[Image Credit: Photo by Priscilla Du Preez đ¨đŚÂ on Unsplash]
Why your information diet matters more than your actual diet, and other insights from a life spent making people laugh
Here’s something that’ll make you squirm: if you tell me the last five podcasts you’ve listened to, I can paint a pretty accurate picture of who you are and what you want from life.
Everyone obsesses over their physical dietâcounting calories, avoiding processed foods, optimising for performance. But then they’ll binge-watch Love Island (a show for terrible people doing terrible things) and wonder why their thoughts feel sluggish.
Your information diet shapes your reality far more than your breakfast choices ever will.
The Paradox of Interesting Lives
If you’re going to have an interesting life, you can’t have all of the other interesting lives you would have had.
This might be the most uncomfortable truth about pursuing anything meaningful. Every path you choose automatically eliminates dozens of others. The doctor can’t also be the touring musician. The entrepreneur can’t also be the full-time parent who’s present for every school play.
We live in a culture that pretends you can “have it all,” but this is delusion dressed up as empowerment. The world rewards specialisation, yet our education system trains us to be mediocre at everything.
Stop trying to bring your maths grade up from a D to a C. You’re not going to become a mathematician. Lean into English. Spend all your time there. Become the person who writes so well that no one else can do what you do.
What You Think About in the Shower
Want to know what you actually care about? Monitor your shower thoughts.
The shower is one of the few places you’re reliably disconnected from external inputs. No phone, no podcast, no distractions. Just you, water, and whatever your mind gravitates toward when left to its own devices.
That recurring worry? That business idea that keeps popping up? That relationship you keep thinking about? Your shower thoughts reveal your true priorities better than any personality test or career counsellor ever could.
The answers you’re looking for are in the silence you’re avoiding.
You need fewer inputs, not more. Stop consuming and start processing.
The Celebration Deficit
Most ambitious people are terrible at celebrating wins. They move the goalposts the moment they achieve something meaningful. “I said I wanted this much money, but now I need this much.” “I wanted to sell out theatres, but now I need arenas.”
This is emotional quicksand. Success becomes a moment rather than a feeling. You get the thing, feel good for approximately 47 seconds, then immediately focus on what’s missing.
Celebration is gratitude in action.
When something good happensâwhen you get the promotion, close the deal, or have that breakthrough conversationâactually stop and acknowledge it. Let it sink in. Most people rush past their wins like they’re embarrassing to admit.
Your disposition matters more than your position. You can be miserable with everything or at ease with very little. The difference isn’t circumstances; it’s how you choose to process them.
The Boredom Breakthrough
Boredom isn’t a problem to solveâit’s unappreciated serenity.
There are monks in Tibet spending 30 years trying to reach the mental state you can access sitting in Denver Airport with nothing to do. Instead of reaching for your phone the moment silence appears, sit with it.
This is where creativity bubbles up. You can’t white-knuckle inspiration, but you can create the conditions for it to arrive. Most breakthrough ideas don’t come during intense focus sessionsâthey come when your mind is allowed to wander.
Travel is boring, but going places is fun. Embrace the boring bits. They’re doing more for you than you realize.
The Pain You’re Willing to Accept
What looks like play to you but looks like work to everyone else? This is a better question than “what are you passionate about?”
Even better: What pain do you want in your life?
Every pursuit, no matter how aligned with your soul, comes with a massive side order of discomfort. Want to be a comedian? That means years of writing jokes that die on stage. Want to be an entrepreneur? That means months of uncertainty, rejection, and self-doubt with no guarantee of success.
You can’t just want the highlight reel. You have to want the whole packageâincluding the parts that make other people quit.
The touring musician doesn’t just perform on stage. They spend five years learning instruments before anyone cares, then another five years playing to empty rooms in borrowed vans, sleeping on floors, wondering if they’re delusional.
If you can’t embrace that processânot just tolerate it, but genuinely find meaning in itâyou’re playing the wrong game.
The Movie Test
If people were watching the movie of your life up to this point, what would they be screaming at the screen telling you to do?
“Leave the job!” “Call her!” “Start the business!” “Move cities!”
The audience can see what you can’t because they’re not trapped inside your fears and rationalisations. They can see the obvious next move that you’re avoiding because it requires a difficult conversation or an uncomfortable change.
You already know what you should be doing. You’re just scared of committing to it.
The Perfection Trap
Plato ruined Western civilisation with his theory of perfect forms. We’ve been chasing impossible ideals ever since.
In your head, you think: “If it can’t be perfect, I don’t want it.” You want to clear your to-do list completely before starting the next thing. You want to solve all your current problems before taking on new challenges.
This is delusional thinking. Problems aren’t bugs in the systemâthey’re features.
There’s no such thing as “no problems,” only different problems. Higher-quality problems. If it helps, call them puzzles instead. You’ll never arrive at a place where everything is sorted and you can finally begin living.
Life is inherently chaotic and messy. The illusion of control disappears the moment you have children, start a business, or attempt anything meaningful. Embrace the chaos instead of fighting it.
The Deferred Happiness Trap
Your life is not a dress rehearsal for some future moment when things will be perfect.
Deferred happiness syndrome is the feeling that your life hasn’t begun yetâthat your present reality is just a prelude to some idyllic future. This idyll is a mirage that fades as you approach, revealing that the prelude you rushed through was actually the main event.
“Once I get this degree, then life will begin.” “Once I pay off these debts, then I can start living.” “Once I buy that house, then I’ll be happy.”
When exactly are you going to arrive at life? When will you feel like you’ve actually made it?
The instrumental view of lifeâwhere everything is done to achieve the next thingâmeans you never actually arrive anywhere. You’re always en route to somewhere else.
The Fame Delusion
Everyone wants to be famous, but no one wants to do the thing that would make them worthy of fame.
Fame isn’t the goalâit’s the exhaust fumes of excellence. It’s what happens when you become so good at something that people can’t ignore you.
Everyone is jealous of what you’ve got. No one is jealous of how you got it.
They want the recognition, the money, the opportunities. They don’t want the years of uncertainty, the daily rejection, the nights spent working while everyone else is out having fun.
Fame without competence is just exposure without substance. It’s hollow at best, destructive at worst.
The Questions That Matter
Instead of asking “what should I do with my life?” ask:
- What do I think about when there are no external inputs?
- What would the audience watching my life movie be shouting at me to do?
- What pain am I willing to accept to get what I want?
- When am I planning to actually start living?
- What would I regret not attempting?
The uncomfortable truth is that you already know the answers to most of these questions. You’re just hoping someone else will give you permission to act on what you already know.
No one is coming to save you from your own indecision.
Your life is happening right now, not once you get your shit together.
The thing you’re avoiding is probably the thing you most need to do.
Stop consuming other people’s answers and start generating your own questions.
The most interesting life is the one where you stop apologising for taking up space and start creating something worth the chaos.
