The Game Of Life - Life Purpose, Spiritual Purification, Self-actualization & Enlightenment

[JKG]

I always forget how powerful the neti neti meditation is for me. I wasn't this deep for a long time. If I would have been more concentrated it could have been even deeper. There was almost just no self. I am nothing!

 

"Everyone is a mirror image of yourself - your own thinking coming back at you." - Byron Katie

My mother is truly a beautiful woman when I think of her this way. My father is truly a beautiful man when I think of him this way.

When you think bad things about others, bad thoughts and emotions come back to you. When you think beautiful things of others, beautiful thoughts and emotions come back to you. Why isn't this common knowledge? It's so supidly simple.

"Violence teaches only violence. Stress teaches stress. And peace teaches peace." - Byron Katie

 

Its good to do no programming for some days. On Sunday I was away, on Tuesday I was away, today I was away, and tomorrow I will be away. So much stuff

But in the back of my head I think often that I am so unproductive. Friday I will finally again have a relatively normal day. 

[JKG]

Contemplating the desire to eat

I want to eat now. I would like to go up into the kitchen, grab a bowl, put oat meal into it, some raisins, a plant milk, a banana, some strawberries... Why do I want that? Well, I don't feel as full as I normally would at this time of the day. Its 7:35pm. For lunch I had a green smoothie, a big salad, and a peach. For lunch I had a big fruit plate and some nuts, because I was to lazy to cook something. And because I ate today mainly raw I am not as full as with a big starch dinner.

Am I hungry? No, not at all. My stomach is pretty full, but as I said not as full as normally. I only feel really full, when I am really really full.

So why do I want to eat then? Its not hunger. Its a desire. Its a habit to eat so much until I am really really full. And I don't like withstanding a desire. I am used to giving in to the desire and to just go into the kitchen, eat, and feel a bit guilty afterwards.

There is probably something deeper behind this desire, not just the habit. Leo said that all addiction stem from the main problem that we feel empty inside - a fear of emptiness. Do I feel emptiness right now? Maybe I just want to feel this emptiness by eating, or I want to distract myself from emptiness through eating. Probably. But I don't know.

Lets make a deal ego. I will wait now until 8pm. If I still feel the desire then, I will meditate for 10 minutes and embrace this emptiness. And then I will see.

[JKG]

Victim Thinking

What is annoying me the most at the moment is my father. It feels to me like he only allows me to do the stuff that he thinks is right. He wants me to become the second version of himself. I should study what he studied. I should develop the character traits that he has. I should take a similar career as he did. I should study at the same university as he did. I should get a family and get two children. I should stay living in Germany forever. I should never do anything that might be dangerous. I should do only stuff that looks good on the CV. I should...........

This pisses me off. This pisses me off so hard.

I want to live my own life. I just want to be free. I want to be free to decide to do whatever I want. I want to be independent from him. I don't want to live here at home anymore. I want to live in my own flat. I want to earn my own money. I just want to be INDEPENDENT from him.

Why are people so narrow-minded, ignorant, deluded... He thinks his perspective is totally right. Everybody should live a life as he did. BUT I DON'T WANT THAT. I WANT TO LIVE MY OWN FREAKING LIFE. I don't want to be a victim to his wants.

I see how I am developing myself into being his victim. My mother is already his victim. I don't want to end this way.

arghh. These are just projections. He is just concerned about my safety.

I have this story in my mind. And only the story is causing my suffering. The only problem is my uninvestigated story.

Lets do THE WORK.

[JKG]

A Day

I haven't been journaling much in the last weeks, nor in my private journal. Just about some thoughts. So I thought it would be a good idea to capture a usual day.

I woke up at 6:30am without an alarm. I stayed in bed for a while and read a The Path of Least Resistance. Then I got up, did my usual morning stuff (washing, changing clothes, oil pulling, drinking apple cider vinegar, making cistus tea, programming my subconscious mind, running around in the garden), and started programming for about 1.5 hours. I worked on reading an JSON string and to add all the data into my database. Later I worked on receiving this string from the server.

At around 10am I went into the city to pick up two books that I have ordered - The Wheel of Time by Carlos Castanada and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which both are in German. Then I did some gardening and then I had to pick up my sister from school.

