A Zen Stoic, New York, NY (2025)

08/31/2025

Strength and softness.
Discipline and ease.
Solitude and connection.
Clarity and uncertainty.

Often, we are conditioned to pick a side.
To label.
To divide.
To chase black-or-white answers.
But that should not always be the case.

But real inner peace isn’t found in extremes.
It’s found in the space between them,
where contradictions don’t cancel each other out,
they complete each other.

Balance doesn’t mean perfect stillness.
It means movement with awareness.
It means knowing when to yield and when to stand firm.
When to let go, and when to hold the line.

Zen teachings don’t ask you to become "a thing".
they invite you to return to your center,
where all parts of you can breathe without fighting for control.

That’s the Middle Way.
Not indecision.
But wholeness.

08/29/2025

The famous “Serenity Prayer”, has much stoicism and zen in its essence…

Or as the stoics taught:

Let me distinguish between what is within my power and what is not,
accept with equanimity what I cannot change,
act with virtue where I can,
and let reason guide me in knowing the difference.

08/28/2025

Big changes don’t look big when they start.
They look like small choices no one notices.

Waking up earlier.
Saying no to old habits.
Doing the hard thing, again.
Showing up when that surge of motivation is not as strong.

The person who moves the mountain
didn’t do it all at once.
They just kept picking up the next stone.

And while everyone else was waiting for the perfect time,
the perfect mood,
the perfect plan,
they were already halfway through the climb.

So don’t let the size of your goal paralyze you.
Start where you are.
Stay consistent.
And trust that every quiet effort adds up,
even if no one claps for it yet.

👇 The key lies in cultivating these three powerful mental abilities:

1- 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙖 𝙗𝙞𝙜 𝙜𝙤𝙖𝙡 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨.
2- 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙘𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙩 𝙖 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚.
3- 𝘽𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙤.

So, you don’t need to move the mountain today.
Just carry one stone.

08/27/2025

Renewal and healing isn’t always about adding more, like:
“More advice. More distractions. More quick fixes.”

Sometimes it’s about subtraction.
About noticing how you talk to yourself.
How you stay in places that drain you.
How you revisit wounds just to feel something familiar.

We don’t just suffer because life is hard.
We suffer because we keep reopening the same door,
telling the same story,
fighting battles that ended long ago.

You won’t always find peace by doing more.
Sometimes you find it by stopping what’s been quietly hurting you all along.

08/24/2025

Some people don’t stay where it’s good.
They stay where it’s familiar.
And often they are not fully aware they making this choice.

Even if it hurts.
Even if it drains them.
Even if a part of them knows they deserve better.

Because the pain they’ve learned to live with
𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙨 safer than the unknown.

The mind plays tricks like that.
It tells you:

“Don’t risk it.”
“Don’t leave.”
“What if it’s worse out there?”

So you stay.
In the job that numbs you.
In the relationship that confuses you.
In the habits that quietly break you.

Not necessarily because you love it,
but because you’re afraid to lose what you’ve learned to survive.

But just because something feels familiar
doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for you.

And just because you’ve learned to carry it
doesn’t mean you should keep holding on.

Oftentimes, the life you want will cost you your emotional comfort zone.
It will come at the cost of some tough,
but right choices as far as you mental health is concerned.
One the other hand, staying stuck will cost you something deeper...
your sense of self, your joy, your peace.

Be brave enough to imagine something better.
And bold enough to reach for it,
even if you feel insecurity.

It’s totally normal to feel that way.
Act until that insecurity dissolves and
is integrated into you as conviction.

08/23/2025

Of course, it’s impossible for us to live a life without reacting at all.

After all, we 𝙖𝙧𝙚 social animals, or at least in part.

But what sets us apart as humans is our unique potential: the ability to choose how we respond.

In many cases, we can learn to pause, to act with intention rather than impulse.

This is where our will (our willing𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨) comes into play.

It’s a trait we can cultivate and integrate into our character, if we know the right method.

More often than choosing discipline over impulse isn’t loud or dramatic.

It looks like:

- putting the phone down,getting out of bed
- staying silent when you want to argue
- doing the thing even when no one’s watching.

Tiny changes, right?
But over time, they change everything.

Because the life you wantisn’t built through emotion only,
it’s built through direction.

The power that channels those emotions,
when they are present and
acts towards a purpose when they are not.

And every small choice is a step forward.
Not toward perfection,
but toward inner freedom,
and inner power.

The method I mentioned earlier is the result of years of dedicated research and practice.

I designed it to strengthen your discipline and willpower in a way that feels natural, not forced, not foreign to who you are.

It awakens something already within you and helps integrate it into your identity.

I’ve laid out this approach in my book, 📙 The Secrets of Willpower, where the method is explained in a clear, accessible way.

It’s easy to understand and implement.

The other key ingredient in this equation is your sincere desire to grow.

But even that spark can be uncovered and reignited through the very first component of the method you will find in this book.

Available now on Amazon. ⬇️

https://amzn.to/3BJialh

08/21/2025

Most of the unease we carry in public is born in private.

The face we turn toward others is often a reflection of the face we turn toward ourselves.

