Dmitry Kudryavtsev

Not knowing is part of the path

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 21:30:00 GMT

I’ve noticed an interesting trend recently: everyone wants answers.

No matter where you look, people just want to know the answer: to life, to business, to love, to friendship. But the more I live, the more I tend to gravitate towards the idea that not having the answer is part of the path: and it’s the most important part.

I will frame the rest of the post from a view-point of a successful¹ business, but it can apply to anything else: successful life/love/friendship/etc.

I often see Reddit posts that read like: “I now make $X per month, here what would I do if I started with $0 again”. And sure, it sounds like a valuable piece of content. Follow the steps, and you too, will make $X per month. But there are two problems with this.

The first problem is people’s tendency to justify their success in a logical sense. For some obscure reason beyond my understanding, people seem to be very repulsed towards the word luck, despite that fact that luck plays a major role in success. So most people who are successful, tend to find logical explanation to their success in a form of morning rituals, daily habits, and reflection on past events. It’s because Bezos wakes up at 3AM, he is successful. I see the same bucket list of reflections on past events: build a product in market that has something missing; invest in marketing; etc. It’s good all, but you also need shit tons of luck. On the other hand, if you build a framework for success, you can always find customers. There is a reason why people who sell courses on Entrepreneurship, make most of their money from the courses and not their entrepreneurship endeavors (which in best case scenario are average SMBs², and worst case scenario never made any money).

The second problem is that even if one could come up with a bucket list of step-by-step instructions for building a successful business, the chance to replicate it is close to zero. People are not machines, despite the fact that AI evangelists wants you to believe that we are, and hence they can replicate our brain with “the most likely next character in sequence” type of algorithm. I digress. People are unpredictable, they have cultural differences, moral values (or lack thereof), and world views (which nowadays mostly influenced by TikTok, rather than critical thinking). And so when you see a “plan to succeed in business” and you try to replicate it, you will, inevitably, encounter humans (unless you found a way to sell to machines — in that case, kudos to you). Hence, your success rate is mostly random.

All this “guessing” game is equal to me having a good run in the casino, so I decide to come up with a “Here are the top 5 things I did in order to break the bank: number 5 will shock you!” article. I can go back and say that you need to ~~gamble~~ invest your money in roulette, put everything on 13th 3 times in a row, then skip one session, drink a cocktail and pass out. Because hey! It worked for me! Despite the fact that roulette has a 48% success rate no matter what you do.

I’m not saying that luck is the only predicting factor for success. Far from it. Acquiring skills, and putting these skills to work is important as well, but it’s only when preparation meets opportunity we usually achieve something, but you still need to prepare. And as sad is it might sound, reading the “5 steps to succeed in business” is not preparation — it’s entertainment. I’d even say it’s not even entertainment, but a counterproductive and damaging activity. It gives you a false feeling of skill and mastery, without doing the actual work. It provides with the feeling of reward, without actually achieving anything. And moreover, it makes you addictive to wanting to know everything, therefor you keep reading more and more without actually doing the work, because no matter how much you read, you don’t know enough so you need to read more.

The more I know, the more I realize I know nothing. — Socrates

But success usually lies in not knowing.

Just like ads, reading these type of article about success is beneficial in one use-case: when you ask the right questions. A book about marketing will be helpful when you try to do marketing and fail, and you ask the question of “how do I do marketing”? It’s only then you should resort to reading these books and articles. Mindlessly consuming “knowledge” does not move you forward. But it’s only when you tried to move forward, but instead moved sideways, you need to consume “knowledge”. And it all starts with a question. You need to be curious and know what questions to ask.

But asking questions is hard, it’s way easier to just read the “5 things YOU need to do in order to make $X per month”.

Success here being what society deems to be success (fame, money, career, family, etc), rather than your internal feeling (i.e. one could justify that one is successful despite not having societal “approval” of success). ↩
Big respect to small and medium business owners, you are the backbone of our societies. I’m just arguing that an SMB owner might not be the most qualified person to sell a course on “achieving your inner potential in life, love, business, and spiritually”. ↩

Change and Adversity

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 19:30:00 GMT

One of the biggest questions that I’d like to know the answer to, is: “Is it possible to change yourself, and how much control you have over this decision?” Sure, there are people who claim to have made a 180 degrees personality changes, but — aside from the fact that I can’t verify random online claims — assuming it’s true, I wonder, did they have/had a predisposition to make this change?

Some time ago, I came back from the gym and caught my wife watching a new video from Yes Theory. To those who don’t know what Yes Theory is, it’s a community that believes that the best, and most fulfilling life things happen outside your comfort zone. In fact, I have introduced my wife to their channel long time ago, but like most channels, I stopped watching them when the content became repetitive and boring. Nevertheless, she offered me to watch the video with her, and I agreed.

The video in questions is about surviving the deadliest military training on earth. In the video, the guys from Yes Theory join a 3-day (if I recall correctly) military training with Finnish soldiers in -36C. By the end of the video, I had a revelation that might provide an answer to my biggest question.

In the video, the guys are given tasks by the Finnish soldier, and then are left to complete these tasks. These tasks include skiing for the whole day, building a shelter, sleeping the night outside, as well as jumping into cold water. They are being monitored by a doctor for frostbites, but nevertheless, the experience looks tough, and some of them do experience long-lasting damage, as well as mental breakdown.

I always thought that overcoming adversity builds character. In tough situations, you can overcome your pre-programmed beliefs and behaviors and emerge as a new person. But I’ve observed something different in the video. One of the guys in the video, was also in other videos and experiments such as: hiking 5 days in a tropical climate to reach a Mayan pyramid, sleeping on a bed located above a canyon, visiting dangerous countries, performing dangerous hikes and mountain climbs, and more.

Given the sheer adversity this person had to overcome, one would assume that he would develop a resilient character. But that’s not what I observed in that video. In that video, he showed the same character traits as in other videos. And this made me think: maybe adversity does not build character after all?

Sure, this is not a scientific experiment, and sure one might claim that a handful of adverse experience is not enough to fundamentally change the person’s character. But this seems to correlate pretty well with my experience and observations. In my theory, your character traits are developed in early age. I don’t know the exact number, but I’d suspect it’s somewhere around the ages of 5 to 18. These are the ages when the brain is still rapidly developing, and the child builds their character by being exposed to the environment.

But then, what’s the role of adverse experience? In my theory, the role of adverse experience is not to build your character, but rather to show you your character.

Are you a quitter? Then chances are you will quit mid-way through every hard situation you encounter. Are you an empathetic person? Then chances are you will stop to help every struggling individual, rather than pass by them. But why does it matter, you might ask?

Well, it fundamentally changes the entire self development mantra. If your character is built/defined in your childhood/teenage years, then “everyone can make a change” type of messages, are useless, because you can’t make a change. Whether you are a fight or a flight personality, has nothing to do with how you want to react to hard situations in your adult life, but has everything to do with how you reacted to hard situations in your childhood/teenage years. You can’t^* become a fight personality if your whole childhood/teenage years you were a flight personality, just by putting yourself into situations where you could fight, because your default response is flight. And it doesn’t really matter how many situations you will put yourself into.

Now, notice I used ^* on the “can’t”. This asterisk means that this is the most probable outcome. Your basic personality traits are somehow defined by the environment, and your reaction to it, during your childhood/teenage years. And in a moment of truth, your brain defaults to these reactions. Can they be changed? I guess so, but it depends on a lot of factors.

Self-awareness is one of them, but it’s very hard to be self-aware in challenging situations. Brain plasticity and your will-power to change, also play a role, but I guess the older we get, the less we are willing to change, and the less plastic our brain becomes.

This then means that all these seminars, courses, training programs, and other new-age stuff — doesn’t really work. I remember long time ago, about 15 years ago, I’ve read about a self-improvement challenge on Reddit. It’s called “Project Mayhem” (as a reference to Fight Club, I guess) and the purpose of this project was to build confidence. It included a list of challenges such as:

Ordering a BigMac in a restaurant that does not serve BigMac
Wearing a tuxedo in public
Trying new food
Going to a new town by yourself

I don’t have the entire list, and I can’t seem to find any reference to it, but the idea was to put yourself outside your comfort zone in order to build confidence. And today, I believe that in order to be useful, it needs to be done at the right age, otherwise there is a high chance you won’t do it, because you already lack self-confidence. You are just not the kind of person that will order a BigMac in a place that does not serve one, and doing so, won’t undo years of conditioning and resorting to default behavior, but would rather induce a sense of shame, guilt, fear, or anxiety.

I don’t think this means you should avoid doing uncomfortable stuff. And I still believe that the only way to grow is outside your comfort zone, but I’d be wary of claims that promise you to transform your personality in 48 hours, or with 22 daily challenges. I’ve read numerous books on self-development, and despite the fact that I try to implement lessons and tactics from these books, I’m nowhere near being the 2.0 version of myself. More like 1.062 version of myself. Because a self-development book, and a handful of challenging situations won’t undo years of preconditioned behavior.

And to all the people who read this and say yes, but I was able to change my life, I’d argue that you already had these personality traits, but you might have convinced yourself that you lack, for example, self-confidence (or didn’t have much chance to exert it). Hence, when you picked up a book on self-confidence, it just helped you to structure what you already knew, and challenging situations showed you who you already are. Because books rarely teach us something new, they just help us validate what we already know is true. And adverse situations were designed to show you your personality, rather than alter it.

The old cliché of “people don’t change, they just become more of who they really are”, is probably more true than we think.