Then I ate lunch and watched the rest from Leo's video about Why People are Crazy. I liked it. I ate much more than I needed, as usual. Then I wanted to read a bit, but I felt like I couldn't concentrate properly. So I did some tasks that didn't needed much concentration. I looked on websites from banks, because I finally want to get this bank account.

Then I skyped with @Gabriel Antonio. Then I meditated for 30 minutes. I now want to try out doing two 30 minute meditation sessions instead of a big one. I want to boost my mindfulness. Then I read The Book of Not Knowing. I felt like I really go some ideas from Ralston. We live purely in a conceptual world. How the tell can I know anything. I don't know where this sense of self comes from. Its just made up...

Then I programmed a bit, snacked a bit, ate dinner, did some household stuff, and now I am standing here in front of my computer and write this stuff. It has been a good day. Better than the days before. I was not super happy, but at least I had no much suffering or negative emotions.

[JKG]

Independence

What I need the most is independence. Dependence on my family is limiting the most at the moment. So my number one goal for the next years should be reaching independence from my family. I want to be in a position where they have no influence on my life anymore if I don't want it. I want to be able to do whatever I want without them being able to limit me - "physically" and mentally.

The frustrating thing about this is that its only possible in a few years time. I firstly need the money to pay all the stuff for myself. And then I need to move out. After my bachelors degree in 3 years I could get a job. But then a masters degree would be harder. But while doing a potential PhD I could earn money. Well, I don't want to look to much into the future. Lets focus on the next 3 years first.

While studying I could take a part time job at the university. They often have some of those jobs for students. Or I could be a freelancer and provide some of my programming skills. Or I'll take a real part time job while being a part time student. But I would prefer the freelance option. Or I could apply for a scholarship if my grades are good. Or I could take a German financial helping system for students, but this amount of money would not be so much because the amount gets calculated through the income from the parents. 

Another thing I could do is to study for one or two semesters in a different country.

But even after the 3 years its likely that I will stay stuck here at home for another 2 years in the masters degree. To prevent that I could say to my parents that I want to study in a different city, because there are more possibilities for my interests... Or even making the master in a different country.

Lets make the goal here: I want to be independent from my family in three years (after my bachelors degree). I will reach this through freelance work, scholarships, and studying abroad.

[JKG]

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are a much more efficient medium of gaining knowledge. I have found the audiobook from So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport on YouTube. I have started listening to it today while eating lunch, stretching and cooking. Now I have already listened to two hours. That is almost one third of the book! I will probably not remember everything, but I can listen to it again and again. And I guess I remember more from listening than from reading.

I need to get this audible account!

[JKG]

Life Purpose

I start to like working on my app more and more. I understand more and more about android stuff.

Today I have been able to connect the phone with the server and receive a JSON string from there. And I have written a lot of code to read the strings and add the data to my database a few days ago. I have put the pieces together and it actually works really well!!!

A few days ago I got the idea that I could make money with this app at some point. I could sell it to schools, which then provide access to all the students. They could import all the vocabulary from the books they use. I could take each month 50 or 100€ from the school for providing them the app and the server stuff. And then i could go to more schools, and then at some point I could make a living from this app.

I was reading a section from The Path of Least Resistance today and he talked about not limiting oneself with ones vision. I immediately recognized that I limited myself. I said that I would just finish the app so that my sister could use it.

But making money with the app is a good step to independence. It will be scary to convince the school people and selling it. But what about my bigger visions? If I am not able to speak to teachers or directors, how could I make a own business...

Now I am much more motivated to make my app better. I see so many things that I could improve. I also need to make the performance better, clean up the code (its quite messy), comment all the stuff... Then I need a nice website...

But a bigger problem could be that the app is only available for android. But there are also students with apple. That means that I might have to learn iOS app development too, which is completely different, and even with a different programming language - I don't even know which one. And I don't have an apple device...

The best way to learn programming at the moment is by doing! Learning by doing.

Now I am also more inspired to become better at programming because of So Good They Can't Ignore You. Today I have programmed for 5 hours. And it was good.

[JKG]

Deliberate Practice

Yesterday I have listened So Good They Can't Ignore You where he talks about deliberate practice. Leo talked about this concept too in the LPC, but this book made it clear to me again. I have to practice deliberately to constantly improve my programming skill. I have to practice so that I just am outside of my comfort zone. Chess players don't just play chess, they also study stuff from chess players. Transfered to programming this would mean: programmers don't just program all the time, programmers also have to practice to improve their skills.

