#510 Just one more step.
Life isn’t all about the big leaps.
One more step.
That’s all it takes.
Just one more step.
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#417 Is failing really a failure?
ByLukasMaybe you’ll succeed.
Or maybe you’re destined to fail at this, to prepare you for your next venture.
And if you’re destined to fail… is failing really a failure?
Or is it a success?
Who knows whether it’s true or not.
But it’s definitely reassuring.
#372 The one thing you’re avoiding
ByLukasThe writer who never publishes.
The runner who avoids competition.
The entrepreneur who never launches a product.
What’s the one thing you’re avoiding very hard, but if you’d do it anyway, your life would get much easier?
#60 Memory is context
ByLukasMemory is context – in language and in general.
Context of words surrounded by other words and sounds within a sentence.
- apple orchard
Context of words surrounded by actions – actor, action, object affected (in whatever way or order your mother tongue expresses it).
- I pick an apple from the tree.
Context of words and the images they spur.
- An apple falls on Newton’ head.
- An apple falls off a tree in my grandparents’ garden.
- I bite into a green apple – a bit sour. I don’t like it.
- The first time I combine an apple part with peanut butter. Delicious.
Context of words and the feelings they evoke.
- I’m thirsty and hungry after a volleyball game. The first bite of an apple – what a relief.
- My grandpa cuts an apple and gives me a part. Safety. Home.
- I eat 2 apples and my mouth starts itching. Allergy? Fear.
When learning another language, you can link words to the context of your mother tongue.
But to truly understand them, you’ll have to create a new context too.
For example, an apple in Spanish: una manzana.
Seemingly the same object, now perceived through new sounds.
- huerto de manzanas (apple orchard)
New actions.
- Yo limpio una manzana. (I wash/clean an apple.)
New images.
- I see una manzana in a Mexican supermarket. Someone is polishing it with wax to make it extra shiny. The first time I saw was in Mexico. So I didn’t see the guy polishing an apple. Vi a un hombre encerando una manzana. (I saw a guy putting wax on an apple.)
New feelings.
- Compré una manzana (I bought an apple) and ate it without washing it well. My stomach wasn’t happy with my actions.
Keeping all that in mind, are we really still talking about the same object? Is the Spanish manzana encerada that made me sick in Spanish the same as the apple my grandpa helped me pick? If it is, do I now have a richer perception of that object that once up on a time, I could only interact with through the limits of one language?
Learning vocabulary lists with isolated words will never get you fluent in a foreign language.
If you don’t build a new context of sounds, actions, images, feelings, you’ll always keep imposing your mother tongue on the foreign language.
That’s why you can’t just learn a foreign language. You have to live it.
#113 Make space
ByLukasActions overrule thoughts, and sometimes the best creative act – and the one requiring the most discipline – is doing nothing.
Because when you slow down your pace, suddenly you realize: there’s space.
There’s space for the thoughts and feelings you were so afraid to face.
There’s space to redirect the energy you’ve misplaced.
There’s space to rediscover everything that escaped your gaze while you were engaged in an endless rat race.
There’s space for you to remember
that before you learned not to listen
and constant distraction erased every trace
of the insights you so desperately chase
there was a place of stillness
a warm embrace
where all the answers were right there, in your faceOnly when you’ve slowed down your mind’s pace
you realize
you were never out of place
you were navigating a self-inflicted maze
with only one way out:Make space.
#549 This is your true competitor
ByLukasWhen you’re focused on outsmarting the competition
The true competitor becomes your ego.
#307 Why wait for the pain when you can write today?
ByLukasYou can wait to start writing until that moment when the frustration builds up so much that not writing becomes unbearable.
But why wait for the pain if you could just write today?
After all, you’re not waiting to become a writer. You’re already a writer. You’re just not writing. Yet.
And all of that can change in one moment of deciding not to wait, but to write.