Author: Henry Paget

• Saturday Meditations No. 1

  1. Life is easy, get really good at a skill, get out in the world and socialise with people and above all, try to only spend a minority of your time in isolation. Man is a sociable being, and remember that ostracism is one of the cruellest punishments that can be inflicted upon someone. Make sure you don’t inflict it on yourself. Anything that cuts you off from the world harms you and also harms others. Because humans can be of no help solely in isolation. And look after yourself better, you’ll get better at looking after others. And remember, don’t think the worst in life, circumstances are rarely as bad as they seem. Lastly, just because you’re broken, it doesn’t mean you need to remain broken. Deal with life how it is, don’t extrapolate and overthink things, because if you do overthink everything, don’t be surprised to die 1000 small deaths. Remember that most people are too focused on their own lives to even consider what you’re doing, so don’t make yourself into the centre of the universe, because you won’t be happy with the outcome if you do.

  2. Idolatry isn’t just about worshipping god/gods, it’s about putting other people’s opinions and even your own above god’s opinion of you. No matter how good or bad you think of yourself, remember that you do matter, otherwise you wouldn’t be here on this earth. Thinking too much of yourself is just as prideful as thinking too little of yourself. Everyone matters in their own unique way, but not above god, that’s why you should never give too much credence to what you think of yourself or even what others think of you. Because from dust we came and to dust we will return, yet God is eternal.

  3. One benefit of prayer and religious music is that they can act as a spiritual shield against all sin and evil. To understand where I’m coming from, listen to the Orthodox Christian anthem called the prayer rope (English version).

  4. One sure way to spiritual and mental ruin is to keep secrets. You are free in life only if you live with nothing to hide. No one hides their good deeds and acts of virtue.

  5. Man is not meant to be alone. Is it any surprise that people suffer more mentally and spiritually in the 21st century than in any period before? When social media replaced social interactions, and texts and phone calls replaced real interactions, that was when many mental and spiritual problems began. I know people can be difficult, but what I learned from working remotely is that isolation kills. You become a branch that has been cut off from a tree. Isolation isn’t only bad due to the lack of social interaction you get, but it can also make you melancholic because when you haven’t got others to speak to, you end up speaking to yourself, and sometimes those conversations can get out of hand. Most people are terrible friends to themselves. That’s why it’s important to get out into the world and treat other people justly, by doing so you learn how to be a better friend to yourself. Treating others justly helps you treat yourself justly (although that’s not the main reason to do it).

  6. True peace of mind comes about when you stop allowing yourself to be distracted. Happiness is to be found in the present moment, not in the past and not in the future. The more you try to distract yourself away from the now, the less happy you will be.

  7. Stop allowing yourself to be distracted by cheap and vulgar pleasures. One good way to practice this is to go on a walk without headphones/earphones. Another good way to practice this is to only use your phone like a phone.

  8. Sometimes when your mind is running ragged in many different directions, the best thing you can do is nothing. You don’t need to add anything to your life to get rid of the discomfort. You simply need to sit quietly in meditation/silent prayer for 10-20 minutes. You don’t need to think about anything, you simply need to observe your thoughts like you would if you were watching the waves on a beach. It’s important not to be judgmental regarding the thoughts that pop up, otherwise you’ll get lost in them again. Once you consistently practice this you’ll find that you’ll go back to your daily tasks in a much better frame of mind. You’ll be much more composed.

  9. In religion belief comes first and rules come second. It’s almost impossible to stick to rules if you don’t believe in them.

  10. We’re all broken, just some of us are trying to be less so.

  11. One of the most important virtues you can practice is self-control. When you lose control of yourself, don’t be surprised when your life gets messy and chaotic. Self-control is the ability to rein in your life to stay on the straight and narrow path, the one God made for you. When you lose your sense of self-control, don’t be surprised when you go down every path apart from the right one.

  18th Jul 2026

  bible, faith, god, Jesus, life

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• Studying courage doesn’t make you courageous

  I love reading books by doers; that’s why I love reading books like Meditations by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and it’s why I also like to read Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, who was one of the wealthiest and most erudite people in ancient Rome. 