Programming itself will improve my skill. But sometimes working just on the project becomes repetitive. Its not always that challenging. For example I am already comfortable now with designing the layout of an activity (one window in an app) and to make the objects inside of the activity act a certain way. Or I can query stuff from the sqlite database easily.

But I have problems with some parts of my app development, which I should practice:

• unit testing with Mockito, Espresso... - I hate it
• clean architecture
• design patterns
• making my code understandable for others
• communicating with a server

I am also very familiar with Java now after working with it for multiple years. But I still don't know everything about it. I have seen some weird code stuff, that I just have copied, but I have no idea what I am doing there. It something about generic variables. Or working with exceptions. Or stuff with these <bla> things. Or these @Override things... There is still stuff that I can learn about Java.

I also have researched a bit about deliberate practice for computer programmers.

• understanding ones mistakes, archiving them to avoid them in the future
• competitive programming
• applying best practices (understandable code)
• understanding code from more experienced programmers and learning from it

And of course learning a new programming language will also get me outside of my programming comfort zone. Today I have studied a bit Ruby and tried to write a little tic tac toe game. At some point I was so frustrated because I just couldn't figure it out how to do it in Ruby. In Java I directly would have known how to do it. Happily my father could help me.

"Learning by doing" is still one of the best ways for me to improve my skills. But shouldn't just work on my project and make it more complex to challenge me. I should also try to improve my skills with improving my language skills, patterns... Maybe one hour each day.

[JKG]

Computer Time

If I want to become a world class programmer I have to spend a lot of time in front of the computer. But I cannot handle this so well. Today I spend about 8 hours in front of the computer and I feel that the tics become stronger slowly and that I should turn it off. Therefore I should minimize the time that I spend in front of the computer while I am not working.

That means that I should not be so much on the forum. I should not watch many videos. I should not be on the computer while eating... I should rather spend my non-work-time outside, because I feel like nature relaxes me more. I also don't have to watch videos. I could listen to audiobooks - I love that.

[JKG]

So Good They Can't Ignore You

Today I have been listening a lot to my audiobook. Its so good, you shouldn't ignore it . I listened to it while running, while eating lunch, while cooking, while eating dinner... Probably a little bit too much. I probably cannot remember all the juicy details at once, but I will relisten to it a lot of times.

It made me really inspired today. It makes me so motivated to build up my career capital, to do a lot of deliberate practice... It makes the process of pursuing my life purpose more practical. Through the Life Purpose Course it seems to me like the process gets as follows: decide on what you want. Then build up your skills. Make small bets. Build a business... Yeah, this seems okay, but what do I actually want? What kind of business should I grow? Do I even need to build a business? What?? This all seems way to complicated.

Now I have a slight different attitude. First things first. Build a tone of career capital. And get to the cutting edge of your field. Literally become world class and spent 10,000 doing your work. And build up your skills through deliberate practice - something that challenges you, is outside of your comfort zone and builds up your skills a lot.
Then with enough career capital you will be able to gain more control over your working life. Its not bad to be employed and work for someone else. When your skill set is so valuable, you will be able to gain more control and your employers will permit it. And at some point you will be able to move your work more in the direction of what matters to you.
The next aspect he mentions is a mission - or the impact you want to have. For me this is "creating technology that advances consciousness." Its pretty vague and I have no idea of how to accomplish this, and even if its possible. What Cal Newport says is that the mission will develop with the time. When you are not at the cutting edge of your field yet, its hard to see what is worthwhile and possible to create, and that has the impact that you want.
These are good news for me. I don't have to know yet which technologies I want to create. I rather just should build up my skills to create such technologies in the future. The opportunities will arise along the way.

 

My App

I have been having a very interesting conversation yesterday with @Dragallur. He gave me a lot of ideas for my vocabulary trainer app. With these ideas I could now build a pretty good business model which could earn me money in one or two years. This would contribute very well with my goal of financial independence.

