20-something years ago, I was a struggling student with a shit side-job and a so-so relationship with my family. Life felt like being a hamster running in a wheel, it felt like there was nowhere to go.

I had dinner with a friend of mine, who announced that he was leaving for a study-abroad year for our last year of masters degree. I was glad for him, but definitely envious, and he told me: “well, do it too then”.

I spent the next 30 minutes trying to explain the myriad of things that were keeping me down in my life, but he dismantled them one by one.

Like:

• “But packing my studio apartment will be tedious…” - “So you’ll live the rest of your life in that apartment?”

• “But money…” - “You know you can take a reasonable loan for this and that it will pay off in opportunities.”

• “But I’m the one keeping everything together at work.” - “And they know it, it’s not in their interest for you to be find a job in your degree’s career. They’ll ask you for favors forever. You should look out for yourself there. It’s probably a good thing to make it stop now and have you be unreachable a while so they can figure it out.” (This was before smartphones.)

• “But my family will hate it.” - “Because they also don’t want to let you go, you should look out for yourself there too.”

He was spot on about everything, and eventually, I had run out of excuses. That night I ended it with a non-committal “I’ll think about it”, but that small conversation started a big train of thoughts that changed everything about how I made decisions. Basically, it turned me from being someone quite risk-averse and shying away from things, to becoming someone unusually risk-seeking and ready to take on opportunities that would present to me as much as I could without letting anything keep me down.

I wasn’t able to join the program he joined because the deadline had passed, so I had to carve out my own study-abroad opportunity, so I did. It was scary and tedious, but it paid off. Interestingly, I now live halfway across the world from where I grew up, and he is back in our hometown. We lost touch over time, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t realize how this small conversation that day changed everything of the path I was on.

Reading about stoicism. It’s like an ethical anchor in my life now, a guide to be happy. It’s like the upgraded version of religious belief, perfectly fitting in the 21st century (even though it’s thousands of years old).

Worked with someone senior to me in my org, who would always complain about how people don’t know how to work well or get too distracted by new technology etc. It was often compelling and made you feel guilty about not being better.

Then I realised they were unconsciously talking about themselves. They were always distracted by their emails and computer and hardly ever getting good work done.

You hear about people projecting. But to see it in person and realise that a whole person’s seemingly insightful or valuable position on what’s “good” was just self-centred abuse is quite another thing.

I was never one to take authority seriously, quite the opposite really, but this really removed what little ability I had to perceive someone with respect without massive amounts of evidence and proof.

There are few hero’s amongst us. We’re all pretty flawed and broken.

I forgot the details, but I remember vividly the strong feeling of being right about something. And then I learned I was wrong.

This was when I started to distrust that feeling. It is comforting, but not a trustworthy guide to truth.