Write for yourself:

Always write for yourself. If you write for an audience of 1, you’ll always be interested in what you have to say. Pretend you’re writing to your younger self or future self. Nicholas Nassim Taleb has a great quote:

“For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.”

The world is complicated. It’s constantly changing. You’re constantly changing. Priorities shift. Life shifts. One day you’re partying with your friends in university and the next thing you know you have a wife, kid, a mortgage and have been at the same job for years. Where does it all go?

My dad used to tell me this and I didn’t believe him till now: when you’re younger, a year feels like an eternity. But as you age through university and as an adult, time speeds up. Eventually you wake up one day and you’ve worked for 10 years. That’s scary to think about given I’ve only been out of school for under 3 years, and yet I can understand what he’s talking about.

These past few years have flown by. You went from 7 months in Amsterdam to a few months in Toronto watching the Raptors win a title, to Montreal for 9 months, to now living at home for the last year. It’s all felt like a blur to me. I don’t even know what I’ve done during quarantine.

That’s why writing is so important. I can see what I was thinking about during this past year. I can look at what my old self was worried about or thinking about at a specific time. I went back to read my Covid post when I knew the world was going to shut, and it was grim. A lot of what I said came true sadly but that’s the cool thing. By just speaking my ideas at the time, I don’t know if they’ll be right or wrong in the future. If they do turn out to be true, then I know I’m seeing the world in a unique way. But if I never record them, I’m depriving myself and others access to my thoughts/opinions.

Like how the market is going to crash. I’m happy I’m documenting all the thoughts I have about the topic because I know if it happens, thousands of people may look through these blog posts and realize ‘holy crap. Maybe this guy knows something.’

It’s wild to think about, but that’s the thing about writing for you. I don’t care if no one reads it or likes it. I’m doing it for me. As long as I’m proud of myself for things I’m doing for me, I don’t care what other people think.

What I do know though is because of my life experiences and the amount of reading I’ve done in the past few years, I see the world in a different way. I’m looking for the cracks, the in between. That’s where the opportunities lie. That’s where you learn the most. The stuff you see on TV and opportunities you see on a job board ain’t it. There’s a whole other world out there the more you put yourself out there and take risks. The more you step outside your comfort zone, push yourself and take everything as a learning experience, the more you’ll be able to do and understand about the world.

When you read about some of the smartest and most successful minds, at least in the Western world, like the Gates, Elon, Buffet, they took big risks at different times in their lives, but also failed tons of times. They failed over and over again. Worked on projects and ideas for so long, yet never gave up.

That’s what writing feels like to me. It’s to not disappoint my future self. It’s to show up and keep trying, no matter how bad this is. Because the thing is over time, you’ll improve. I’m already beginning to see it in some of my writing.

A lot of the personal stuff I don’t edit properly because it’s very off the cuff, but the stuff I put out on Medium is cleaner. It’s not perfect by any means, but it gets across ideas in my tone in a way that makes sense. People understand it. How do I make complicated concepts simple for people to understand? That’s the goal.

I’ll get there. I’ll fail a lot along the way, and I can’t wait. That’s the cost of being great.

Maybe I’ll be great one day. Someone people talk about in the history books. Maybe I’ll get my own wikipedia page. Who knows?

Dream the biggest dreams you can, and go get them.

They’re waiting for you.

Keep writing for yourself.