But I don't know yet whether I really want to to this. Is Android App development really the thing that I want to do? Web development with Ruby on Rails would be another part of this big big project. I don't know. I will firsty finish the first version of this app and website. And this will still take me another one or two months. (Its funny that I said at the beginning that it would probably take me just one month.) After the first version I would like to do something else. Maybe dabbling around a bit with Ruby and Rails. I I jump to Python and finally do artificial intelligence stuff.

Then I might want to compare which I liked more. App development or AI. But what concerns me is that if I would chose the App, I would primarily do it just for the money and for the seak of financial independence. But I've heard self help gurus saying that its not the best idea to start a project for the seak of money. Well, its not just the money, I also would build my skills with it a lot. But wouldn't my potential AI skils be more valuable in the long run? But on the other hand, financial independence is my number one goal for the next three years! My mind jumps back and forth between these two possibilities. Let it do its thing J, and concentrate on building your skills.

 

Excitement

At the moment I am also very excited of finally becoming a university student. At the end of next week I am officially no longer a high school student. And the week after that I can apply for university. Such exciting perspectives. I am excited of finally learning all the stuff about computer science. Now I already really enjoy that what I am doing is more challenging that school stuff. School stuff was just so easy, mostly not interesting, and boring. The stuff that I learn now on the other hand is highly practical, can enable me to build the life that I want, and is interesting.

My current daily routine might not seem very exciting from the outside - like @Mango1998 pointed out to me privately. But I am intrinsically motivated and have a huge vision. Almost everything that I am currently doing is contributing to my future vision.

My current work that I am doing - programming - might also not seem so exciting. I am sitting there, writing, google-ing for solutions to problems, reading tutorials. My emotions are also not that positive all the time. But there is still this slight emotion underneath all the time, which comes from doing something challenging. Right now on retrospect it seems like I am in a flow state sometimes.

I am also reading The Path of Least Resistance - like already mentioned several times. At the moment Robert Fritz talks about the creative process itself. In the phase of Germination (the start where you build up your vision and slowly start to take action), in which I am now, is a lot of energy building up. Its exciting, yes! Then the phase of Assimilation comes, when you work on building your vision. There this thrill of the initial energy is gone. But there comes a different kind of energy. You build momentum, and embody the vision. And then the phase of completion comes. And what I have realized that this is the most important phase. Why are you even doing all the work in the first two phases, if you are not finishing your projects? I have seen in my past that I am not finishing much. Most of my programming projects I have quited because it became to complex. But I need to master this phase too. This insight made me continuing with my vocabulary trainer app at days where it was not very nice and rather frustrating. I want to finish it!

 

I am also reading The Book of Not Knowing. (Wow, my beginning sentences are so creative!) I see that I have missed a lot while reading it the first time. Its more challenging, and I am making a lot of notes. I like the stuff that he talks about: self, being, interpretations, emotions, thoughts, concepts... A lof of stuff is there for contemplation purposes. But somehow I am too lazy to contemplate that yet. We'll see.

These all are the main thoughts that I am having at the moment. There are also some rather personal thoughts, but - like I mentioned - I don't want to get too private here anymore.  

 

[JKG]

Those nights when you dream about programming...

[JKG]

Bad news. I cannot attend the vipassana retreat. At the same time a maths pre course at university begins. If I would attend the retreat I would miss a whole week. And this course is important for the beginning of my studies, especially because of finding friends there.

I could see this in two ways. Firstly I could be happy because I have a problem less that I would have to tell my parents about. Otherwise I am now less likely to meet my goal of two retreats in a year.

Maybe I will do something like a solo retreat. I'll see.

[JKG]

Review of the first half of 2017

Wow, 6 months are already over. Sometimes much has happened, sometimes almost nothing. Some failures, some successes. 2017 is and will be a year of change. The completion of my school chapter in life, and the beginning of my university (and adulthood?) chapter in life. Now comes a summary of some of my thoughts and stuff that happened:

School

• The last weeks of school were strange. It felt weird to not have to spend so much time there, but now I am used to it.
• I have prepared a lot for the final exams. It was quite stressful to study for history. But I got really great result - better than I have ever imagined. I even got a price for being the best student in chemistry.
• And now everything is finally and officially over. I have got my certificate and have no school obligations anymore. I will not see these people probably in a very long time or for forever. Some I will miss.

