The Climb

Screw moodboards. The life you want takes training, not manifesting.

What is it that we long for?

I don’t mean what we say at dinner parties. I don’t mean what fits neatly on a vision board. I mean at 2 a.m., when the world is quiet and no one’s watching—what are we still reaching for? If we peel it back—sex, money, love, lust, admiration, control—what’s underneath? Why do we want those things?

At our core, are we seeking something deeper? To feel, even for a moment, that we’re enough—not performing, not hustling, not angling? To feel joy without the fear it will vanish? To sit in stillness and not feel the urge to escape? To rest—not just sleep, but rest?

Let me tell you what I want: I want not to be at war with my own life. That’s it. That’s the sentence that sits underneath everything I want.

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I’ve built things. I’ve broken things. I’ve generally been high-functioning—and when I haven’t, I’ve worn the mask of it. Beneath the roles and the performance, I’ve felt like I was always sprinting—just to keep it all from collapsing. These days, I’m still sprinting. That’s just my life. I don’t have an “unburdening” magic wand. But I’m also practicing.

There’s a book in my car—Your True Home by Thích Nhất Hạnh. I keep it in a very specific place: wedged by the gear shift so I can’t put the car in drive without touching it. I have to place my hand on it. Open it. Read something. Pause.

That’s not a spiritual flex. It’s a system. A friction point. A moment I engineered on purpose because my instinct is to race, to do, to solve. And I don’t want to live that way anymore. That’s just one. I’ve started embedding other micro-actions into my day. Not hacks. Not performance. Just quiet repetitions that build the person I want to be.

• I lift at 7am. It’s not for aesthetics. It’s to keep a promise to my body before the world makes demands of it. I run at 6pm.

• I use a Billeti to make my coffee now—no more instant hit of the Nespresso Desperado machine. I wanted ritual. I wanted to wait for something. I wanted to build patience where urgency used to live.

• I hug my kids every morning before they walk out the door. And I never let go first. That’s the rule. Presence isn’t in the words—it’s in the hold.

• I write in a gratitude journal where every sentence starts with “I am grateful for…”. It’s not for the record—it’s for the reminder.

• And the moment I miss someone, I reach out to them. Not later. Not when it’s convenient. I just text them. Because love shouldn’t sit in drafts.

None of these are life hacks. They’re reps. Reps for clarity. Reps for presence. Reps for peace. I’m not trying to become peaceful. I’m practicing peace. I’m not chasing joy. I’m rehearsing it. I’m not waiting for happiness. I’m training for it. I’m not expecting tranquility. I’m building room for it. Because peace, joy, happiness, and tranquility aren’t moods. They’re skills. And we were never taught them.

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Let’s rewind the language. What do these words actually mean?

Joy

Greek: Chara — the good mood of the soul.

Peace

Latin: Pax — wholeness.

Happiness

Greek: Eudaimonia — not pleasure, not the rush of a like or a latte.

Tranquility

Latin: Tranquillus — trans (across, beyond) + quies (stillness).

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So here’s my unpolished thesis:

• Joy is plural — it happens with. Joy is shared. It happens in connection. In rhythm.

• Peace is singular — it happens within. It’s the absence of inner division.

• Happiness is liberation — it happens when you let go of fear. It’s flourishing in a life free of fear.

• Tranquility is environmental — it happens around you. Tranquility is the shaping of space—your physical space, your mental space, your relational space—so that your nervous system can finally exhale. It’s architecture.

They’re not conditions. They’re not moods. They’re not destinations. They are skills. They are choices: Think about it: You can’t be scared and happy at the same time. Can you?

This is a climb. It’s Kilimanjaro. Sometimes it’s Free Solo—no rope, no harness, just you and the wall. We can’t think our way into these states. We have to train for them. We have to build rituals that interrupt autopilot. We have to engineer friction that makes us pause. We have to replace reaction with reflection. And we have to stop asking “Why am I not peaceful yet?” and start asking “What am I not practicing?”

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As for me? These are a few other things I’ve had to practice:

• I don’t glorify being offended: Perspective is more valuable than validation. I try to zoom out. To think wider than my own wounds.

• I practice detachment: Not distance. Not coldness. Just the deep understanding that nothing owns me—not outcomes, not titles, no stories, and especially not the story I used to tell myself about who I had to be.

• I study resentment: Mine. Theirs. The resentment I carry often masks something simpler: a boundary I didn’t set or a need I was too afraid to name. What about you? But, what about the people who resent you? Did you change without their permission or stop shrinking for them? Did you refuse to play the role they cast you in? Is it that you moved forward, that you didn’t collapse, that you kept going? For me, I’ve learned not to chase resolution with people committed to misunderstanding me.

• I celebrate peace when it shows up: No one teaches us to celebrate the absence of drama. But that’s where the magic is. Peace doesn’t announce itself. You have to notice it. You have to mark it.

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So let me ask you: What are you practicing? The beautiful but brutal truth? We become what we practice. And beneath all the longing, all the noise, and all the searching… If you really want a formula—here’s the one I’m trying to live by: Practice Micro-Actions × Time = The Life You Actually Want

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Screw The Norms.

Raman