In the end, you have spent years, if not decades, reacting in a particular way, and it will take you the same time, if not more, in order to reverse the damages. I suspect that people who would want to change a particular personality trait they’ve adopted say, by the age of 14, will have to dedicated at least 14 years of constant attempts to react differently during adverse situations. And the later you start, the harder it will be, because as you age, you lose brain plasticity, and will-power.

Release Ratio

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 17:00:00 GMT

You know that feeling when you finish yet another self-development book, and all excited about your “new you”, but as days pass, nothing happens? Or worse, you get fatigued?

I might have an answer for you. And no, it’s not a course, or a masterclass. Just sharing wisdom.

A while back ago, I read an interesting blog post. The author was talking about the ratio of consumption and creation.

Imagine that your brain is a bucket. And every time you consume, this bucket fills up. And when you consume too much, like a real bucket, it will explode or overflow.

Consumption is mostly passive: reading books/articles/newsletters, watching YouTube/reels, listening to podcasts, attending self-help seminars, etc.

And the only way to empty the bucket, is through a release valve called “creation”.

Creation is active: writing a blog post, building a software, speaking at conferences, teaching, journaling, etc.

Consumption is useless, unless you do some creation with it.

Here is the blog post I was talking about https://moretothat.com/release-ratio/

10 pushups every morning, for 30 days. September Challenge

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 09:00:00 GMT

On 31st of August I was like “Hey! It’s almost September, maybe I should do a challenge?”, and after some time I’ve settled on 10 push-ups every morning for the entire months.

My relationship with sports was always a love-hate relationship. There have been periods where I was hitting the gym consistently and seeing results, and periods where I’d be like “damn, that belly!”. And while now I train regularly in boxing, I didn’t do that challenge for the sake of getting ripped or any other physical health benefits.

And before we start, as always: I’m not a doctor, consult with one first. Especially if you have physical problems.

Make your bed

In the self-improvement community, there is this saying that the first thing you should do after you wake up is - making your bed. I think it started from a book by Ex-Navy seal, Admiral William H. McRaven. A big disclaimer - I did not read the book.

There are multiple reasons for making your bed in the morning: attention to details, discipline, and a reminder at the end of the day that you’ve achieved something - even if it’s small.

You see, when you wake up you usually rush through your morning routine - pee, wash your face, clean your teeth, grab some coffee, get into a car, arrive to work. By the time you start working you’ve already spent a good portion of the day. And if your day is filled with meaningless meetings - by the end of it you find yourself sitting on the couch and thinking: Damn! The whole day passed by, and I haven’t done anything significant. Therefore - make your bed in the morning.

I wasn’t born in the US, nor I ever lived there. I, however, was raised in a discipline focused family, so making my bed in the morning wasn’t something unusual for me. No matter the circumstances, I’d always make my bed in the morning. So I wasn’t able to see any benefits from making my bed, but I wanted to see if I can get benefits in sport.

Right now, my relationship with sport is more of a hate than love. I have my boxing sessions once a week, but It’s not enough. I want to try yoga, I want to go swimming and I want to do weight lifting. And every day I’m not doing them, I find myself thinking Damn! The whole day just passed by and I haven’t done any sports. So I decided to twist the “make your bed” into “do something active” and see if I’d have the same benefits. Those are my findings.

I hate mornings

I’m not a morning person. Some mornings are better, but most of them are not that great. I’m usually tired, unfocused and mainly working on automatic gear. Wake up, drink water, pee, brush teeth, food, coffee, work. I didn’t have any problems adding another activity such as “pushups” but I found out that it is physically demanding. I can do 10 pushups easily at any moment during the day - but not right after waking up. My body is not warmed up, my mind is frozen.

I know there are people who like mornings. They are energetic, can do sports in the morning, discuss philosophical topics and do deep work. I on the other hand believe I’m more of a “midday owl”. I need those few hours in the morning to boot up correctly. And doing pushups felt like some sort of punishment to my, already hard, mornings.

It’s not enough

I wasn’t expecting to be Arnold by October from just doing 10 pushups a day. But nevertheless 10 is better than 0. Obviously I haven’t seen any benefits from it - it was not easier after 20 days, I did not have more muscle and I haven’t felt any health improvements. This is a reminder to always be realistic.

I’m a big believer in taking baby steps towards new habits, especially if you have problems committing, because as I’ve talked in my post regrading habits - you get compound interest on them. And compound interest on 0 is always 0. So you have to start. 1 page a day is better. By the end of the year you’d read 365 pages, as opposed to 0. But 365 pages is barely a book, so don’t fool your self with “read 50 books” new year resolutions.

There is no reflection

The main reason I’ve done 10 pushups a day was to get a positive reflection at the end of the day. When I find myself sitting at the end of the day and reflecting on it, so that I could say “Yeah, I did 10 pushups. It’s small, but it’s an achievement”, and honestly - it never happened.

There was no single day when I was even remembering that fact that I did 10 pushups in the morning. It was something automatic that I’ve just plugged into my morning routine. I was not excited about the fact that I brush my teeth or make my bed, nor I was praising myself for doing 10 pushups in the morning.

And while I don’t want to debunk the entire movement of “reminder that you’ve achieved something” - it did not work for me. Maybe if you are a messy person, who have troubles to bring order to the physical world around you - then yes, start with something as small as making your bed - might do wonders to you. At least I believe you must try it and see for yourself.

However, in my experience, if you’ve already climbed higher in your physical or mental needs, doing small things such as 10 pushups a day, won’t make you love yourself by the end of the day. I was doing sport consistently. I know I’m capable of more than 10 pushups a day. I’m a lazy fuck and big procrastinator and I need to work on that rather than fooling myself with small achievements such as 10 pushups a day.

And this is yet another reminder to myself - everyone is different. Things that might work for me, might not work for you and vise-versa. This is the reason I’m doing those challenges - because the best way to learn is to try it yourself. Get inspiration from books and YouTube videos, but always try yourself and see if you have any benefits from it. And if not - forget it, find something new and try again. And iterate on that process.

If you have suggestions to what challenges I can do next, don’t hesitate to Tweet Me

Who are you?

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 11:00:00 GMT

Do you know who are you? Have you ever asked yourself this question and came up with an answer?

I never lived in the medieval times, nor I know someone who did, but I have this image in my head. Imagine a medieval blacksmith. He has this small, two-story house. He lives with his wife and two kids on the second floor, while the first floor is converted to be his shop. He crafts swords here. He has some livestock. Cows that they milk. Sheep that they grow. Horse that he uses to go to the nearby friend of his - a miner, from which he buys his steel in order to craft his swords and later sell them to warriors of his village.

This blacksmith doesn’t compare his house to the house of his miner friend. He doesn’t compare his horse to the horse of his neighbor - the alchemist. And yet - he lives a happy life.

We’ve lost our true self

We, on the other hand, do compare ourselves. Who dresses better, who drives a better car. Some of us compare themselves to others, while some show-off their “superiority” by attracting attention to their material possession - A Turquoise Louis Vuitton T-Shirt that costs 470 Euro or revving the engine of their Lamborghini. And on top of all this, we are being bombarded by brands, through advertisement, that we must get that new and shiny pair of sneakers.

And hence, we’ve lost ourselves. We no longer know who we are and what our values are. And it seems like every person is better than us at something. He is a better photographer, she is a better stylist, they have a better house. And we want all of it.

I’m too busy for that

One of the reasons I think that the blacksmith from my story is happy with what he has, is because he is doing the craft the likes. He doesn’t have time to think about that alchemist neighbor of his, there is a fucking war coming, and he needs to craft his best swords, because he is the best blacksmith in town.

We, on the other hand, are, what I call, pseudo-busy. We never have time for anything. Always working hard. Nah man, too busy this week, let’s try in 3 months I might have a window of 27 minutes in there. And yet, procrastination is flourishing, escapism from day to day job is rising. Everybody wishes to be on a tropical island instead of their office cubicle. We are - pseudo busy. We try to look busy, because busyness is associated with business. And business is cool.

But we are not really busy. Or not in the sense of being in the flow and doing what we like and enjoy the most. Hence, we procrastinate, escape in our mind to our next vacation, while simultaneously scrolling through social media - to eventually realize that it’s the end of the day already, I barely did anything today, and yet I had no to time to call my friends or family, nor buy any groceries. Jeez, I was sooo busy today.

There is too much information

The other reasons I think my blacksmith is happy, is because he probably didn’t choose this life. He was born to a blacksmith, inherited the shop together with horse and sheep, added second floor to the house with materials he could afford and probably never seen anything outside his village.

We, on the other hand, have access to the entire knowledge of humanity. Even if we’ve never been to a specific country - we can Google how it looks, find what’s their traditional food, see images of their landscape and architecture. Even if we can afford to buy Toyota Corolla, we still see a lot of BMWs and Mercedeses around us. We always see people who are more successful. They dress better, have better cars, have better houses, nicer jobs, eat fresher food, have more money. There are an endless number of professions. Our culture is also focused on fast. Fast food, fast movies, fast reading. While on a plane to our home we already plan the next vacation. We read reviews instead of reading the book. We express ourselves in 280 characters because ain’t nobody got time to read that essay I’m writing. And on top of all that, we are being told to look for that mysterious passion.

It’s too much to handle. Too much to choose from. So we try to have it all. We envy people who have big houses even if we don’t give a damn about big houses. We envy people who drive BMW even if we don’t care for driving. We are jealous of people who dress in brands even if we care only about minimalist, sustainable and simple clothing.