  A few years ago, I used to read any book that I was curious about, and as a result, I ended up reading a lot of awful books.

  Now, my only criterion for which books I read is the following heuristic:

  Is this book written by a doer or some BS merchant with a theory not grounded in reality?

  If the book is written by a doer and someone who exhibits virtue (or has done so historically), I will read it.

  Almost every book written nowadays is written by academics or pseudo-experts with no grounding in reality, and that’s why I mostly avoid new books like the Antonine plague. 

  Even when I’ve read books by courageous people, I know that it’s not enough

  To really become someone courageous, someone of virtue, the primary thing you must do is perform acts of courage and virtue. 

  I was reading ” Skin in the Game ” by Nassim Taleb, and he said that reading about acts of courage doesn’t make you any more courageous than eating beef makes you cow-like. And I agree.

  What should come first in our lives is to try and live honourably, and that can only be achieved through living virtuously and thus courageously. It can help to read about courageous people so we can use them as a good example to act out courage and virtue in our own lives.

  5th Jul 2026

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• Is it irrational to believe in God?

  No, absolutely not. What is irrational is to not believe in God. Because for millennia, humans have believed in god and we all have the need to believe in something.

  Religion (and I can only speak for Christianity) provides a teleological end for our lives, that is to say, a meaning.

  Teleological comes from the Greek word telos, which means end, purpose, or goal. Religion gives us a telos for our lives, a meaning. And it’s worked for thousands of years.

  What is irrational is to make up our own random meaning for our lives and discount completely what has worked for millennia. When we get rid of tradition, we get rid of wisdom. 

  If we discount religion, we discount wisdom, and to get rid of what works is completely irrational, and it causes a vacuum in our souls that our mind and spirit abhor.

  To quote St Augustine of Hippo, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

  Without God, we are restless and sometimes irrational. 

  The modern-day definition of irrational is all wrong

  Many new atheists say that to believe in the supernatural is wrong, yet they forget to realise that what came first, at least in Christianity, was the rituals, and the belief system evolved into the doctrine it is today over many years (when Jesus was around, the New Testament wasn’t written). Religion began with doing.

  The rational thing to do is not to listen to the new atheists and instead look at what works, and if believing in God helps us live better in every way, then believing in God cannot be irrational.

  My own experience

  I’m 27 years old, and I was pretty much an atheist my whole life. Since I started practising Catholicism a year ago, my life has changed for the better in every single way. Believing in the supernatural has made me more rational because it works.

  Not everything has to make perfect sense to be rational; it just has to work. Many things, like certain scientific theories, can make sense but don’t work in practice. What is rational is what works.

  5th Jul 2026

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• Life is about symmetry

  Symmetry is synonymous with justice, and asymmetry is synonymous with injustice. For example, when one person does the heavy lifting in friendships while the other person does nothing, this is an asymmetry and the friendship will not last (unless one person is an idiot), whereas if the relationship is built on mutual appreciation, fairness and justice, it can flourish.

  The biblical wisdom of “an eye for an eye” is not meant to be taken literally; it’s meant to emphasise the principle of justice. For example, if someone blinds you and takes your eye out, the one who commits the crime won’t necessarily lose their own eye, but what this wisdom calls for is a punishment that is in proportion to the crime.

  All the best wisdom includes symmetry in it; symmetry calls for the golden rule: to treat others as you’d like to be treated.

  Avoid asymmetries at all costs

  To let people take from you without offering anything is a grave injustice, and being the “better person” or “turning the other cheek” won’t cut it; you’ll just enable the injustice further by not addressing it.

  “Turning the other cheek” is helpful in the sense that it helps you bear your cross and avoid becoming bitter towards other people, but too many people mistake “turning the other cheek” for being a doormat and a pushover.

  Justice and injustice are both real, and if you live your life in asymmetric ways, don’t be surprised when life doesn’t go how you like it to.

  We live at a time when asymmetry is at an all-time high

  Politicians sit in their nicely air-conditioned offices making decisions that negatively impact millions of people, while they receive zero consequences for their actions. They still get paid a handsome salary until they are voted out, but even still, sometimes these leaders are looked after well for the rest of their lives.