If, deep inside, you still feel unworthy, flawed, or inadequate, that inner judgment will follow you into every interaction.

The embarrassment doesn’t start when people look at you…it starts when you look at yourself.

So the path to acceptance begins inward.

Take a break from focusing your gaze mostly outward.

Turn inward. Notice the voice that criticizes you. Question it. Where did it come from? A parent’s harsh word? A past failure? Or the endless comparisons you’ve made with others?

These voices are old ghosts, not truths.

When you practice self-acceptance (even in your weaknesses) you take away the fuel that keeps shame alive.

📌 Try this:

Catch intrusive thoughts when they appear (“I’ll look stupid,” “They’ll laugh at me”). Write them down if it helps.

Challenge them with evidence: “Even if I stumble, I’ve handled worse before. Even if they judge me, it doesn’t define me.”

Rehearse gentleness with yourself. When you fail, talk to yourself as you would to a close friend.

Neuroscience shows that each time you interrupt negative self-talk and replace it with a kinder frame, you weaken the old neural wiring of shame and strengthen the pathways of confidence.

Bit by bit, the mind rewires itself toward confidence and self-acceptance.

It won’t be apparent initially, but after months of sticking with this inner practice, you and others around you will notice the difference.

The day you can stand in front of a mirror, flaws and all, and feel at peace, that’s the day you’ll find that shyness has loosened its grip in front of others too.

What we rewire day by day with intent, manifests as presence, and a powerful influence we wave in our inner and outer world.

08/19/2025

We’re so conditioned to believe that progress is ALWAYS made through action, through pushing harder, doing more, filling every gap with effort.

And yes, there are many times when movement is the medicine, and the way out.

But there are also moments when the storm can only be dealt with by stepping into its center, which is that still point where chaos cannot reach.

In those moments, sitting becomes an act of inner strength.

Because we release our attachment to control,
we stop clawing at answers,
and we let the mind drift like a feather in the wind….unattached, unburdened.

Easier said than done, right?

But when we sit in silence, something different happens.

Eventually, the smoke and noise within our mind starts to clear gradually, if we allow it and don't snap back to our habit controlling habit.

After the smoke clears, the very solution that felt impossible starts to reveal itself, often waiting right under our nose.

There are many cases when personally, I got some of my best ideas and solutions when my mind wasn’t even trying. When I was chilling in nature, in the beach riding the bike, taking my dog for a walk, and more.

Surely, there are unconscious forces at play here…

Also, neuroscience shows us why this happens.

Practices like Zazen (sitting in stillness and awareness) activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the body’s “rest and restore” mode.

The amygdala (the brain’s alarm center) cools down, reducing stress and emotional reactivity.

Neural pathways linked to attention and self-regulation strengthen, especially in the prefrontal cortex.

In short: the brain rewires itself for calm, clarity, and resilience.

So, sitting isn’t an act of giving up in its truest sense.

it is a different kind of “ actionless action”.

A deliberate pause that resets the system.

It’s how one finds balance after a tough day.

How the seeker hears his inner voice through the noise of the world.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stop.

And let wisdom collect itself within you.

08/18/2025

There are cases where the fear of loneliness
keeps two people chained together,
long after love has turned into bitterness.

Resentment becomes the language they speak,
in the form of:
small cuts, cold silences, words that are charged with egoism, pain, anger, and more.

And yet, they cling to the very thing that’s hurting them,
as if the pain is safer than the emptiness that might follow.

This is the cruel trick of fear:
it convinces us that even a toxic bond is better than none.

That being with someone who drains us is
less frightening than facing ourselves alone.

But the thing is, that loneliness,
when turned into sacred solitude,
doesn’t destroy you.
It reveals you.

It shows you the parts of yourself you’ve abandoned,
the strength you didn’t know (or had forgotten) you had,
the love you must learn to give yourself first.

When fear keeps you trapped, it is not love you’re holding onto, it’s a security blanket woven from illusion.

And every day you refuse to let go,
you deepen the wound you were trying to avoid.

The real courage is not clinging.
It’s daring to step into the silence,
trusting that what waits beyond the loneliness (or rather, SOLITUDE) is not your destruction… but your healing.

08/17/2025

Death. Loss. Endings.
They will come, whether we worry about them or not.

There’s no use carrying the weight of what’s inevitable.
It doesn’t make it hurt less when it happens.
It just drains the life out of 𝙣𝙤𝙬.

Enjoy what you have while it’s here.
The people you love.
The moments you can still feel.
The small, ordinary things that will one day matter more than you can imagine.

Worry will rob you of that.
It will take today’s joy and trade it for a future that hasn’t even happened yet.

And if you let it, that becomes one of life’s greatest regrets, realizing you missed what was in your hands
because you were bracing for the day you’d lose it.

So live today while you have it.
Feel it.
Hold it close.

Loss will come in its own time.
But so will love, moments to be cherished, opportunities to grasp,
and more…if you make room for them right now.

A Zen Stoic

08/31/2025

08/29/2025

08/28/2025

08/27/2025

08/24/2025

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08/17/2025

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