Life Purpose

• I went through the LPC a bit again and now have a compelling life purpose statement: "I understand systems and develop solution processes to create technology that advances consciousness."
• I have started working on an vocabulary training app. Its fun and I have a vision of making money with it. It might become a very big project.

Books

• I have read quite a few books:
  • Radical Honesty
  • The Happiness Hypothesis
  • Our Inner Ape
  • Taming your Gremlin
  • Loving What Is
  • The Path of Least Resistance
• And I have listened to two audiobooks in a very short time:
  • So good they can't ignore you
  • Deep Work
• The books are great but I have learned that its much more important to use the information and revise it. Otherwise nothing will stick and reading the book was probably a waste of time and money. I should therefore focus more on revising and implementing the information.

Freedom

• I have gained a little bit more freedom
  • Driver License
  • Own car
  • turning 18
  • finishing school

Habits Transformation

• At the beginning of the year I have started a new journal, entirely dedicated to journaling my process with changing my habits.
• My biggest bad habit is overeating. I have tried to change this habit. I have had a few successes. I eat more raw stuff now. But I still have big problems with eating less.
• I have tried to change to many habits at a time and have forget the rule of changing only one habit at a time. I now should focus only on the eating habit.
• And I also forgot the principle of 100% Commitment, especially in regards to the eating habit. I made too often too many excuses and therefore made it not stick.

Failures

• I've had quite a few things that I wanted to do this year. But all didn't work out.
  • Gap year wwoofing
  • Vipassana Retreat
  • Meeting @Dragallur again and visiting him. 

Other Stuff

• I decided on what I want to study in university: computer science major and electrical engineering minor.
• I meditate less. Gaining independence from my family is the priority now.
• I gained more openmindedness through learning about conspiracy theories.
• I have started skyping with some people.

[JKG]

Computer Science is called "Informatik" in German, and "Informatik" is composed of the two words "Informationen" (information) and "Automatik" (automatic). Therefore computer science is the science of processing information automatically. Oh, this is just the perfect domain for me. I love it to think about ways to process information to get certain results.

For example when I got my running watch a few years ago, while I was running I thought about how the watch is processing the information. Where does it get the information from? Which calculation steps are needed in the code? How accurate is the data? In which intervals get the data updated on the screen? Which screen is using the least power? Which information need to be processed in the background?

Programming is like the perfect job for me. It gives me fulfillment on the inside. But on the other hand being in front of the computer for so long is causing me tics. And that is something I really dislike.

[JKG]

My App

I can happily announce that I am almost done with the first version of my app. I've said "almost" because I still have to write some stuff for the synchronization between the app and the server, and I don't know yet how the data will look like. The performance of the app on older phones is probably also not great because a lot of unnecessary stuff gets calculated too often. And the app is not convertible with older api versions. So I have still to clean up the code quite a bit. But I will figure that out a later. And that won't take so long.

So tomorrow I will start to only concentrate on the server part of this project. I will learn more Ruby on Rails, Ruby, HTML, CSS... This will take some time.

By the way, I have found something very funny:

• http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&total=1&idx=0&textlen=32&client=tw-ob&q=its+infinite+its+absolutely+infinite+you+dont+understand&tl=en-us
• http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&total=1&idx=0&textlen=32&client=tw-ob&q=hey+this+is+leo+from+actualized+dot+org&tl=en-us
• http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&total=1&idx=0&textlen=32&client=tw-ob&q=text+to+speech+from+google+is+cool&tl=en-us
• http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&total=1&idx=0&textlen=32&client=tw-ob&q=ich+kann+hier+sogar+etwas+deutsches+eingeben+und+keiner+versteht+es&tl=de

I have used this "text to speech" thing from google for my app. So I can easily let the app read the vocabulary.

Edited July 8, 2017 by JKG

[JKG]

Summary of this week

I wasted a lot of time. I almost didn't meditate at all. I was almost totally unproductive. I was lazy. My sleeping pattern became very bad. All of my good habits fell apart...

What was the trigger? Fiction audiobooks. Last Sunday or Monday my father recommended me a good audiobook (about psychopaths, 7 hours long). On Tuesday I was finished with it. It was addictive. While I was listening I did often useless stuff like solving sudokus or playing little computer games like mahjongg.

