COMING BACK TO LIFE

“You must arrange your life so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God”. - Dallas Willard

(THE JOURNEY SO FAR)
Burnout, the existential exhaustion, I would call that phenomenon that consumes a person at a physical, emotional and spiritual level altogether. It’s that experience where one feels out of control, unable to go through reality, the world is seen through scarcity lenses, everything feels tiring, relationships feel numb, life seems meaningless, and the sky is always gray.
It’s your soul pouring out into the various facets of life, from relationships to work, without being replenished, to a point of consuming itself.

Burnout, a rising epidemic, stems from a series of societal, cultural, and spiritual struggles that infect the workplace, our inner narratives of self value and the good life, our relationship with our body, and our lifestyle. The major causes I’ve grouped are the following:
(a) A work/life environment of high stress, low control and low reward
(b) A sense of value and meaning misalignment, in life or workplace, and a deep staggering mismatch between expectation and reality
(c) A lack of holistic rest, true sense of life community, relentless hurt and emotional distress.

Burnout, the spiritual desolation, threatens are very soul. Sin, disconnects from God and who one wants to be. Yet, disappointment too, in prayer, in the efforts one poured for church, hurt from the community, that too can lead to a spiritual exhaustion. This already complex problems aggravates as the prescribed source of life, God, can become the very source of consumption.

My arrival toward burnout has been quite long. I’ve wrestled with sleep issues for two years, developing chronic insomnia. I was experiencing a background mental and emotional distress, as to prevent me from truly enjoying life, due to scholastic dissatisfaction, deep relational hurt, and self destructive sin. I tried to compensate by pursuing an excessive amount of endeavors all balanced on a very thin point equilibrium, for which, if one thing went wrong, the rest would have collapsed. So it did. It all culminated during the early winter, as I experienced a deep sense of meaninglessness, cynicism, disconnection, pain, resentment, and exhaustion, unable to bear life anymore.

(THE JOURNEY AHEAD)

Many months have passed since the event just described. Each week since is a story of its own. The narration that I am going to propose now appears majorly different from what I would have written in the midst of those very events. All the emotions, the recurring thoughts, the minuscule issues, the small victories, or the peculiar instances and moments have fled my memory. What was once a painting rich in color and detail now is a blurry picture. Thus, as you will read my words, you will discern a certain optimistic and victorious tone which reflects the state of being in which I abide currently, without being able to capture the pain and struggle, surprise and relief that I’ve lived in the past months, or not to the same degree. Furthermore, given the amplitude of time that has passed, indeed almost half a year, I’m bound to shrink my summaries substantially.

So, December came. I remember feeling the suffocation of life. Barely going through the days. But Christmas was near. Rest, family, food, nostalgia, coziness. My brother too was there to accompany me through my pain, and distract me with long hours spent in front of the PlayStation as we did when younger.
This beautiful celebration paved the way for a long awaited event, a retreat amongst young Christians during the New Year’s festivity. Those 6 days were some of the most transformative and healing of my life.
The event was a huge success. Given my role as a chef and an organizer I felt so accomplished. I was immersed in love and joy. True connection and friendship was presented to me way beyond my expectations, being surrounded by people who truly cared for me. At lot of conversations brought a deep healing to my heart. The fruit of my hard labor was plentiful and well appreciated. Indeed, the retreat served as a perfect antidote to my burnout environment. What I poured out was poured back in with greater magnitude and a few bleeding wounds were at least momentarily patched up. I was coming back to life.

Although my soul kindled once more, my home environment that led to my burnout in the first place awaited me maliciously. Furthermore, the swift change of life giving environment to a burnout promoting one, caused an emotional whiplash that greatly exacerbated my vulnerability. The emotional distress, the isolation, the insecurities, the reward mismatch, the insomnia, the unrelenting hurt, the sense of a lack of meaning lurked in my room with vicious intent. They lurked but did not conquer. They won some battles, but were defeated in the war. They wounded, but didn’t kill, and eventually I was still able to rise in full health.