Because that’s the world we live it. Our boredom from being pseudo-busy with our greed and desire for more, fuels this endless wheel that gives stage to even more greed and desire, and even more confusion about who we are and what we need to become. By putting attention to other people have, we only continue to fuel such society and continue to lose our self identity.

You don’t have to be better

In fact - you even can’t be better. There is no better. Better is always relative. I can be better than you at software engineering because I’ve perfected that craft for years. It doesn’t mean I’m better than you. You might be a better writer, a better singer, dancer, photographer, storyteller. Whatever.

We rip things we can compare such as material possession or amounts of money, and start to compare on that basis. But instead we need to focus on trying to understand what is really important to us. Do we really want that Lamborghini, or it’s just because we’ve been told that we want it?

Advertising has done a tremendous job to convince us that we need that thing! And that, and this and these! We need them all. But life doesn’t have to be like this. By not knowing what you want from life, you end up wanting everything. Thus, always feeling miserable - because you can’t have everything. You can’t have everything - because deep inside you know, you know that you don’t need that Lamborghini, so you won’t blow up your savings to get one.

So stop comparing yourself to other people. Focus on understanding your self and your values in life. What do you care about? You like gardening? Then maybe you need to focus on getting a nice house with a garden instead of feeling miserable when someone buys an apartment in a high rise building. You enjoy cycling? Then get a bicycle and cycle instead of being miserable when everyone around buys new cars.

It’s that easy. The hardest part is just knowing what you want. So start focusing on that. Start finding the answer to the question: Who are you?

Why you should aim for 10K steps a day

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 09:00:00 GMT

Somewhere around the beginning of February, I’ve found my old Mi Band 2 fitness tracker. I’ve stopped using it because the bracelet broke, I’ve ordered a new one on eBay, but it never came, so I threw the Mi Band in a drawer and forgot about it.

But then I found it, decided to buy a new bracelet for it, realized that Xiaomi already released Mi Band 5 (and there is Mi Band 6 already) which is very cheap, so I decided to get it. The reason I wanted a fitness tracker was mainly for tracking my sleep and use it as a discreet alarm that won’t wake up my wife. So I got it, started to wear it and play with it and then asked my self “What if I’ll try to do 10K steps a day?”.

Why 10K a day?

There is no particular reason why you should aim to do 10K, but from the research I did, the number 10,000 mainly became popular in 1965 because a Japanese company released a device named “Manpo-Kei” which literally translates as “10,000 step meter” (Source: Wikipedia) and the man (Y.Hatano) behind it claimed that “10,000 steps a day is ideal”.

There are many articles on the internet as to why 10K steps a day is healthy, however no major health organization actually says that 10K steps a day is ideal (at least I could not find any reference to it) and their recommendation is based on activity intensity and time (i.e. at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week - source WHO).

No pedometer is accurate, but according to my average, 10K steps is somewhere around 7.5 km (approx 4.6 miles) and amounts a total of approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes of walking.

How to reach 10k steps a day?

“Jeez, 7.5km and 1.5 hours a day - is a lot!” - you might say. And yes, it is. And chances are that you are like me - stuck for the past year at home, both living and working from it, then you probably do around 2k-3k steps a day. I know I did when I got Mi Band 5 and started to count my steps.

I remember when the first lock-down became less strict, and we were allowed to travel up to 1km from home (as opposed to 100m), I remember that walking or even climbing 2–3 stairs (not 2–3 flights of stairs, but 2–3 stairs!) was exhausting!

So armed with the knowledge that 10K steps is better than nothing, I’ve started slowly to build my habit towards 10K steps a day. At first, I did 5k for a week, then 6k, then 7k, then 9k when eventually I was able to reach 10k.

If you are just starting, I suggest you do the same. Don’t start with 10K, start smaller and be consistent. Remember - it’s better to do less but consistently, than to aim for more but not doing it at all.

I never really reached 10k consistently. Some days I do 5k, some days 20k. My best streak was 5 days in a row. But on some days I ride my bicycle for 1 hour, and some days I punch the boxing bag for 1 hour. I don’t see a point in doing 10k steps on those days - as my primary objective in doing 10k steps was to stay active every day, and on days I’m already active because I either cycle or box, I don’t need to reach my 10k steps a day.

However by doing 10k steps a day, I’ve found some interesting benefits I want to share with you and maybe motivate you to try to reach 10k steps a day.

Benefits of doing 10k steps a day

It’s easy to start

There are two modes to the human body - active and resting. Resting is when you sit in your chair or lay on your sofa. Active is when you move. And when you move, your heart rate goes up, blood is circulating your body, your legs and arms are moving, muscles are working to keep you standing and in balance.

Leading a resting/sedentary lifestyle can lead to, you guessed right - heart disease, back problems, cancer and premature death. And if you know me and read my previous posts, I’m all about becoming super healthy, super human and living as much pain free and long life as I can.

But the problem is that getting into any sport - requires financial investment and developing a mental love to it. Even simple things like running - requires you at least get comfortable running shoes, and I won’t talk about other sports like gym - which requires membership or equipment if you want to work out from home; cycling - which requires a bicycle - obviously; boxing, rowing, skiing - which all require equipment / membership and the latter also depends on weather. More over, sport is an individual thing. I hate running. I tried, multiple times. I hate it. Some people swear by it, I suffer when I run. And I don’t like to suffer, so I don’t run.

However, walking is something native to us. We walk all the time - whether its from the chair to the fridge, from our houses to a bus stop, in a supermarket, or just by the beach. Walking is natural to human beings. It requires zero equipment (you can even walk barefoot - some people claim it’s better, I prefer shoes though) and it’s practically impossible to hate it - as it’s the basic form of moving as opposed to sitting.

It’s great for multitasking

When you run or cycle, row or lift weights - you are most likely trying to reach a goal be it distance, number of repetitions, weight of each repetition or speed - but you try to push your body to its limits. And when you push your body to its limits, it is hard to do other tasks such as catching up with family or friends. Try to run and have a phone call with your friend or do bench press and catch up with your family.

Walking on the other hand does not raise your heart rate too much (unless you are doing fast walking) which enables you to do other tasks. When I walk I tend to use this time to: catch with family or friends, listen to audiobook or podcast, listen to music, or clean my mind and explore, which brings me to the next 2 points.

It’s good for cleaning up your mind

Whether you’ve had an argument with your SO, can’t figure out a solution to hard problem or your mind is just occupied with thoughts, it’s always a good decision to take a walk.

By walking, you are not worried about speed or distance, repetitions or weight, you just move - leaving your mind free to focus on other things. When I’m worried or have troubles concentrating, I’m going for a walk. It helps me clean my mind, get rid of my worries. There is even a walking meditation if you’d like to try it (I haven’t). I usually feel way better in terms of concentration or worries - when I come back from a walk.

It brings the explorer in you and teach you to appreciate what’s around you

Human beings are explorers. Before creating a settlement, we used to wander in searches for the best place to settle. Close to water source, away from predators, uphill for easier defense. By walking daily - you feed the explorer in you.

You might have moved to a new neighborhood or live in the same one for the majority of your life - but how much of it you really know? Can you navigate your way home from any point in your neighborhood without a GPS? Do you know to tell me where I can find a good park or a nice bakery in your neighborhood, without checking Google Maps? I’ve learned to appreciate this exploration, I found some nice restaurants, great parks that are few minutes of walk away from my home, and it comes really helpful now, when my wife and I are looking to move to a different apartment. Before I’ve used to walk and explore my neighborhood or the ones close to it, I wouldn’t know who lives in each neighborhood. Is it a good neighborhood? Is this green spot on Google Maps a park or just some grass with benches? But after exploring my neighborhood and the ones close to it, I know to say where good parks are located. What type of people live in each neighborhood. Whether it’s a noisy one because it’s located near a central street or a school or a quiet one because its full of small houses rather than tall buildings.

It also helped me to learn to appreciate things. When you walk, your mind is free to look around, judge the architecture, explore parks, smell the smell of fresh bread or coffee. The internet is full of negative stuff, and by taking a walk I balance the negativity with positive appreciation. There was one day when I was walking and a light rain started, but instead of panicking and hiding I’ve just embraced it and walked under the rain, smiling.

It gives you perspective on distance

Before I started to aim to do 10k steps a day, I’d look at directions to my doctor’s appointment, restaurant or a shop, in Google Maps and judge its distance. 30 minutes of walk, to me back then, considered too long. I would opt for a bus ride or a taxi in that way, even if it took the same 30 minutes. My mind just wasn’t grasping 3-4km of walking as something bearable or worth doing. But after I’ve walked 10k steps for some time now and realized that it takes around 1.5 to 2 hours and amounts to around 7-8km - I look at directions differently.

The other day, I was invited to a gathering activity with my work colleagues. The walk was 45 minutes and 3.5km from the place I live. 5–6 months ago I would have never taken that walk, if you’d asked me to. For me at that time, 45 minutes of walking is too much. Today I realize that walking back and forth is not even 10k steps. And by aiming to do 10k steps a day, I decided to take that walk. And was engaged in other activities such as catching up with family, listening to an audiobook, exploring new locations and appreciating the beautiful world we live in.

How to start?