And after I finished that audiobook I started another one (about different families in the first world war, 37 hours long). That was a mistake. It was also very good and addictive. But I made a worse mistake. I got the idea that I could play Minecraft. I was terribly addictive to this game when I was 11 to 14 years old. This addiction took the me again. So I spend almost all my days for the rest of the week playing minecraft and listening to this audiobook.

Additionally I got a little bit sick. I got a sick throat, mucous in my nose... a normal cold. I felt week, which enhanced my desire to do nothing productive at all.

It is okay that I had this backlash. It was like homeostasis wanted to go back into my early teenage years. I was very low conscious. It is just important that I don't get stuck in this state again. One week wasted is okay, but not multiple weeks.

Tomorrow I want to get back to my normal days, slowly. Minecraft and the audiobook is only allowed in the evening.

[JKG]

Do Less

I want to accomplish many things at the same time. Many habits, many goals... But all the time I just see that this strategy does not work.

I will only concentrate on one habit. One! And then stick to it. -> Eating only lunch and dinner, and nothing in between.

I will only concentrate on one goal. -> Developing 3 programs.

And only one side goal (when I don't want to work on my main goal anymore). -> studying Peter Ralston's books.

Nothing more.

I want to accomplish more stuff in this time. But getting these goals done is better than no accomplishments at all.

[Gabriel Antonio]

@JKGrelax =) 

try finding a local community to practice yoga or meditation. i feel like you need the presence of other real human beings.

remember, there is nothing to achieve hehe =) the sooner you realize that, the sooner results will pour in.

i love you <3

it is ok to rest

 

[JKG]

This week has been better than last week. I have played less video games, which is good, but still it was quite some time. I also continued listening to the audiobooks. And happily I have now finished this series of books, and I will not begin another fiction audiobook in a while. And the good thing about the game Minecraft is, that it becomes boring after you have played in one world for some time. So now I have no desire to play it anymore. I will delete the game again completely from my computer.

I have been programming more again. Now I am building the website. I enjoy it. It is fun to do the design part. I am using a framework which makes it easy to build nice websites despite no experience and talent with design stuff. And I start to like the server framework - Ruby on Rails. In my experience now I can say that the beginning of learning to use a new tool is the worst. But after this initial phase I enjoy using the tool.
And example would be android development. A few days ago I just developed a little app that my father needed. In the night I just started developing it because I just wanted to do it. And it didn't take much time.

Another point is meditation. In the last two weeks I didn't meditate properly at all. On some occasions I meditated for 30 minutes, but it was very shallow. I lost the momentum. Now I try to gain momentum again with 30 minutes of mindfulness meditation.

I have been dabbling around with many books in the near past. Well, I am not motivated to continue reading them. There are even many books that I have not started yet in my bookshelf. There will come a time to read them - but not now.
Last week I have bought two new books. One is about the power of geography. I don't know why, but at the moment I want to read this book more than the others. I am not interested in politics in the news at all. I rather like it to understand the bigger picture of politics which I might learn in this book. I guess this is also what I like about history.
The second book is about shadow work / inner child work. And at the moment I feel like much of this shadow stuff is affecting me in negative ways.

[JKG]

New Long-term Life Strategy

My goal/strategic intent is it to be able to dedicate most of my life to spirituality and the pursuit of enlightenment. I envision something like living in a small minimalistic flat in the near of nature. I work as a freelance programmer at home for about 4 hours a day. Or a passive income would be nice too.
Otherwise I have dealt with all of the areas of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I have no big lack in any area.

I would like to meet this goal a the end of my twenties. Then I still have a lot of time left for spirituality.

I still want to make some spiritual progress in the mean time. In the next months I want to build up my mindfulness and concentration ability. I have seen so often that I have just "wasted" my time meditating - I tried to get deeper but was just so distracted by monkey mind... So I guess 30 minutes of mindfulness meditation will be fine.

Each year I would like to deal with one bigger aspect of life with which I struggle. For the rest of this year it will be my fucking eating habit. 2018 maybe finding a new good friend in my near with whom I can speak about everything very honestly. Every year just one major goal. Reaching one goal is better than reaching none of many goals.

And the next five years will be also dedicated to the mastery of computer science. I will be doing a lot of deliberate practice and building career capital, so that I can "retire" at the end of my twenties.