The process of healing has not been a simple terrain to navigate. Indeed, I’ve found there to be many stages, each with its own necessities and struggles. The passage between these is non linear too. I fear that attempting to summarize, categorize, or build a model would be a waste of time, as individual experiences often break general patterns. Hence, here I describe merely the heart posture that I embraced to heal:

Simplicity.
I’ve kept my life simple. Lowered my expectations for existence, for how much joy I’m able to experience, for the amount of productivity and efficiency I am able to achieve, for being there for others. I tried to delight in the small things, say no more often, and focus on the basics of what I truly need. From simplicity I’ve slowly moved to complexity, rebuilding my confidence to thrivingly exist in the world.
Patience.
For my own person, I was required to learn to accept my stormy emotions, my sick mind, my aching soul, without letting it rule me. Some days I felt hopeless, waiting paralyzed for a savior. On other days, I thought I had conquered my disease, just to be captured by the same existential malaise yet again. I had to learn how to handle and push through panic attacks, constant fatigue, sleepless nights, exams’ stress, isolation and that state of mere seemingly hopeless survival. Patience while withstanding all these trials, in the hope of better days.
Humility.
The hope I held onto, not with ease as the nihilistic temptation was strong, was not naïve. It was built on faith and knowledge of being able to get better through concrete and actualizable steps. With eyes of humility, accepting my fragility and brokenness, I’ve gazed upon all the main causes and symptoms of my burnout and addressed them at the root and alleviated my condition through one simple principle: pour life back in, patch the holes in my soul.
These three principles guided my healing process to coming back to life.

Now, I must admit that my first attempts to describe the process of overcoming a burnout implied a 2 page complicated and detailed description. Perhaps now I’ve gone too far on the other side of the pendulum. The few phrases I have written encapsulate a much greater depth—months of trial, error, learning, and nuance that I must omit here.". Hence, I invite anybody who is interested to send me a message, email or call me to further discuss my full ideas on burnout and its recovery. Here I’ll just leave a short summary of the actions I took that as I just said rely on the principle of pouring back in and patching up (addressing cause, alleviating symptom). The language is simple, in the hopes of being more accessible.

I called friends every other day for a few months to combat the loneliness.
I studied during the exam session with 2 friends for 40 days, building an incredible bond.
I traveled at least once a month to go on an adventure, escape Milan and “my burnt out state of being”. I sought to be filled by the beauty of the European cities and the love of my friends and family that I’m blessed to have in these places. Indeed, my travels have been a transformative and salvific part of my journey to healing, despite some accusing me of traveling too much.
I invested a lot of resources in addressing my health issues, sleep and more. Unfortunately with poor results. But not nothing. Especially sleep has become less of a problem, but thanks to the following step.
Letting go. All the resentment, rumination, pain, disappointment, defeating narratives, destructive habits, all of it I let it go. Journaling, prayer, deconstruction, and meditation were very effective tools. I’ve transformed my hurt into wisdom, my pain into a greater love, my sickness into gratitude. I transformed a burnout into a burning clean.
I set myself on the trajectory of who I want to be and the life I want to live. Although with its struggles, I’ve now reached a good degree of satisfaction. A big part has been reframing my meaning for life, which implied a heavy amount of spiritual revelation and growth, very important conversations, and learning to love life again. I’m aware that perhaps the actually interesting information is how to get to that point, especially in regards to a spiritual burnout, but due to length I can’t indulge, although the main ingredient has been intentionality, and letting the love of others be poured into you. Now I find myself at the peak of my joy, confidence, hope and love for life, people and myself.

Now, as I conclude this newsletter which has been 5 months in the making, I hardly know how to choose my last words. So much of my time I’ve thought about this. Yet, finding myself out of it, I feel so unfamiliar with it.

Burnout is such a dehumanizing experience, yet it’s so human. The world breaks down, inwardly and outwardly. Your soul is constantly bleeding out. Your heart only knows fatigue and pain. The good of life, the love of relationships, the peace of an early morning prayer, the joy of a warm supper, slip through the grasp of your fingers, fade like vapor in the wind. Your mind finds no meaning in your actions, and sees the world through the lens of cynicism and survival. The road to burnout can be hidden and easily underestimated, allowing you to drift without realizing your symptoms have reached a point where intervention is vital. The risk is even greater, as one might settle for a lesser version of existence. Burnout is more than just running out of fuel and needing a quick recharge to keep going. It’s the result of one’s own vitality being consumed out of an innermost disconnection with one’s true identity and meant life. Finally, the consequences of this existential exhaustion are great in number and effect, from relationships, to the quality of life and your own soul are at risk.
I say this with the hope that anybody who had chance to relate at any point with my stories or symptomatic descriptions, they might not settle for a mediocre version of life, or ignore the warning signs, or wander to their demise during their wilderness. So to, instead of burning out, they might burn clean, as to live and live to the full.