I want to finish with some tips on how you can start building your habit of walking 10k steps a day. Remember 2 important principles:

1. You don’t need any fancy equipment

Walking is easy. You need regular cloth and shoes. You don’t need trainers or special equipment. You don’t even need a fitness tracker (however it did help me to kick-start this habit) - your regular smartphone probably have a built-in pedometer in it. Just take your smartphone, a pair of headphones and a nice audiobook or podcast - and go for a walk. You can even skip the headphones and the audiobook and just walk - looking around, wandering, taking turns you never would have taken. Just make sure your GPS works, so you won’t get lost in your first explorations of the neighborhood.

I tend to split my walks to two segments: one in the day and on in the evening. By taking a daily walk you also expose yourself to the sun which is important in order to get vitamin D, and since It’s hard to carve 1.5 hours of free time during a working day, I tend to do my longer walk at the evening, when I’m done with work. It also helps me do a mental shift between work and home. I spend most of my time in front of my computer, and sometimes It’s hard to do a mental shift between work and hobbies since I literally stay at the same place when my work day is over. Some people like to dress up to work even when WFH, and then when they finish work, they switch to their home cloth to signal their brain of a mental shift from work to home mode. I find it too much of a hassle, however taking a walk does the trick for me. If you have a dog, take it with you - it does good to dogs as well.

I also suggest you start small. Identify how much you are doing right now. It can be 2k or it can be 7k. And then try to increase that number by 1k for each week you were able to do it consistently. If you fail at your next goal, downgrade it back by 1k and do that for another week. For each intermediary goal - you should not feel any muscle pain or extreme struggle to do it. If you feel muscle pain the next day, or you find it hard to reach your goal, keep doing it until you find it easy and only then switch to the next thousand.

2. Walking is better than nothing

There is no guideline as to how much time you need to put into active lifestyle. And I’m not a doctor - so consult with one first, but the consensus is that you should do moderate intensity aerobic and anaerobic activities. However, sometimes its hard, some days we feel lazy, and not everyone can workout daily. And walking is better than slumping on the couch.

Don’t stress with the 10k steps a day goal if you don’t feel like it. I decided for myself that on days when I’m working out - I might not reach 10k steps. In the end my time in the day is limited and if I did 1-hour workout, I might go for a 30-minute walk that day instead of the full 1.5 hours. If I did a 20km bike ride, I might skip the walking for that day. Because the end goal is to stay active and healthy, so I don’t want to stress about it if I’m tired after a workout or had a busy day and was able to dedicate only 1 hour for activity that day. But I do try to stay active every day whether its aerobic or anaerobic activity, or walking 10k steps.

Vegan-ish March challenge

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 09:00:00 GMT

Obligatory Disclaimer - I’m not a doctor or dietitian. This post does not substitute consultation with a professional. This post is not a call to action and should be read for entertainment purposes only.

On March I decided to convert to Veganism (with caveats, more on it later).

Why you ask? As far as I know, there are two reasons why people convert to veganism.

Ethical Reason

It’s no secret that meat and dairy industries are cruel. Cruel in the way they pollute our atmosphere (https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions-food); cruel in the way they use our land (https://ourworldindata.org/land-use) which leads to forest destruction; and cruel in the way they treat the animals (I’ll save you from sources, but they are easily available online).

An ethical vegan is a person whose eyes were opened by a documentary they’ve accidentally seen or an article they’ve read - about the cruelty of the meat industry. Armed with the desire to save our planet and stop animal suffering, our individual decides to adopt veganism.

I, too, care about our planet. I try to sort my garbage and avoid plastic bags. I prefer to take a walk or ride my bicycle instead of driving a car. But I do it as long as it does not harm my comfort too much. If I forgot to bring a reusable bag with me, while going shopping, I’ll take a plastic one from the shop as opposed to fill my pockets with apples.

I also know that many industries are bad. All the electronics we use require tantalum which is a chemical that still obtained unethically. Even things we take for granted such as electricity, still comes mainly from the polluting fossil fuels (https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels). And yet, I haven’t got rid of my phone and left society to live off grid in a tent in the forest.

So as long as something is good for me at it wasn’t obtained 100% unethically, like a stolen item, I’d probably ignore the fact that it harms our planet.

And meat is good for us, right?

Health Reason

The second reason people become vegans is associated with health. There is this myth that people can not survive without meat. Meat is the source of important nutrients like protein or Vitamin B12. You most likely heard about a friend of a friend who became vegan and now need to take supplements because he can’t source B12 from plants. How a diet with supplements can be healthy?

Well, the fact is - it can. Protein is largely available in plants (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321474#15-best-vegan-proteins) but B12 indeed can not be obtained from plants. It also can not be obtained from animals, at least not directly.

Vitamin B12 is produced by bacteria that lives in our soil and water (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources) and since we wash our veggies and filter our water - we kill these bacteria (along with a lot of other harmful bacteria). But how animals get it then? In two ways - they either live a happy and free life and eat unwashed grass with dirt and drink unfiltered water which contains these bacteria; or they get supplements. The same supplements that vegans get.

The meat industry has a very good marketing campaign to convince us that meat is a necessity. At least that’s what I though, before I saw a random documentary about plant based diet.

And among all the things I dislike, I very much dislike when I’m being lied to. And I also want to be a super human. So armed with knowledge, determination and excitement - I’ve started my vegan Month.

How?

As with my February challenge I needed to set rules. And based on my rules, I’ve come to realize that I’m not 100% pure vegan, hence the challenge was called “Vegan-ish March”. Here are my rules:

No meat products [*obviously, duh..]*
Up to 1 time fish per week during social events [I don’t remember why I decided that fish is fine, but spoiler alert - I did not eat any. I don’t like fish in general]
Ghee butter is fine in moderation [My wife started to use Ghee while cooking, so not to complicate things in the kitchen, I included this rule]
No eggs
No dairy products
First two weeks up to one pizza with no meat [I wanted to make the transition easier and not be an asshole during social events when everyone wants pizza, and I’m like “I’m vegan”]

Before we proceed to the results, lets talk about my relationship with food.

Food for me was a source of energy. It was something I had to do in order to live a good life. I usually ate meat at least once a day and had this idea in my head that I need meat on daily basis in order to stay healthy. I focused on chicken, and ate red meat only at restaurants where they could prepare a good steak or an amazing hamburger. I dislike fish, so I rarely ate it. Dairy products in general make my stomach upset, so I’ve limited their usage. Eggs for me were nice for quick breakfasts.

It is recommended to switch to vegetarian diet first, and not jump towards veganism right away. But since I’m not your typical meat eater who eat 5 portions of meat a day, and I mostly live by the rule of “all or nothing”, I’ve decided to jump straight into veganism.

The Results

Timeline

The first few days were amazing. I was energized, excited and ready to conquer my challenge on the way to become a better human being. I was armed with knowledge and science and instead of simply eliminating meat for my meals, I’ve looked for replacements in forms of beans, grains, legumes and nuts.

But then, by the end of first week, I’ve started to feel cloudy and tired. I’ve started to suspect that maybe I don’t eat enough and have nutrient deficiency, so at day 8, I’ve started to count calories.

Counting calories helped, I did realize that 100g of bell pepper is not the same as 100g of chicken breast and that I do have nutrient deficiency. Armed with this new knowledge, I’ve educated my self even more and started to plan my meals based on the nutrients I need.

And things started to become better. I was more energized, felt great, no more cloudy. Until day 12, when life happened. As with my February challenge, I’ve broken my diet on day 12.

I’ve met with a friend, and we went to a bar for a couple of cocktails and food. And the only food they had - was pizza. We were hungry, my friend wanted to share the pizza, and I was weak. Technically, pizza falls under rule (6) but at that point I was doing great with my diet and decided mentally that I was not going to break it with pizza - but I did.

Other than this, no major accidents. I feel better, I’m more energized (according to my wife) and I started to like food and eating.

Conclusions

Bowl Movement

The messy part. Skip this if you don’t want to discuss poop.

My bowl movement before vegan diet - was regular, but it wasn’t.. perfect. I though maybe it’s related to meat and was hoping that plant based diet will help with that - but I was disappointed. It didn’t make things worse, but it didn’t improve either.

However, one positive effect that I did notice, is that I now rarely have abdominal distension. I used to have it pretty often when I was eating meat, and it did bother me. Not anymore.

Energy Levels

One more benefit of plant based diet I’ve read about is that you have more energy. Can do more things, is less tired and can lift more if you are working out.

And while I’m unable to judge my levels of energy - I’m still functioning normally, do my job, work out and relax; my wife claims I’m way more energized. I was hoping to have more energy for when I work out, but again, I’m unable to judge objectively. I do feel stronger, but it can be also because I train regularly.

However, one big benefit that I do notice from plan based diet - is that I’m no longer tired after eating. Do you know this feeling, after when you eat a meal with meat, you suddenly feel full? You feel sleepy and tired ready for siesta even if its 7PM? Well, I used to have that. But after I’ve switched to plant based diet - I’m no longer having this feeling. I can eat at 4PM, I cat eat at 7PM and I won’t feel tired, sleepy or full.

No pain

Yet another benefit of plan based diet is that people who have joint pain, experienced less pain or even no pain after switching to plant based diet. I’m not sure about the science behind it, but nevertheless I have chronic shoulder pain that no doctor was able to fix or even diagnose, so I’ve learned to live with it. Plant based diet did not help to relief this pain.

The love for food

After switching to plan based diet, I fell it love with food and cooking. Dinners suddenly became colorful with a bunch of vegetables. I’ve educated myself about sources of iron, protein, calcium in plants. I even counted calories for some time (I’ve quit it about 4–5 days before the end of the months, as it’s too time-consuming for me).

