living in "climbing" mode most of my life. No wonder I always had that inferiority feeling — never skilled enough, never in good enough shape, never in a good enough financial position, never enough time. The trap was an irrational belief that I should simply get there — become a better version of myself, find a better job, learn something new.

We've forgotten how to simply relax and enjoy life. We are so focused on getting there, so obsessed with spending each moment with a purpose, that we end up frustrated and depressed by the here.

Quite often I had no idea what to do in the evening when my son was in bed and I had an hour or two for myself. I was obsessed with the idea that I should only do things that get me closer to my goals. Otherwise the time felt wasted.

I believe it became more obvious to me here in Serbia how flawed such a way of living is. People here are more relaxed. Life is slower. You pick up this rhythm quickly and start asking yourself — "Why do I even hurry?".

Play with your kid on the floor after dinner. Read a fiction book just because you like it. Spend 10 minutes sitting in a café and drinking a real cup of coffee instead of taking it away in a paper cup. Spend an evening simply thinking.

The more I focus on such things, the more I feel like "it is simply good to be here", as Kishimi and Koga put it.

This blog doesn't have a purpose. It is just me here in the moment, thinking out loud.