UPDATES ON LIFE

I must apologize again for the length of these newsletters. If you are reading these words, congratulations! You are probably among the very few who have. I apologize for publishing only now, yet to fully recover it also required momentarily letting go of my writings too. Exams, trips, friends, resting, church has taken a lot of time too. Yet, lately a lot has happened that has given me a vision for the future and this newsletter too, so strap in and get ready!

Next newsletter on consciousness, metacongition, and the weight of being unable to act upon your values: “NL 10: The mute prophet”.

Lastly, about my life. I’m happy. Very happy. I’m on my way to Brazil currently. I’ve also traveled everywhere. Check out my Instagram for that: Amsterdam, Munich, Zagreb, Oslo, Paris, Budapest and smaller trips around Italy. Aljon and Emily got married, both dear friends, whose union brings immense joy in my life. I’ve been loving school, interesting courses, plenty of new friendships, and relaxed schedule. I’ve never felt so alive, driven, and myself. This is the closest I’ve ever been to living life to the Max.

On that note, I will salute you, and wish you to live, laugh, love to the Max!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Art of Teaching - Episode 4 & 5

The Big Think - Burnout
Burnout: The Cost of Caring - Christina Maslach

Proceedings, First National Conference on Burnout, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 2-4, 1981

Burnout as breakdown of one’s existence in the world - Lisa IJzerman & Annemie Halsema

DISCOGRAPHY

Burnout - Green Day

Watch the World Burn - Hans Zimmer (Batman Dark Night)

Coming back to Life - Pink Floyd

WATCH THE WORLD BURN

“When you're burnt out, imagine yourself as a funnel. The good things—peace, love, and rest—are water; they hover momentarily when poured in abundance, but then quickly disappear. The bad things—burnout, negativity, and pain—are like flour. Flour  clogs the neck of the funnel, it piles up and goes down only if forced through .” - Me

There are so many facets to burnout, both in terms of symptoms and causes, across the manifold contexts in which it can develop. From my experience, I would synthesize it as a psycho-physical malaise characterized by an existential disconnection from the self and the world. In terms of symptoms, we can experience burnout as feeling emotionally exhausted and fragile, prone to negative rumination and to embracing a psychological view of the world defined by threat, scarcity, and cynicism; suffocated by a state of silently loud anxious instability and depression, overburdened by the weight of any activity, whilst detached from our purpose in life. This reduces any sense of personal accomplishment, productivity, and lasting satisfaction, cutting us off from enjoying any labour, endeavour, or relationship—lastly from the person we want to be and live we desire to lead.

As I attempt to describe burnout through an all-comprehensive approach, I fail to acknowledge the transitory development between these experiences and their most specific causes. Regardless of the curiosity that arises in studying the dynamic relationships between symptoms and drivers, I shall first focus strictly on the entanglement between meaning and burnout, and later on spirituality.

I would like to begin by stating the unobvious: existential exhaustion does not arise strictly from “draining overactivity,” but also from an exhausting underactivity. Indeed, doing nothing wrongly assumes rest, which will not aid the burnt-out and sickly. This observation becomes intuitive when one understands the following truth: a major source draining our vitality lies in the (perceived) lack of meaning in our lives—in other words, in the mismatch of values within the world we inhabit, whether we are keeping busy or not.