  Contrast this with the Roman military commander Crassus, who paid for his decision to attempt to conquer the land of Parthia (modern-day Iraq). He and his men were defeated, and Crassus paid for his greedy attempt at taking over Parthia with the Parthian king, Orodes II, executing him by pouring molten gold down his throat.

  In ancient times, military commanders paid for their actions; now they go unpunished, along with many other people on the internet.  

  4th Jul 2026

  bible, Christianity, faith, god, Jesus

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• Don’t add to your troubles

  Hello friend, yesterday, when I was reading the stoic philosopher Epictetus, there was some good advice on how you must make the best use of the impressions in your mind.

  And it got me thinking, “How many of us really make good use of the impressions in our minds?” The truth is, I don’t think many of us do (I’m guilty of this).

  In fact, many of us actually make bad use of the impressions in our minds because it’s very easy to catastrophize our feelings and think the worst.

  One example of this is how I reacted after I had my wrist surgery. Because it was uncomfortable getting my wrist back to normal, I kept thinking I had done further damage to it when I hadn’t. I was merely catastrophizing what I was feeling and thus thinking the worst.

  Life’s hard enough we don’t need to make it tougher

  In some ways, I’ve been dismissive of the stiff upper lip mentality because when taken too far, people end up burying their emotions so deep that they can no longer access them and make good use of them.

  But like many pieces of advice, having a stiff upper lip can be helpful depending on the context.

  Stoic Sally and neurotic Norman

  Sally is a tough, middle-aged woman tested by life. She focuses only on what’s under her control, and she doesn’t let her emotions affect her in any scenario (both good and bad emotions). As a result, she’s known as a level-headed individual; her friends even call her stoic Sally.

  Sally has a friend called Norman, and he is the complete opposite of Sally. He always thinks the worst, and he lets every setback get to him. He identifies with every positive and negative emotion and thus has the demeanour of having an up-and-down personality.

  Stoic Sally is overall much happier and a much more resilient person. She accepts every moment as if she chose it.

  I try to be more like Stoic Sally, but I’ve certainly got some neurotic Norman in me. I think we all have.

  Stoic Sally is the epitome of the stiff upper lip mentality.

  How to not add to your troubles

  I find that it helps to just take each day as it comes, and not to get too focused on what could happen in the future. Try your best not to extrapolate beyond the present moment.

  For example, I remember a few weeks ago I hurt my leg, and I kept on projecting myself into the future and thinking “what if I can’t go on that hike, etc.”

  But as soon as I grounded myself in the present moment, I focused on what I could do to help with the recovery of my leg, and before long, my leg was feeling as good as new, and I’ve even walked 20k steps today.

  Don’t add to your troubles by staying in a job you’re unhappy in

  I’ve worked some pretty awful jobs, such as being the pot washer in KFC, and being the chief bin man of the engineering department when I used to work in a prepared meals factory.

  I stayed in these jobs that I hated for way too long. I could have just got rid of my troubles by leaving earlier, but no, I stayed for way too long, and I made my life miserable the longer I stayed in these jobs.

  Read lindy wisdom

  Lindy is a concept coined by Nassim Taleb; it means something that’s stood the test of time. I found that when I started reading about stoicism and also practising Catholicism, I naturally made my life much more bearable and less stressful in general.

  Don’t listen to the majority of people on the internet

  I used to be a right sucker, I was so gullible to follow the advice of many BS merchants on YouTube and the web as a whole. I’ve found if you want life advice that works, then go to ancient wisdom, i.e, stoic texts and the Bible.

  Expect the worst

  Sometimes we catastrophize certain situations in our lives, but in reality, if we think about what the actual worst-case scenario would be, then most of the time it’s not that bad.

  For example, when I had my second wrist surgery, I kept on getting stressed at the slightest bit of pain when I was getting back into doing my exercises. Then I said to myself, “I’m following the advice I was given, the worst case scenario will mean I will just need another surgery, I’m sure I can get through it, I’ve already got through two surgeries”, saying that paradoxically eased the mental anguish I was feeling.