I’ve started to enjoy chopping and cooking; started to love the taste of food. I spend way more time in the kitchen and I did order way less take away food during this month.

Now you can say “Jeez Dmitry, you could have developed the same love for food and cooking by eating meat as well, should you cared enough” and I’d agree with you, I could. But for me, there is a mental association between vegetables and healthy food. And eating healthier food make me want to prepare this food as well. Sometimes it takes a change to kick-start a new hobby or habit, and plant based diet did that for me. So +1 for plant based diet.

Under the hood

The best indicator of health that we can get relatively easily - is blood test. I have blood test I’ve done around end of January, beginning of February. But I haven’t yet done one after being vegan. I don’t think one month is enough to have a noticeable effect, so I’ll do a test in few months.

Another interesting fact is that I’ve lost around 2.5kg (~5.5 pounds for my non-metric readers). I suspect I was not eating enough the first days and only when I started to count calories, I’ve realized that I need to eat more. It’s hard for me to gain weight and I have a theory about it: it takes the body some time to adjust to new diet. It’s like a shock since my body was used to meat and suddenly it’s not getting it anymore. So it started to burn it reserves. Not sure if it makes sense, but I’ll keep monitoring my weight, and will contact my doctor if I won’t see any improvements.

What next?

The month is over, so as my diet. I proved to myself that food can be tasty, diverse and healthy.

But I also realized that plant based diet is not easy. Because I don’t eat fish, I’m taking Omega supplements. But only after few days of my challenge, I’ve realized that Omega supplements are not vegan since they come from fish oil.

Somewhere around the beginning of March, I went to a local cafe with my wife, and we ordered a couple of sandwiches but asked if they can be made without mayonnaise since we are vegans. The waitress said that it is possible. After we sat down at the table, the waitress approached us and asked “is honey fine, or to take it out as well?”. I was baffled. What’s the problem with honey? Only later I’ve realized that honey is technically non-vegan because it involves bee exploitation.

Eating proper vegan is hard. There are a lot of great vegan supplements for cheeses, burgers, sausages and even mayonnaise; but the idea of my challenge was not to replace processed meat with processed vegan food. While I do believe that a vegan burger is healthier than the average meat burger, they are both processed foods.

It also requires you to plan what you eat. Beans for example needs to be soaked for at least 12 hours before they are being cooked for another 60–90 minutes.

Am I converted? I’m not sure. I find a lot of benefits in plant based diet ranging from the taste, flavor and the process of preparing food; all the way to health benefits like not feeling tired or full after a meal. But food is a lot more than energy. Food is culture; food is experience. I’m yet to find a vegan restaurant that will give me the same experience as a restaurant that can serve me a great steak with melting butter and rosemary together with a glass of red wine.

Food is embedded in our culture and while I don’t crave steaks, I’m not ready to give up the experience, the same way I enjoy a good beer in a bar, knowing that alcohol is bad for me. So for now, I’m going to stick to my plant based diet while eating at home or even ordering take away, but I’ll reserve a special place for meat when visiting a great restaurant that can serve a tasty steak or an amazing burger.

Compound effect and habits

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 12:00:00 GMT

In the stock market, there is an effect known as compound interest. In a nutshell it works like this: when you invest $100 with a an yearly return of 10%, after the first year you will have $110 . However after the second year you will have 121$ (so a growth of $11 compared to 10$ from the first year). After third year you will have 133.1$, 146.41$ after fourth and eventually, after 10 years you will have $259.37 an additional $159.37.

So the interest rate of 10% yearly applies also to the earnings you’ve made this year. Therefor its called “compound interest” as opposed to a 10% interest that applies only to the initial investment. And if you look at a longer period, you will notice that the growth is exponential.

Stocks? What?!

Yeah, right. Back to habits. See, habits work the same way. When you break some habit, or fall into a bad habit, it creates the same compound effect. At some point you wake up and ask yourself “How did I get there?”. But what happened in retrospect is that one day you’ve missed the gym, and since you’ve missed the gym you decided to allow yourself to eat a burger instead of a salad, with beer instead of water, in front of a TV instead of working on your hobby. And the next time you need to go to the gym, you are like “But I’ve already missed one session, so what’s the harm in missing this one as well”. And then you wake up and ask yourself “How did I get there?”.

Of course, it’s not that fatal. Missing one gym session won’t throw you to the bottom of life, and it depends on your self motivation and self-control. I, for example, struggle to start the work week after the weekend. Even if just before weekend I’ve been super engaged with work, weekends throws me off my track and starting the week is hard for me.

There is an unwritten rule in the habit making world that says “Never miss a habit two times in a row”. So if you’ve missed the gym, you must go the next time. Compound effect takes time to accumulate. One missed habit will shake you a bit, but usually, if you have strong self-control, it should not put you off track. A habit missed twice - is harder to recover from. And the scary thing is that once you break one habit - others start to break as well. Compound effect.

The good part

But there is a good part as well. Compound effect works the same way with good habits. You start to build the habit of working out. At some point you realize that your diet matters so you start to eat healthier. By eating healthier you cook more at home hence saving money on take away as well as investing in a clean kitchen (nobody wants to cook in a disgusting kitchen). By setting the habit of cleaning your kitchen, you expand it to keep your entire house tidy, which leads to getting rid of stuff you don’t need hence being intentional with what you buy (which again, saves money). And it one year you will look back and realize that you’ve changed as a person. Compound effect.

Start Small

The compound effect is very strong. But like anything in life - abuse it, and it will work against you. By tackling many habits at once, you risk the chance to developing none at all, or worse, introducing bad ones. Here are some tips on how you can create new habits and enjoy the compound effect.

Start small - focus on one habit. Remember - habit is not something that you do 3 times in a row. Forming a habit takes around 66 days. But it doesn’t mean you should focus only on one habit every 66 days. Get the ball rolling. Once you are comfortable with the habit, introduce new one. For me, it takes around 1 to 2 weeks of daily habits to start sticking. But It’s personal, so see what works for you.
Know your self. By knowing your self, you know how much self-control you have. By knowing how much self-control you have, you know how to tackle a broken habit. I personally know that it’s way harder for me to come back to a habit if I missed it 2 times in a row. For some of you it could be 4 times, for others 1. There is no magic number, it entirely depends on your self-control. Experiment and see what works for you.
Don’t be hard on yourself. When you miss a habit, don’t beat yourself. You are not a failure for missing a habit. Life happens so your Monday gym session might fall on a period when you are sick, overwhelmed with work, on vacation or just lazy. It’s not the end of the world. Make adjustments and reschedule. Remember - It’s ok to miss a habit, it’s not ok to break it. So reschedule according to your magic number from point 2 above.

Remember, habits are very individual. Individual in the way how you build them and individual in the way why you build them.

Don’t create habits because someone told you it changed their life. Remember, it changed their life. It might not change yours. Always start with self discovery. Realize why you want to build a habit. You want to be active and live a healthy life? So find a physical habit. Don’t run to the gym because someone told you that you must do that. Not everybody like the gym. There are plenty of other physical activities like cycling, rowing, running, yoga, boxing, HIIT and etc. Find what works for you.

Once you found it, experiment on how to implement it. You have 1 free evening? So go to the gym once a week (or do any other physical activity that works for you). Sure somebody will tell you that once a week is not enough because they go at least 5 times a week. But again, it’s their life. They might have 5 evening available because they work on a different job than you or have a different lifestyle than you. Again it’s your life. Once a week is always better than none. You can’t enjoy the compound effect on zero - because any % from zero is still zero. Start the ball rolling and you will adapt your life. Sure it will take you more time to reach the same results as the 5 times a week guy/gal, but you are not your single habit - you are the sum of everything you do and don’t do in life, and no two lives are similar. Always remember this.

No shopping February

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 09:00:00 GMT

Back in January I caught myself scrolling and favorite-ing a lot of products on Amazon. And I thought to myself - what if I decide to do a month without shopping?

Rules

But first, some rules. It’s easy to say “I’ll just do a no shopping February”, but you can’t simply commit to a challenge without setting some rules. Are you going to buy groceries? Gifts? Medicine? What about self treatment procedures like gym visit?

You need to have rules. Rules makes your challenge way easier to follow. For me, February is a special month because it has 3 important occasions: My Birthday, St. Valentines Day and Dating anniversary. So I defined the following rules: I’ll avoid any shopping except the following -

Birthday present for my self
St. Valentine’s Day present for my wife
Dating anniversary present for my wife (should we decide to give gifts this year)
Replacement of a broken / damaged item that was previously in use at least once during 2021
Groceries and Food take away
Up to 1 book
Anything for self-care (so medical treatments, haircut, gym etc)

The result

I’m glad to report that I was able to follow the challenge through entire 28 days of February but with one exception. I’ve broken the rule once.

I use comfy slippers to wander around the house. However, since they are made of synthetic, medium grade quality, materials - they became stinky. So stinky, that by the middle of the day my socks were stinky as well. So I decided to replace them. Looking back at my rules, they fall under rule (3) - I did use them daily, and the fact they started to stink can be categorized as “damage”. I went to an online shopping store, found the slippers I want and was ready to order them. Then I realized that the shipping price was almost half the price of the slippers and more over, if I’d add another item to reach a certain sum - I’d get free shipping. Damn you marketing!