 Hence, nihilistic tendencies function both as a cause and a symptom, with a self-reinforcing dynamic. The major danger, beyond the mere feeling of a grey emptiness and a quiet despair, arises from the temptation to “go to hell with it”: the corrosive, embittering, fierce urge to abruptly leave or destroy relationships, ourselves, jobs, or the perceived sources of burnout—which we often misidentify.
The great danger is that, in this moment of outward fragility and inner torment, we steadfastly embrace maladaptive survival habits, reinforcing our suffocated state. Relationships fall apart or weaken as we can’t feel the love anymore; passions are abandoned as we go numb; and faith becomes a disappointing burden. We grow colder and more bitter. Armed with the tool of deconstruction, we may be tempted to cut the Church, our faith, and our identity off. Perhaps this is extreme, but less evident forms of these nihilistic behaviours are very common. We project our inner state outwardly, only to watch our world burn.
The juxtaposed response revolves around succumbing to an existential numbing—falling into a depressive-anxious state where the burning is experienced inwardly. Unfortunately, I’ve not delved deeply into the literature or experienced it fully myself, so pardon my incompleteness on the matter. I have encountered these phenomena through an experiential ontology and from mentions across various resources. Perhaps one day I’ll dedicate a longer newsletter to it.

Through Jungian lenses, as with certain cases of depression, burnout can be understood as the reflection of an inner misalignment with our understanding of the “(true) self in the world,” conceived as the ensemble of our roles, responsibilities, impact, values, and the narratives we believe. Therefore, the solution to many cases of burnout lies in the following: either changing a specific understanding of the world, along with its attached values and expectations, or changing one’s environment so as to bring it into alignment with those a priori expectations. In other words, rebuild your framework of meaning, or rebuild your lived framework.

Unfortunately, providing examples of my own would require too much explanation. I shall only mention, in a rather abstract manner, the makeup of this process for me. I experienced my value mismatch and sense of meaninglessness especially at school, church, and in relationships. Partly through my efforts, partly through luck, I have been able to experience university as I had always imagined it, given the reality of my context.
Regarding church and faith, I will express my thoughts below; yet it required significant reconstruction of false narratives and beliefs. Relationship-wise, I have invested a great deal of effort into building strong friendships and lowering my idealism and expectations—especially regarding giving and receiving, reciprocity, justice, and so on—while also being blessed with many people who are truly life-giving to me.
I have arranged my life to be wonderful, and I have built my wonder to be arranged by life.

Here I encourage the reader to take a moment of reflection. In the unfortunate case you are reading currently experiencing any of the phenomena listed in the previous pages, specifically to a resilient, perhaps dormant at times, sense of meaninglessness, ask yourself why. Where does it come from? Are you too fragmented in your pursuits? Are you unable to live for what you truly want? What is it that really is meaningful and worth pursuing available in your life?
Perhaps similar questions could be asked in regards to the rest of the symptoms and their relation to their causes. This process of active deconstruction and reconstruction along with the ability of letting go, serve as a foundational step for a healthy and long lasting recovery in burnout. At the end, we must truly be able to come to a place where we can say: C’est la vie, et c’est bon.

CARRY THAT WEIGHT

“You must arrange your life so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God”. - Dallas Willard

I’ve seen many people’s faith consumed by that destructive force of bitter deconstruction, arising from an unspecified—perhaps undiagnosed—spiritual exhaustion. Mine, too, has been at risk.

In the rest of this chapter, I will discuss my very personal experience of church and faith while going through burnout.

The wilderness is a natural part of the spiritual journey. The entrance, course, and exodus will appear different for each person, and I can only attest to my own experience—one mainly driven by a (perceived) failure in my efforts to serve the Kingdom, help others, grow as a person, and feel God’s love and presence.
Many people told me I wandered in these desolate lands as a consequence of being too busy. As much as I agree that this played a part, the major reason, as previously stated, stemmed from a pouring out of my vital energy without any significant refueling—or perhaps from a kind of internal bleeding. All of my Bible studies, attempts to reach out to friends, events for students and teens, my newsletter, teaching, and preaching were not too much in themselves, but they were simply not bearing any fruit. As whatever I do, I do with all of myself, when these endeavours ceased to be life-giving due to their unconsequentialness, they became consuming and draining.
This internal desolation was exacerbated by my relationship with God rapidly crumbling into sand. Sleep issues prevented me from maintaining my habitual morning spiritual time; I began to believe that, no matter my prayers or Bible reading, nothing was changing; my unrepented sin corroded my soul; the biblical promises appeared to me as mischief; my understanding of God was severely challenged; my relationship in the church felt brittle and subtle; His presence felt increasingly fleeting—until there was nothing. I felt betrayed. I felt bitter. I wanted to give up and give in. It all felt so unreal.
Beneath this creeping numbness lay perhaps the most draining leak of my spiritual vitality: unrepented ongoing sin (moral hypocrisy). Living the misalignment from the person who I desire to be, I’m called to be, and the person I am, not only embedded in my soul shame and an impostor sensation, but it consumed me and corroded my heart too. I felt so stuck, so fake, and empty.
And the worse I got the more people told me to rest in God. But, what happens if you are in desperate need of rest, but you simply cannot find it—emotionally, physically, or spiritually? What happens when the very sources of rest themselves become sources of pain, stress, and anxiety? What if God, faith, and the Church become sources of restlessness?