  As humans, we fear the unknown. When you can describe a worst-case scenario, you clarify the unknown, and then the fear of the unknown goes away, and you will feel better. At least that’s my experience.

  30th Jun 2026

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• How the barbell method has changed my life

  

  I’ve recently realised I was dead wrong about my investment strategy, heck almost every strategy in my life I’ve been wrong about, until I read Antifragile by Nassim Taleb who is a scholar, philosopher and expert on risk and he taught me about the barbell method.

  What is the barbell method?

  The barbell method balances high risk high reward benefits with complete safety.

  Let me explain, for example if you wanted to invest then here’s how the barbell strategy might look:

  You’d have 90% of your funds in high interest savings accounts or even in cash so that whatever happens with the economy you’ll be completely safe from ruin (invest preferably in something that protects your cash value against inflation).

  Then the 10% you could invest in stocks, but whatever you do, do not invest in cryptocurrency it’s one big scam. Or if you don’t want to invest (like me) then you can save your money and then focus all of your attention on gaining more money through your career/ vocation instead of investing in something you don’t understand.

  For example, in my own life I have a moderately safe and decently paid job so instead of investing in stocks that I don’t understand I invest my time into writing because with writing one post can blow up and reach millions of people which can result in you earning a lot of money through book sales etc (I also love writing).

  The barbell method and working out

  I use the barbell method with my workout regimen because for the overwhelming majority of the week I’m relaxing or going on walks (when I’m not working) and I only workout 3 x 45 minutes per week at a high intensity with weights so I get stronger and thus improve my health because it’s better to be strong, and durable than weak and fragile and when you don’t strengthen your your body it becomes fragile.

  For most of the week I’m not working out at all, and only for a small minority I’m working out with weights doing exercises like deadlifts, squats, presses, rows etc.

  The reason why I only workout at a high intensity for a small minority of my week is because if I were to do it more often I would wear my body down, the body can only take so much high intensity training.

  The barbell method and writing

  In Nassim Taleb’s book Antifragile where this barbell concept comes from, Nassim writes about a writer called Georges Simenon who was a prolific Belgian writer who only wrote for around 60 days per year but this resulted in him publishing many works throughout his life and becoming a top and influential writer.

  Georges was unknowingly using the barbell method because he was spending a minority of his time writing deeply and intensely (60 days a year) while the rest of his week he focused on working his job and living his life.

  I like this barbell method especially for writing because I find that writing deeply and intensely every day is a quick route to burnout and that’s why I’m sparing my weekends for my deep writing.

  The barbell method and cleaning

  I’ve always struggled to develop a good cleaning routine but what seems to work is doing one big major clean of my house (cleaning the full house) on the weekend, then mixed with some easy, small cleaning jobs throughout the week.

  Essentially the barbell method balances two extremes, the low intensity/ easy and the high intensity/ difficult and I find that the barbell method is helpful in many areas of my life, some I probably haven’t discovered yet.

  Why is it called the barbell method?

  It’s because a barbell has two plates, one on one side and one on the other. In this barbell concept one side is the safe side and the other side is the high risk side. What I love about the barbell method, especially in respect to finances is that it completely protects you from ruin.

  Why I got my investment strategy all wrong

  I used to believe the hype surrounding index fund investing, so I invested a large proportion of my wealth in index funds. The thinking behind index fund investing goes like this:

  Don’t invest in one bit of the hay, buy the whole hay stack. And by doing so this diversification will give you profits in line with the index fund that your money is invested in. So if you invest in the S&P 500 the data says that you’ll earn around 8-10% interest per year based on how the fund has fluctuated historically. And in theory it sounds great but I was a sucker to believe it.

  This sort of investing is going against the barbell method because instead of having a split of safe assets and high risk, high reward assets you have medium risk assets and you’ve got no safety from ruin.

  For example a lot of my wealth was in an index fund similar to the s&p 500 and I admit I was earning a lot of money, but the problem that ultimately made me realise this was a sucker strategy was that if the stock market was hit badly (which it will) I would lose a large portion of my wealth, which is too risky. Maybe the fund will go back up but it might not for a long time and I’m not prepared to take that risk, I would rather sleep stress free and not worry about the stock market, which I couldn’t care less about. I’ve realised that I shouldn’t just wait for the stock market to make me rich, I should earn money the honest way through my career.

