As soon as the morning passes and I haven’t written, I carry guilt and a sense of dread throughout the day. The closer I get to Thursdays, the day I release my newsletter, and I still haven’t written my post, the more anxious, overwhelmed and defeated I feel.

Not every activity must be a means to an end. Sitting on the sofa does not mean I have to watch TV. Taking a walk does not need to be measured for distance and speed. Watching the birds in nature doesn’t have to be labelled as a mindful exercise to be done on Wednesdays at 5 pm.

2015 was one of the saddest of my life as my mother passed away. However, it was also one of the most exciting years of my life, as I had intentionally set it up to be so. I wanted to do more joyful activities that made me release the handbrake within me, allowing me to express more of myself.

My ultimate aspiration—and one that I will pursue endlessly and ruthlessly—is to become a writer who earns enough money from writing to cover a comfortable lifestyle. I’m giving myself as much time as possible, as I know it’s not something I’ll achieve within the next few years.

Following Annie Dillard’s wisdom, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” I had spent the whole year establishing and formalizing a set of non-negotiables that would underpin my daily life. These practices, when I observed them consistently, filled me with contentment and magic, and a feeling of being enough. They were the culmination of all the work I’d done on myself — all the self-awareness and self-knowledge I gathered — in the past five years.

Do I always carry a book with me? Perhaps I was feeling sorry for the Lebanese officials who earn less than $200 a month and are doing their best that I remain serene. Setting the right expectations before leaving for the passport office is crucial.

New York is a beautiful city for aspiring and desiring 20–30-year-olds. But not for me. Not for someone who is in midlife and seeks quiet, inner peace and mindfulness. Not for someone leaving the striving behind and moving on to the second part of his life, that of acceptance.

9 Quotes That Make Me Sit up & Think

The DEEPSEA Sea-dweller watch I’d been eyeing had arrived, and I was to pay the balance and collect. I already owned four watches; this was my fifth purchase within the past two years.

But to write like him means to be like him. It means getting off that f*cking hamster wheel of success, status and more. It means allowing your heart to show up even when it’s hurting. It means allowing your soul to express itself even when others would want to look away or downright laugh at you.

“The wing of clear seeing is often described in Buddhist practice as mindfulness. This quality of awareness recognises exactly what is happening in our moment-to-moment experience. When we are mindful of fear, for instance, we are aware that our thoughts are racing, that our body feels tight and shaky, that we feel compelled to flee—and we recognise all this without trying to manage our experience in any way, without pulling away. Because we are not tampering with our experience, mindfulness allows us to see life ‘as it is.’ “

This means that I need to question the underlying transformation I desire. To look at it from the big ‘Why’ perspective. Using James Clear’s terminology, the change I seek is not only about changing my outcomes and systems but also my identity, beliefs and worldview.

I realise that my days are filled with ordinary moments that make my day extraordinary. Things like drinking an expresso lungo in the early morning while journalling and listening to Max Richter’s wonderful tunes. Reading Tolstoy and/or his Russian friends. Having deep and vulnerable conversations with friends after a few glasses of ‘Malbec’ Red wine.

Here’s a better question: “How can we learn to tame the ego and begin our journeys to authenticity?” We should accept and honour the ego as a gift; it pushes us to go out and play, explore, experience, and test our limits. It leads us to mistakes, failure, and pain, but that’s where the greatest lessons lie. We need to be in darkness before we can recognise and shed light.

From the bottom of the order upwards, the needs are physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), esteem, and self-actualisation. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to higher ideals.

As the TedX day grew nearer, my sleep got more erratic. I would remind myself every morning that I had decided on it, was committed to it, and would give it my best. I practised my talk as if my life depended on it. I repeated it five or six times. I made my family listen to me practice, and then I went to work and forced my employees to hear me out as well. The more I practised, the less fear I held.

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is often associated with the concept of the midlife crisis. Jung believed that as people move through the different stages of life, they experience a series of psychological transformations that he called Individuation.

Others are not so lucky and have very low self-worth, no doubt broken childhoods and bad parents being the cause. Again a person I know comes to mind; he had achieved great wealth and yet allowed his wife to trample all over him until she left him with most of his money.

By midlife, on a whim, I started to write. I enjoyed the self-expression, the solitude and how writing helped me grow in self-awareness. The deeper I got into the writing world, the more I desired that life. Who wouldn’t want to be Hemingway?

In marketing, there is a concept known as TOMA, or “top-of-mind awareness”, which refers to a brand or specific product being first in customers’ minds when thinking of a particular industry or category. So, for example, when I think of cars, BMW stands out for me. Or when I think of chocolate, I can’t but envision myself opening and unwrapping a ‘Toblerone’ bar.