Intent

I was lost in life, not knowing my purpose, till I started reading.

The first book I picked up after a looong time, and actually finished reading from cover to cover was Atomic Habits by James Clear. The key take way for me is that nothing great in life is achieved without effort. You can't become a person of wisdom if you don't read widely or if you don't seek out and learn from new experiences. If you want to get fitter and look better, just sitting and thinking about it won't change anything. You got to start doing.

Motivation is over-rated. It may get you started but it's also very fleeting and unreliable. Mr Motivation may set you in motion running 2km a day, but what happens on the 3rd day when you weigh in expectantly and see barely any results? Results is not instantaneous - something we have accustomised to and grow to expect in this new high tech era. You can't become smarter just  by downloading a book, you got to read it. You can't expect to look 10kg ligher just by running for 3 days; it's no plastic surgery or photoshop. Results is an accumulation of consistent effort. And, you are what you consistently do and not do.

So I started on my own self development journey about 3 weeks ago, committing myself to read every single day, and only watching educational videos on youtube. Just 3 weeks into this journey, I have a sudden epiphany of what the purpose of my life is, while watching a youtube video of Ryan Holiday.

In the video, he spoke about Marcus Aurelius who once said that history has its way of repeating itself. There are so much great wisdom we can learn from previous generations, encapsulated in books. People may die but their wisdom lives on if documented and passed on.

I am not a writer. I am a mother who wants to pass on these great wisdoms to my two beautiful girls, Emma and Freya. And this is the purpose of my life.

To Emma and Freya, mommy started on this as a self development journey. I know my memory will fail, and even if I can do the impossible of remembering everything I read and experienced, it would not be possible for me to share and download to you. By documenting all the great wisdoms and life lessons I learnt in this form, I hope you can slowly digest at your own time and pace, even after I die. These are my collection of some of the greatest lessons that have had a profound impact on me, that I would like to pass on to you. This will be your starting point. If any of the posts interest you and inspire you to read the actual book or learn more about the topic, this journal has served its purpose. It's not meant to be a summary but what I personally took away from the books and lessons. Hope you will continue to learn and grow to be a wiser person than I am.

To everyone else, if this has somehow reached you and you find value in any of the posts, please thank the authors who have shared their great wisdom with us, and I hope you will share yours with the future generations.