  The barbell method for creative types

  Corporate jobs, similar to index fund investing are medium risk jobs. All it takes is one company merger/takeover and you can be made redundant.

  If you want a safe job I would look to jobs like becoming a dentist, dermatologist, doctor, plumber or electrician, because there will always be a need for these type of roles, Ai cannot take over them. If you get a solid, robust job, and you’re a creative type you can write on the side or make videos/art (whatever it is that you’re into).

  Spinoza used the barbell method

  The influential philosopher Baruch Spinoza used to work a job creating and repairing lenses and then he’d pursue philosophy and writing on the side. This was perfect for him because due to his job being completely different from his writing he was intellectually free. He wasn’t being paid to parrot someone else’s ideas. His safe job enabled him to be a free man with his own ideas.

  27th Jun 2026

  barbell method, finance, finances, investing, life changing, money, nassim taleb, personal-finance, risk, writing

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• It’s good to live a long life, but make sure it’s well-lived

  

  Have you heard of Bryan Johnson? He’s the guy who’s trying to never die, he wants humans to be able to live forever. If you’ve seen his content he takes a crazy amount of pills every day, scrutinises his sleep, and is extremely restrictive with his diet, I think his whole lifestyle is a joke. He’s so focused on being alive in the future that his routine is optimised so that his current life results in him living like a robot, and living like a robot is no life.

  Imagine life never drinking a glass of wine, or never enjoying some cheesecake or going to bed late? That is no life, and he’s shortening it because he’s wasting it trying to live longer.

  With all the monstrosities going on in the world someone was bound to try and become immortal. That person is Bryan.

  I was reading Seneca

  The ancient Roman stoic Seneca who was one of the wealthiest men in the Roman Empire wrote many letters on stoicism to his friend Lucilius, in one of his letters he mentions how it doesn’t matter how long we live, compared to how well we live.

  As I’m writing this I’m thinking of some people I’ve met or read about who lived short lives but well lived ones, I imagine you can think of a few as well.

  For example, Jesus died young in his 30s and he changed the world. On the other hand, some people live long lives in years, but short lives because few of those years were lived well.

  It’s tough to live a life well-lived if you don’t look after your health

  Someone I look up to is Jack LaLanne, who was coined the godfather of fitness, he lived a long life up until his 90s and he was in tip-top shape until the day he died. He lived well because he looked after himself. I first heard about Jack Lalane when I was in my mid teens and his life inspired me to look after myself, but I ended taking health and fitness too far, it’s good to look after your health but not too much. You can get too much of a good thing.

  The lesson what Jack’s life teaches us is that if we look after our bodies we’ll give ourselves the opportunity to live well. Because it’s much harder to live well when you’re unfit, in pain and weak. A fit body is the foundation for a life well-lived.

  What I’ve noticed about some Catholic priests

  Not all priests are in good shape and that’s okay, what matters most is that they’ve got a good heart, but some of the priests I follow online who take health and fitness seriously all confess how much of a difference it makes in not only improving your physical health but your mental and spiritual health. Because the body doesn’t work in isolation so when you work on your physical health you also improve your mental and spiritual health.

  What does it mean to live a life well-lived

  A life well-lived means living according to your conscience. For example, some of the worst moments in my life were when I’ve went against my conscience. In my last relationships I knew I was with the wrong women, but I went against myself and it caused a lot of unhappiness.

  Now that I listen to myself more, I feel better. Following your conscience is simple you need to avoid anything that your soul doesn’t agree to. If you bypass your conscience, don’t be surprised if mentally and spiritually you feel terrible, because that’s what happened to me.

  Don’t live a life that your younger 18 year old self wouldn’t approve of

  Sometimes we can get into invidious positions in our lives. Maybe you’ve stayed in that dead end job for too long, or have been neglecting your physical, mental or spiritual health and feel awful. We all get into tricky situations, but it doesn’t mean we need to stay in those situations. If you’re not living a life that your 18 year old self would be proud of then that’s a good sign you’re doing life wrong.