I did cost benefit analysis and came to a conclusion that I’d rather pay for another item I need than for shipping - so I’ve decided to order pants, but I’ve told to myself that they will replace existing pants I already have (a rule I try to follow to minimize clutter introduction in my life - for every clothing item I buy, one should go away).

So yes, I’ve broken the challenge. But I’ve realized something.

Conclusions

I’m not addicted to shopping. I don’t spend countless amount of money to hoard items. I could improve my impulsive buying habits, but I was not doing this challenge to cure some addiction or cut on expenses. I did it purely for educational and “scientific” knowledge. And I’ve learned two things.

Control your impulses

I did have impulsive buying habit. When I’ve decided that I want or need something, I usually went to buy it. Which then lead to buyer remorse since by the time this item arrived (I usually buy online) I already was past the initial dopamine rush from the purchase, and I was wondering “why the hell did I bought this”. Doing this challenge, I’ve realized that nothing is really that urgent. I was aware of instant gratification, delaying your purchases and etc, but somewhere during this pandemic - I’ve lost it. This challenge served as a restart for me. A restart to remind me that I have everything I need and nothing is urgent to buy.

Life happens

I’ve stated in the beginning of this post how important it is to set up rules. Rules define the boundaries in which you can operate. They define your actions and prevent you from having the feeling of being a failure because there is a difference between “No shopping” and “No shopping except for…”. I don’t believe it’s correct to change your rules every time you encounter a road block, but it’s also not healthy to never change your rules. Life is dynamic, and adapting to it is one of the best traits you can develop in yourself. Adaptability is what helps us survive. And this challenge reminded me of this important lesson.

By settings strict rules and promising to never adapt them - you are doomed to failure because at some point, life will kick you to the floor, and you will need to adapt. On the other hand, by constantly changing your rules every time you face a difficult situation, you will end up as a weak person who has no moral stance, no rules, to beliefs to live by.

Closing Words

Doing this challenge reminded me of two important lessons: Delayed gratification and Adaptability in life.

It’s already March, and I’m 4 days to my new challenge. Stay tuned for March end to find out about it :)

I did 33 days of "social media on my phone detox" challenge

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 09:00:00 GMT

On 19th of January I’ve had enough. I was stressed. Stressed mainly because of overusing my phone for both social media (Reddit and YouTube in my case) and for news checking. So I decided to do what everyone else would recommend you to do once you reach this point - delete social media from your phone.

So I’ve deleted Reddit, disabled YouTube (thank you big phone manufacturer that preinstall certain apps on their phones without the ability to uninstall them, only disable) and blocked the only news website I was using (this block included block on PC as well). And I’ve created a fancy tracking calendar, hang in on my cork board and every day crossed out the previous day, in case I’ve managed to stay away from social media on my phone, which I’m happy to report, I did for 33 days in a row.

In order for it to make sense, I first need to tell you about my relationship with my phone and social media (from now on, when I say social media I mean Reddit and YouTube since I use Facebook mainly for marketplace abilities and mainly on PC, and I don’t use Instagram or any other social platform).

You see, Reddit for me was a feed of “inspirational” pictures. I like Living spaces, I like mechanical keyboard and watches, I like computers and networking gear. So I’m subscribed to /r/battlestations, /r/EDC, /r/malelivingspace and similar - which all are picture based. So when you open the Reddit App you have a nice picture feed of EDC items, battlestations and etc. A great time filler for when you are bored. But then little by little my habits started to slip. I’d finish scrolling my feed in few minutes but was still bored, so I started to glance at /r/all or /r/popular which now made me an expert in US politics (and I don’t even live there!) which obviously contributed to more stress (as politics are never rainbow colors). Add to that the fact that my lunch or dinner would be accompanied by the one and only - YouTube. I felt that I was either working or doing something else that involved Reddit / YouTube / New reading.

A word on PC usage. When I’m on my PC, I’m doing one of 2 things - I either do work for my day-to-day job or work on my hobbies. So I was more mindful about the way I use Reddit or YouTube there. Add since Reddit on PC is not that useful as picture feed, I rarely visited it from my PC.

The “A-Ha!” moment

On a regular evening, I was driving my wife to therapeutic massage, after which she is usually very relaxed and advised not to drive. While she was doing the therapy, I was walking (a habit I’m trying to build) and listening to an audiobook. Closer to the end of the 1-hour mark, I went back to the car to make sure that my wife won’t have to wait for me and by that time I’ve finished listening to one chapter of the book and was not interested in starting a new one. I entered the car and started to wait. And at that time, the “A-Ha!” moment, also known as Eureka, came to me.

When people ask for suggestions about phone addiction, and mainly constant Instagram or Facebook scrolling - they are being told to “Just delete these apps. You won’t miss anything”. And it’s true, I didn’t miss. All the important news I’ve “missed” - were filled to me by my friends; the YouTube videos were still waiting for me when I used YouTube on my PC; and the Reddit posts - well.. They are just nice time fillers. And while I agree that being exposed to nice houses or beautiful wardrobes, can shape the way you decorate your house or dress (you can read more about my “dressing up” experiences in this blog post I’ve published - You are not your newsfeed! Or maybe you are?) I believe the good ol’ saying of “Everything is good in moderation” applies here very well. The benefits of nice houses or computers, were overtaken by the amounts of stress I was feeling, and I prefer to be stress-free rather than having a nice “battlestation”.

So here I was, sitting my car, bored, checking WhatsApp every 20 seconds, checking my calendar every 30 seconds (and no, don’t get me wrong, I’m not super busy CEO whose schedule changes every 10 minutes) - while waiting for my wife to arrive so we could drive back home.

And at this moment I’ve realized - We have it backwards! Deleting social media apps from our phones is like taking painkillers every day because you have a headache - sure the symptom goes away, you are no longer addicted to social media (or have headaches) but the problem stays there - something is wrong with your health (otherwise you wouldn’t have constant headaches) and you still don’t know how to be bored.

See, the reason why I’ve used my phone while eating or when waiting for my wife in the car is because I didn’t know how to enjoy food or be bored. Yes, I’ve deleted Reddit and YouTube and I didn’t use those anymore, but I was still reaching to my phone during those 33 days just to check WhatsApp, look at package tracking or stock prices, a set of absolutely random and useless actions that are the by product of not knowing how to live in the moment, enjoy simple things like a meal or enjoying being bored.

So whats next? I’m done with the challenge. I’ve enabled YouTube once again because I was sick and in bed, couldn’t sleep, so decided to watch some YouTube videos. I occasionally check the news (every block can be bypassed). I still didn’t install Reddit, but I guess it will happen sooner or later. I think this challenge was worth the conclusion I’ve came too. The message of deleting social media for “addicted” people is so strong that it perceived as the ultimate solution for addiction while my experience tells the opposite - its just eliminating the symptoms, but the problem stays. I don’t reach to my phone when I’m truly living in the moment (being in the Flow, having a deep conversation, watching a movie or etc) so the problem is not Reddit or YouTube on my phone - the problem is my relationship with boredom. I guess I’ll have to work on that.

Disclaimer: Obviously I’m not an expert on addictions. My experience might not apply to you and by eliminating social media from your life, you might “heal” your addiction. It all depends on the answer to the question “Why do you use it in the first place?”. I’m not having anxiety because my social feed is filled with younger, more successful people than me, nor I suffer from FOMO as my social apps are not associated with family or friends (like Instagram or Facebook). But if your main issues are stress or anxiety from FOMO or constant comparison to younger (or same aged) people, who “look” more successful than you - then yes, deleting social media might do wonders to you. So as always, your mileage may vary.

The most important personal quality - Integrity

Sun, 04 Aug 2019 09:00:00 GMT

A taxi driver went out of his car, stood near the door, opened his pants zipper and started to pee. A municipality worker that happened to be there at the same time, noticed the situation and issued a fine for the taxi driver. As soon as the driver noticed the municipality worker, he took a bottle that was nearby and started to pour water from it over his hands. The taxi driver refused to pay and went to trial. In front of the judge, he told the following story: The wheel by the drivers’ door broke, so he stopped to replace it and took instruments from the trunk. Before leaving the place, he took a bottle of water from the trunk to wash his hands. The judge did not believe him. He said, “if you wanted to wash your hands, why would you take the bottle out of the trunk, move to the drivers’ door and wash it there and not by the trunk?” The driver paid the fine. - Local newspaper

This is a real story from one of the local city newspaper I’ve read some time ago. And I ask my self. The guy is an adult. I guess somewhere around 30–60 years old. He couldn’t hold his pee. So he peed on the street, which is punished by a fine. What would make him lie like a 3-year-old?

Well, I know what. He wanted to pee. There was no toilet nearby, so he peed on the street. This is punishable by a fine. But who wants to pay a fine? So he lied, with a hope to get by and not pay the fine.

The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness. - Definition of integrity (noun)

Integrity equals responsibility.

Doing something illegal and then lying with a hope to get by with it is called immature. Immature people can not take responsibility. And failing to take responsibility means you are unable to succeed in life because failure to take responsibility – means everything is someone else’s problem. And when everything is someone else’s problem you have no control over the life you are living.

Children until a certain age are immature. That’s the reason they lie. “But mommy, I didn’t touch it, it fell by itself!”. Yes, you did. And you are responsible for breaking it. But children don’t get it. They are not evolved enough, yet. They are afraid of telling the truth because they know that they did something wrong, and they might be punished. Nobody want’s to be punished. But parents are not stupid, they know the real story. Vases don’t fall by themselves.