  What do you dislike in others?

  Whatever we dislike in others we dislike in ourselves. Therefore when we notice patterns of behaviour or lifestyle choices other people make which invoke disgust, we can do well to avoid these same things if we want to make our lives good ones.

  What do you envy in others?

  When I’m in a rut I like to admire more erudite and successful people than me, which always gives rise to some envy/ jealousy but in a positive way, so I try and learn from them so I can improve my life.

  Working BS jobs is not a life well-lived

  I’ve worked many jobs and I’ve noticed that some of them can ruin your life because they burn you out mentally, that when you have free time you’re too tired to do anything.

  Instead of working BS jobs like many office jobs, try and learn a valuable skill that you can use for the rest of your life. Jobs like plumbers, dentists, dermatologists give you a job for life and you’re free to practice on your own terms.

  On the other hand when you work an office job you’re just one merger away from being made redundant.

  A life well-lived is a life of freedom

  I’m not very interested in fancy cars or marble counter tops, but I am interested in freedom. If you want to live well, you have to aim at freedom.

  Many people when they start earning money get greedy and that can lead to being in debt.

  So I remember to focus on freedom and I fight the urge to be greedy.

  A well lived life is a principled life in line with your ethics

  One of the surest ways to unhappiness is working a job and living a life that is not in line with your ethics. For example I’m Catholic so I try to make sure my life is aligned with Catholic values and ethics.

  The problem is with many people turning their back on religion they create a vacuum in their lives and they struggle to hone their own value and belief system.

  The reason I love the Catholic Church is because I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, I simply need to go to church, pray and follow the guidance of the Catholic Church. Before I was Catholic there was a big gap in my life, you could say it was a god sized gap.

  21st Jun 2026

  Bryan Johnson, Catholicism, don’t die, faith, fitness, Health, healthy-living, inspiration, less is more, life, life advice, lifestyle, philosophy, physical-health, religion, self-care, seneca, stoicism, well-being, wellness, wisdom

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• If you don’t enjoy writing no one will enjoy reading it

  

  I’ve been writing for a few years now and I think I’ve learnt a bit about the process of writing. I used to scrutinize my work and over edit it so much that writing became boring, it became sterile and writing became a chore. To try and stop writing becoming such a chore I started to use Ai to help me get rid of the typos, but that process bored me just as much.

  So I’ve changed the way I write, now I don’t use Ai and I’ve actually started to write as much as feasible with a pen, though the only problem with that is that I have to retype it on my phone or my computer to post it online.

  The result of all this is that I’m enjoying writing much more I feel more free when I write and more myself. And that seems to be getting across to other people as my subscribers are increasing. Anyway even if they weren’t I still find that writing has become a much more enjoyable and satisfying process which ultimately will make me stick to writing for much longer.

  I like to think of my writing as a product

  I wouldn’t buy a product that I wouldn’t use or don’t see value in. Similarly I wouldn’t create a product that I don’t use or see value in. So my writing needs to be enjoyable to me. Because if it’s not how can I expect it to be enjoyable to others. The truth is I can’t.

  If writing isn’t an enjoyable process then it won’t be enjoyed by others, at least that’s my experience and I have several years of experience writing.

  All the best writing is conversational

  Some of the best writing advice I’ve ever had is to write like you speak, like you’re having a conversation. Because writing is essentially a way to speak to lots of people, I know for a fine fact that when my writing mirrors how I speak it is at its best.

  Voltaire said that “Writing is the painting of the voice; the closer the resemblance, the better it is” and I 100% agree. The voice is the best that one can expect to encounter but the next best is writing that mirrors the way you speak. And if your writing mirrors how you speak it will be much better than if you were to agonize about it being perfectly Grammatically correct. The closer your writing is to what you sound like the better. What helps me the most is to speak and type, that way I’m not writing like a fraud.

  AI writing is never enjoyable

  I’ve never enjoyed reading ai writing because honestly it’s too sterile, too perfect. The difference between ai writing and human writing is that the latter is real and the former is not. Humans naturally have flaws and imperfections and it’s these flaws and imperfections which make their writing unique, make it human. I don’t speak perfectly so don’t expect my writing to be perfect. I’d much rather someone’s writing not be perfect but be authentic because if you write like you no one can write like you, and it’s what makes you stand out.

  All the great writing in the history of writing was done with a pen, quill or similar instrument

  If you’re a writer like me you’ll notice that it’s much more enjoyable to write with a pen, when you do you’ll find that you get in a flow state much easier as you won’t be distracted by notifications or typos or anything you might find on a computer or a mobile phone screen. When you write with a pen you feel the pen moving on the page and each word is deliberate and packs a punch, it’s very enjoyable to do this. And it’s no wonder that all the best writing in history was done with a pen or quill.

  Common writing advice that kills the art of writing

  I hate it when people say don’t use this word or that word in your writing, or when people say make sure that every word packs a punch and to not use filler. I hate all this advice. Because when people speak in real life we all have our unique ways of explaining ideas and getting our point across. I find that it’s best to ignore everyone else’s writing advice and to instead make sure you write in a way that is most enjoyable to you and if it’s the most enjoyable to you it’ll be most enjoyable to others.

  The only long term strategy as a writer is to write in a way you find enjoyable

  If you keep scrutinising your writing, and using ai and keep swapping words out until they sound just right then personally I couldn’t write like this I’d end up giving up in a jiffy. If you want to write over years I 100% wholeheartedly believe that you must make writing as enjoyable as possible and that pretty much comes down to writing how you speak. It all comes down to writing honestly, writing like you, because no one else can write like you.

  18th Jun 2026

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• Give because it’s the right thing to do

  On my substack feed I see a lot of like for like, follow for follow sort of behaviour, people are only liking or following other people’s posts because of what they can get from doing it.

  You see, this is one of the problems I have with karma, it’s all about doing good things so good things happen to you, and I don’t particularly like that.

  The best way to give is honestly and expect nothing in return. Just like how God gave us the gift of life without wanting anything from us in return (God did it out of love).

  Some wisdom from Marcus Aurelius

  I remember reading Marcus Aurelius‘s Meditations a while back (the stoic Roman Emperor) and he said and I paraphrase “when some people do someone a favour they are always looking for a chance to call it in, they expect something back”. We should not try to be like that, we should give to, and help others because it’s the right thing to do and for no other reason.

  Many families are broken up because of this

  One common case of conflict between families is when one family member lends another member of their family money and it never gets paid back. Remember the following to make sure you don’t end up in a pickle. If you want to lend someone money or even if you do someone a favour, expect nothing back.

  Because the fact is, if all your giving is conditional, you are not actually a giver. You just turn the very people you are trying to help into enemies.

  When you do someone a favour don’t track it on a spreadsheet or ponder about it, just forget about it and do it for its own sake, and spiritually you’ll feel much better. And know that you’d have got closer to God, to heaven on Earth.

  Just to know you’ve helped someone is enough

  Since I’ve started writing, I’ve had many messages from people thanking me for how my writing has helped them, for me, there is no better feeling than helping others. If you are going to be addicted to something, be addicted to that.

  I’ll finish this off with a quote from Benjamin Franklin.

  “To serve the common good is divine.”

  And remember no one objects to what is good for them. And what is good for them? Being someone helpful, someone generous. This is one of the many reasons I write.

  16th Jun 2026

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• If you can workout, you should workout

  I’ve been working out for the past ten years and overall, when I’ve had a good workout routine that I stick to, I feel amazing. I have more energy, feel better mentally, am healthier, and look better. Training is something I look forward to, and it makes sense why, because humans are built to move, we’re not built to be sedentary.

  When I injured my wrist I had to stop training how I normally would and I felt disgusting mentally and physically. This experience made me realise what a great privelage it is to train. Obviously train safely and with good form but enjoy it, because when you’re in good physical shape life is better.

  When training is done properly you actually become less susceptible to injury, because stronger muscles, bones, joints and ligaments don’t get injured as easily as weak ones.

  So done properly, working out is one of the best things you can do for your health.

  If you can workout but aren’t, why aren’t you?

  Anyway I’m going to go to the gym to do some deadlifts.

  15th Jun 2026

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