Having responsibility for your life makes it easier.

Integrity equals peace of mind.

The easiest story to tell – is the truth. When you lie, you get caught up in small details that will eventually render your lie to be logically flawed. The taxi driver got caught up because his words made no sense.

Imagine a life in which you need to remember every small part you’ve ever said, and you also need to think about what you are going to say next so that it will be logical and wouldn’t sound like a lie. And we are speaking about a generation that relies on to-do lists, reminders, and secretaries to remember trivial things like “buy bread on the way home”.

Lying is exhausting. And the more people know or involved in your lies, the more exhausting it is. You suddenly can’t be your self. You can’t share something that happened to you, without thinking about consequences. “Dude, I’ve met yesterday the most amazing girl ever!”. “Yesterday? But yesterday we played poker, and you said you won’t come because you are sick!”. “Um… Ah.. mmm..”. Don’t be that guy. Have integrity.

Integrity guides you towards what is right for you.

When you don’t have integrity, you don’t have any moral principles. Going to hookers? Sure. Stealing candy? Why the hell not!

Have you ever been presented with two appealing choices and didn’t know what to choose? Well if you have integrity, you’d know what’s important for you. If one of your principles in life is to not drink, then Friday evening in a bar with friends would not be an option for you.

An abundance of choice is bad. Read The Paradox of Choice – Barry Schwartz to understand why. Minimizing the number of choices we make in life – makes life easier. And if you don’t have moral principles or integrity, you’d have to make a lot of choices daily because you don’t really have an opinion or preference.

And no, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes you are presented with two really appealing choices, and they have nothing to do with your integrity or moral principles. Life’s hard after all, there is no magic potion titled “Integrity” that will remove all obstacles. But it will make your life easier.

Evolution gave us conscious and subconscious. And the latter gives us the ability to not make the same choice over and over again because making a choice is exhausting. Imagine your life when every morning you need to decide if you are going to brush your teeth today or no.

Integrity is trust.

When you promise to do something, and you fail, you lose a little bit of integrity. When this happens another time, you lose a bit more. You lose some more for the third time as well. But after that, you lose trust. You are no longer a person others can rely on or expect help from.

It’s a bad position to be in. Humans, as species, survived because we were able to group and divide tasks between group members. If you are invaluable to the group or the group can not trust you, why would they take you with them? And yes, you can ramble that you prefer to be friends with people who don’t need anything from you but think about this for a moment. Imagine your self in a situation when you are having a big argument with your family or your SO and desperately need a place to sleep in. Who would you go to? Now can you be that person for some of your friends?

And yes, you can have friends without doing or asking for favors. But you will never have a deep connection with people. Deep connection relies on giving and asking for help. And you can’t have a deep connection without having integrity, because trustworthy people have integrity.

Integrity is everything. All other qualities are based on integrity and that’s the reason integrity is the most important quality.

3 Things I've learned by breaking my phone

Sun, 21 Jul 2019 09:00:00 GMT

About a week ago I’ve visited the gym as usual and took my phone with me. During one of the exercises, I’ve missed the cage hook for the barbel and the barbell fell onto the phone and broke the screen. The screen was 2/3 dead and the reaming 1/3 died in the following hours. I should have probably been sad, mad at my self, mad at the world, the phone manufacturer and what not. But instead, I’ve decided to see what could happen if I try to learn something from it.

1. Bad things happen, be prepared.

My old phone was very good. Even though I dropped it a few times and I suspect that the speaker was damaged somehow, I did not plan to replace the phone any time soon. But then it was damaged beyond repair and as sad as it might sound – a smartphone is a mandatory gadget in our time. It allows you to be online everywhere – be responsive to work and personal life events, authenticates via 2-step authentication at most websites and of course make calls.

A good phone costs a significant amount. And I did not plan to spend that amount right now. My fiancée and I just moved into a new apartment, we had to furnish it. We are having a wedding soon followed by a honeymoon. All this requires financial expenses. And if I didn’t have an emergency fund or extra money lying around – I’d probably be in a tight financial situation now.

Bad things happen all the time. And breaking a phone is the least of all. You could get sick. You could lose your job. Someone from your family or friends might need financial help. If we live like there is no tomorrow, and we do not save any money aside – when bad things happen, we will be in a bad situation.

And it’s not limited only to financial matters. You must have backup strategies for all emergencies. For example – how you can notify your family members that your phone is dead, and you won’t be able to take calls in the following 12–24 hours until you get a new phone? How are you going to authenticate with your email provider without having access to your 2-step authentication codes? How are you going to pay if you lose your credit card, or it gets compromised?

2. A fresh start to break the status quo.

Humans are used to the status quo. It’s hard to make a change when everything is working, even if it’s not working 100% correct. By getting a new phone I had 0 apps installed in it. And I decided to myself that I’m going to install an app only when I need it. I still haven’t installed Instagram (the only social network app I’ve had previously) and not yet sure I’m going to install it. I also got rid of much of the apps I never used but was hesitant to delete because “I might need them one day”.

I believe that order is required in all aspects of life and having your phone cluttered with a zillion of apps you never use, contributes to the cultural ADHD we have as a society.

3. It is your fault.

I never broke a phone before. I am relatively careful with my electronics. A chain of events that ended with me not being careful brought this situation on me.

I saw people who miss a bus and the driver won’t let them in on the intersection. I saw how they get furious, how they call the driver bad names. I saw people who drop their phones and blame the entire world that made them drop their phones.

I could have said that this stupid gym does not have a proper place to put phones. I could have blamed the gym. But instead, I blame myself. I blame myself for taking a phone into the gym. I blame myself for not being careful with the barbell and for putting the phone in a “hot zone”.

Responsibility is something that few people have. They tend to blame everyone in their problems, except for them. “No, there is no chance that I’m the problematic one”. Well, guess what – you are responsible for 99% of the things that happen to you. The sooner you understand it, the better for you.

And in case anyone wondering, no I do not advise you to break your phone. I’m just sharing with you a different way to look at problematic situations in life when and after they happen.

You Are Not Your News Feed! Or maybe you are?

Sun, 07 Jul 2019 09:00:00 GMT

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with – Jim Rohn

Back then, you’ve spent most of your time with your friends from school. Your social circle was limited to 20-30 other children that were together with you in class. There was no internet, at least not in the form we know it today. The amount of information you were exposed to was very small compared to today.

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. Then he posted about it on Facebook.

Your day probably starts with an alarm clock and an Instagram feed. Some of my days start like this, even though I try to get rid of both the alarm clock and the morning Instagram ritual. Then your day probably includes breakfast with newspaper (if you are from the seventies) or yet another social feed. Then a car and the same song from yesterday on the radio, the lyrics of which you subconsciously know.

We use only 10% of our brains.

This subtitle is actually misleading. Scientific experiments proved that we use 100% of our brain because every part of the brain emits electronic impulses.

On my last birthday, my fiancée made a surprise for me, and apart from arranging breakfast with her and my family and dinner with my friends, she also booked me a sports car driving session. The experience itself was amazing but for the context of this post, I’d like to outline one specific thing I’ve learned from the instructor.

He told me something like:

You see, most drivers focus on the car in front of them, they try to follow it and predict what will happen on the road, based on this car. It slows down, you slow down. It speeds up, you speed up. But this is looking one step ahead approach. The amount of information you have about the road and driving conditions based on the car in front of you. Professional drivers, however, need to think more than one step ahead. They need to plan their speed before the road turns or goes in curves. And by focusing on the car in front of them, they lose a lot of environment information. What they do instead is focus on the furthest point on the road.

I was stumbled. “How is it possible? If you focus on the furthest point on the road, don’t you miss everything that is in front of you?” – I’ve asked. “No” – he said. “We actually underestimate the ability of our brain and peripheral vision. Try to focus on the furthest point in the road and try to predict where the road is going, where are the turns and how sharp they are. And you will see, that subconsciously you won’t miss any information.”

I tried. At first, it was scary and uncomfortable. But after a few minutes, I got it. I understood that even if you focus consciously on the furthest point on the road, your peripheral vision grasps the entire road conditions.

Everything matter even if you think it’s not.

In today’s modern world, we are no longer an average of 5 people. We are the average of our social feeds, the music we listen to and the people who surround us.

Your Instagram feed matters. What you see there – shapes who you are. The music you listen to, even if you think you don’t hear the words – they matter. A singer that sings about how all men are assholes – will eventually shape girls minds to think that all men are assholes. The Instagram feed of a guy that laughs at women – will eventually shape boys minds into disrespecting women.

We think that those are just pictures or words – but they have power. People who read the news, tend to be more paranoid and think that the world is a terrible place. Everything we see or hear, have power. With great power – comes great responsibility. And it’s our responsibility to filter the information we want to be exposed to.

Same jeans, same t-shirt.

In my twenties I was depressed. One of the ways my depression showed itself was that I didn’t really care about how I dress and look. Don’t get me wrong, I showered and brushed my teeth constantly, but I wore the same jeans, same t-shirt, and same sneakers every day and replaced the sneakers only when they got a big hole in them.

One day I decided – no more. I want to look sharp. At first, I tried to put on dress shoes and button-up shirts, but it looked funny, and I felt ridiculous in it. The whole process of adjusting my outfit took a good several years, and eventually I’ve started to get compliments that I dress well from my family, friends, friends of friends and even work colleagues.

You probably think now that I understand how color matching works, that I shop at brand stores and have a personal outfit consultant. But no, it’s way simpler than that. My Instagram feed is filled with accounts of so-called “man fashion”. Those are people who make money promoting different outfits or just guys that dress well. And the only thing I know consciously about fashion is that matching 2 colors is good. Everything else is my subconsciousness that was exposed to good information from Instagram.

Information and responsibility.

Our daily habits of checking the news, following stupid Instagram accounts or listening to music that disrespect men or women – might look like something minor. “Oh come’on, I don’t even listen to the words!” – you can say. But I say, maybe you don’t – but your brain does. And we might think of ourselves as smart and sophisticated creatures, and we are indeed, but somewhere, deep inside, we are no different from a dog. You tell it “sit” once, and it ignores you. You tell it “sit” twice, it will be confused but will sit. You tell it “sit” three times and it will sit.

The same thing happens to us. There is no harm in reading the news once a month. But on a constant basis, it will rewire your brain. It will teach it to look for the negative in the world, seeing only the terrible things that happen in the world. But the world is not terrible. Yes, there are terrible things happening in the world. But there are also good things happening. There is a lot of joy and happiness in the world. And the news, they do not reflect that. News is not the source of good things.

But then, we go to the gym every few days and do exercises with unimportant weights. We read 1 book per month that teaches us something new. We play a few notes every day on the guitar. And eventually – our muscles will grow. Our intelligence will rise. Our musical skills will perfect.

We are who we are because of the things we do (and don’t do) over time. Skill, intelligence, strengths – they all products of small, unimportant actions multiplied by time.

And guess what? It works both ways. Going to the gym will build muscle – eating junk food will build fat and disease. Reading deep books that challenge our beliefs will build intelligence – reading the news will build fear. Listening to podcasts will widen our knowledge – listening to hateful music will build hate in us.

Think about it the next time you are exposed to information.

Do It Yourself and Self Improvement

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 12:00:00 GMT

Do It Yourself – is a phrase that today reserved for makers. The rest of us value “throw away” culture. But DIY approach has a lot of psychological benefits.

Introduction

After moving out from my parents house, to live by myself, I’ve had only a laptop. I’ve used this laptop for the entire year at my first rental flat. After moving to a bigger apartment, I’ve decided to treat myself with a new PC. As a maximalist, I want the best I could get for my money, and a keyboard was not overlooked.

I opened for myself the world of mechanical keyboards at that time and I said that I want one. I won’t go into deep details about the difference between membrane keyboard and a mechanical one, but in a nutshell – mechanical keyboards give you a better feeling when typing and have a longer life span than a regular membrane keyboard. And while I can argue that gold-plated 100% oxygen free copper speaker cables, have no objective difference compared to good quality, speaker cable; mechanical keyboards are actually superior to membrane or scissors keyboards, especially if you are a heavy typist such as software engineer or a writer. I know it, I’ve used all 3 types.

Anyway back to the story. I got myself the best mechanical keyboard I could afford. For the next 7 or so years, my mind was occupied with either work or yet another obsessive hobby such as photography. I forgot all about that keyboard. Up until the day my mind once again became obsessed that I need a different keyboard now. One which is smaller, more ergonomic.

We live in communities

I, of course, started to look for the best I can get. One thing I’ve learned: there is a community around everything. And while mechanical keyboards are not that popular as a hobby compared to, let say mountain biking, apparently, there is an entire market of custom mechanical keyboards.

And the scale of customizability ranges from making different keycap colors (keycap – is the individual plastic cap of your keyboard, let’s say the cap for the letter “Y”) all the way towards designing custom PCB (PCB – Printed Circuit Board, an electronic board that makes your electronics work). And I was debating between ordering a pre-made keyboard from a known manufacturer or buying all the parts and actually making the keyboard myself. Price wasn’t a factor as the difference was negligible.

DIY – Do It Yourself

When I buy a product of quality, I expect that the company that makes this product to have employees that know what they are doing. I also expect them to have better quality control and a polished assembly line. That’s the reason I buy products that are already assembled and tested, rather than making them myself. I simply lack the tools, knowledge, manpower and time to make everything myself.

Also, when you make something yourself, it’s always imperfect, especially if you make it for the first time. You do not have the necessary equipment and tools to make it; you lack the knowledge to make it, etc. But there is also an amazing satisfaction feeling in making something yourself. My fiancée and I made a wooden shelf some time ago. It’s far from perfect, but it’s ours, and it decorates our bedroom in an exceptional way. Apart from this, the whole process of making it was captivating for both of us. We got to spend time together in a non-regular way; we got to make something and use equipment we didn’t use before, and we got into a situation of teamwork that is different from the day-to-day situations you get to.

So as you guessed, I’ve decided to make my own keyboard. There is a scale on how hardcore would you like to go in a DIY project starting from getting a ready board that requires only assembling all the way to making your own PCB or even keycaps. I took the middle ground and ordered a ready PCB, switches, keycaps and some other parts – and soldered my own keyboard. I type that post from this very keyboard I’ve made.

It’s not perfect but it’s mine

It’s far from perfect. Some keys are not aligned, and it was my first major soldering project, so I screwed some soldering joints. Am I happy? Yes, of course. Using something you’ve made is a great satisfaction. It also taught me a lot of things:

It taught me that everything is possible. We live in a very fortunate time, a time when the entire knowledge of the human race is accessible with a few keystrokes and internet. You no longer need to attend school or college to learn how to solder or make furniture. There are a lot of free and paid tutorials, books and videos about every possible topic. And while some disciplines such as doctors or certified mechanics, requires attending a certification program or school, your small DIY project will be fine if you’ve learned how to solder from a YouTube video.
It gave me the courage to try other projects in the future. It gave me confidence that if something goes bad I’ll try to fix it instead of calling a professional to fix it or worse – throw it away. It’s a very valuable skill – the ability to know that you are in control. Our generation used to throw things away. Our phone doesn’t work – we throw it away. Table got scratched – we throw it away. Our relationship doesn’t work – we throw it away. And while sometimes throwing things away because they are broken beyond repair – is the correct solution, having the courage and the ability to fix them, or at least try to, teaches us a lot more than just fixing our phone and saving money – it teaches us that a good and happy life requires hard work rather than always taking the path of least resistance.
It helped me fight with my perfectionism. I do believe that being a perfectionist is not bad by itself, but it should be moderated. If you see something that is a little bit misaligned, and you feel that part of you dies – this is a bad feeling to have. The world is imperfect and it’s fine. In Japan, they have a worldview called Wabi-sabi which is centered on the acceptance of imperfections. It’s a concept derived from Buddhism. Striving to perfection is fine – but it’s also very important to accept imperfections.
It showed me how things work. I don’t know how it works in other places in the world, but the country I live in requires mandatory knowledge of how a car works to get your driving license. And while this knowledge is limited to basics only, without going into details of how an internal combustion engine works or what is compression ratio, this is still mandatory. And no, you can not know everything. The world has a lot of things and some of them are very complicated. But having basic knowledge about the things that surround us or that we use daily – is valuable common knowledge that won’t be useless.

What can you do?

You can start small. Assemble IKEA furniture – it’s a great satisfaction watching TV that stands on a TV stand that you’ve assembled.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. I’ll tell you even more – you will make mistakes, and it won’t be perfect and it’s fine. We, humans, have this bias that if something comes out of a factory – it’s way better than if we would assemble it ourselves. But think about it this way: the guy who assembled your keyboard, have to assemble tens of such per day, and he gets paid not by quality but by quantity. His interest is not doing it perfectly but rather doing it “good enough” and I bet you can do it “good enough” as well and apart from saving money – you will also gain satisfaction.

So don’t hesitate to try, even if you will fail, and you will, you will also get a lot of benefits from it.

Dmitry Kudryavtsev

Not knowing is part of the path

Footnotes

Change and Adversity

Release Ratio

10 pushups every morning, for 30 days. September Challenge

Make your bed

I hate mornings

It’s not enough

There is no reflection

Who are you?

We’ve lost our true self

I’m too busy for that

There is too much information

You don’t have to be better

Why you should aim for 10K steps a day

Why 10K a day?

How to reach 10k steps a day?

Benefits of doing 10k steps a day

It’s easy to start

It’s great for multitasking

It’s good for cleaning up your mind

It brings the explorer in you and teach you to appreciate what’s around you

It gives you perspective on distance

How to start?

1. You don’t need any fancy equipment

2. Walking is better than nothing

Vegan-ish March challenge

Ethical Reason

Health Reason

How?

The Results

Timeline

Conclusions

Bowl Movement

Energy Levels

No pain

The love for food

Under the hood

What next?

Compound effect and habits

Stocks? What?!

The good part

Start Small

No shopping February

Rules

The result

Conclusions

Control your impulses

Life happens

Closing Words

I did 33 days of "social media on my phone detox" challenge

The “A-Ha!” moment

The most important personal quality - Integrity

Integrity equals responsibility.

Integrity equals peace of mind.

Integrity guides you towards what is right for you.

Integrity is trust.

3 Things I've learned by breaking my phone

1. Bad things happen, be prepared.

2. A fresh start to break the status quo.

3. It is your fault.

You Are Not Your News Feed! Or maybe you are?

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. Then he posted about it on Facebook.

We use only 10% of our brains.

Everything matter even if you think it’s not.

Same jeans, same t-shirt.

Information and responsibility.

Do It Yourself and Self Improvement

Introduction

We live in communities

DIY – Do It Yourself

It’s not perfect but it’s mine

What can you do?