I’ve been given a great deal of advice—often unwanted, and most times blind or dismissive—only deepening my hurt. Hence, I hardly know how to continue this paragraph. I had intended to thoughtfully enlist good practices and advice on how to approach and emerge from this spiritual desolation. Yet, in order not to follow the same path as those who caused me such heartache, and aware that the path of healing truly depends on the individual—and that I myself have not fully healed—I will instead aspire only to share, with humility, my journey so far and my perspective on the matter.
In early November, I stopped praying—at least with faith and hope. At best, prayer became a quick errand to fit in on my way to class. I abandoned my study of Scripture, deeming it worthless to my condition, perhaps even growing bitter at its seeming inconsequence. I would still go to church, yet remained totally numb to any song or sermon. There were occasional grand moments—perhaps a conference or a special worship night—that kindled a desire to reignite my inner spirituality, but they were quickly suppressed by the winds of my exhausted spirit, leaving me to perform an externalized spirituality.
Then, at the end of December—as I will describe more fully later—something provided a decisive turning point, allowing me to begin a path of reconciliation with God. Understanding why I burned out, and identifying the causes of my spiritual desolation, granted me a sense of grace toward myself and released God from my blame. Recognizing the unreliability of my emotions helped me to wait patiently for greater clarity.
Without consistency, and while accepting how difficult it was, I began reading my Bible again. My heart longed to be transformed and healed by God, yet little seemed to change. My sleep, my anxiety, my hurt, and my sin still dominated my life. Slowly, life itself began to improve, yet my relationship with God lagged behind. 

Unfortunately, I cannot fully recall or neatly summarize these past three months. What I do know is that, through much patience, an acceptance of perplexity, vulnerably asking for love from my community, the correction of false narratives about my value and identity (from doing to being), and a reshaping of my expectations and perspective on life and the Kingdom of God —alongside a more intentional and strategic effort in my struggles—I have begun to move toward a path of healing. I am building my oasis in the wilderness.
I still wrestle with doubt and questions, disappointments and hurts. Many spiritual practices don’t come easy at all. I persist in serving the teens and students, evangelizing and so on, well aware of my ineffectiveness and pondering what to do about it. I accept I need to be poured in more than I can provide for. And so much more. Yet, feeling so alive. In love with Christianity. Clinging to God. Dreaming of becoming a greater light of this world. Indeed, I feel more mature, more loving, and yearning for God to transform my heart as the abode of love, peace and joy.  I’ve come to live a peacefully quiet restlessness.

I don’t dare give any advice, if not that to simplify where possible your life and your expectation about everything, seek awareness and understanding, equip yourself with grace externally and internally, and surround yourself with love and lifegiving sources. I shall then refer you to the Contemplative Pastor Podcast (https://www.practicingtheway.org/podcasts/the-contemplative-pastor) for further interest in the topic of burnout in ministry.
Concluding, as every week there is a development in my spiritual state, a new practice, a new challenge, a new understanding, I shall update or proceed with this part of the newsletter in an upcoming one, probably an update on life toward June. In this very moment, as I’m reigniting my spiritual fervor, I’m wrestling to make the following quotes and ideas a reality, a foundation of my vision of the world, and a principle of life:

"(Before any project, work, serving ministry, role in the church, bible study, serving the poor) You must arrange your life so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God”. - Dallas Willard
“Never sacrifice your inner spirituality, for your outer one”- Carlos Santos.
“Don’t live for God, live to be with God”- A friend
“Kill business or it will kill you”-Kevin DeYoung.
“(Thinking of High Responsibility, Low Control, Low Reward in ministry work) We are not meant to carry the burden of our work”-D. Willard.
“Take a sabbath, is about letting go of that treasured illusion of your indispensability (and the immediacy and mustness of things)” - Rich Villodas
"You can't think your way to Christlikeness"- James K. A. Smith
"The spiritual journey is not a success story. It is a series of humiliations of the false self" - Thomas Keating
"Pastoring at its core is not leadership. It is suffering love. Pain is not a bug. It is a feature of the pastoral call" - John Mark Comer
“Ministry will either burn you out or burn you clean"- John Mark Comer
“Forgive God because life isn't fair. You don't want to die an angry, bitter person. That's the only moral imperative there is.” - Andrew Greeley
“If you know you are beloved, you can live with an enormous amount of success, an enormous amount of failure without losing your identity" - Henri Nouwen
"The way of Jesus is cruciform, and that is vastly different from the up and to the right business model for growth" - Gemma Ryan
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” - Jesus, the physician of the soul

TILL I COLLAPSE

“But the boy began to enjoy the daring flight,
and forsook his guide, and drawn by desire for heaven,
soared higher.”
“The blazing sun softened the fragrant wax;
the wings slipped, and he beat the naked air.” - Ovid, Metamorphoses

Let me tell you the story of my burnout.
It all  started about a year ago. I found it increasingly difficult falling asleep. The pressure from the first exams of my master’s, combined with my emotional restlessness on various fronts, kept me awake - my brain was always thinking. At first I didn’t  take the problem too seriously, resulting in occasional and feeble attempts to “fix” it. From acupuncture to supplements and some self therapy. Even some of my newsletters were an attempt to address some core issues of my illness. However, I was never able to distinguish nor reach the root of my morbus. I lived in this state of half-misery for months, waiting, eternally waiting like the young officer in Dino Buzzati’s The Tartar’s Steppe for death to come.

My pain was partly alleviated during the last part of the summer when I embarked on a series of adventures and relaxing journeys throughout the United Kingdom with friends and my brother. That period reinvigorated my zeal for life, which had been worn down by some disappointments in school, friendships, church and romance. Riding this idealistic wave, I sought even more responsibilities and gave myself extra goals once I was back home. I blindly rode toward my demise. Soon, after recollecting all the events that I’ve described in my previous newsletters, my aspirations, my high standards, my objectives, my roles all became a burden, exacerbated by the new lack of sleep phase which had reemerged with a vengeance. I felt like my body, my heart, my mind and spirit were being consumed day by day, whether I rested, had a wonderful conversation with a friend, or succeeded in my endeavors. I would be motivated for half a day, or maybe even 1 or 2 days, but then I would collapse again. The stress I was bearing was crushing me. My sense of inadequacy overwhelmed me. I was trying to do as many things as possible, coming home tired and empty handed repeatedly. I had no control over the result of my efforts. I felt suffocated. I couldn’t hold on to joy. Life felt empty, full of threats, and gray. Any attempt to improve felt futile. I felt so disconnected from people and God. My existence felt heavy and meaningless.

My demise culminated in December, when I struggled intensely with depression, exhaustion and an overbearing sense of meaninglessness. I indulged in many maladaptive habits, scrolling constantly on Social Media, binge watching, binge eating, porn, negative rumination, self-pity, irritability, pessimistic cynicism, slippage of my spiritual practices, and more. Nothing and nobody seemed to help me. I felt like an observer, witnessing my collapse, like a derailing train, totally aware of the unsafe speed, its trajectory, the instability in the gears, and its inevitable demise, all while being unable to stop it. On the outside I put on a good face, but inside I was ravaged with existential desolation. Just getting out of bed felt like climbing a mountain. I lived my days dragging my broken soul, unable to stop, till I collapse.

I wanted to fly among the stars, but I flew too close to the sun, burning out my whole vital spirit, falling into an abyss. 

BURNOUT 

“Burnout is not a psychological problem within the individual caused by something external to the person—namely their work environment—but that burnout can be understood as an existential breakdown of one's relation to the world, which renders the person unable to engage with their environment in a meaningful way" - Lisa IJzerman, Annemie Halsema, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, Burnout as breakdown of one’s existence in the world

Before I delve into the second part of the story, (spoiler, things get better), allow me to introduce a more formal framework of the concept  of burnout and its relation to the main topics I’m discussing in my newsletters (The Good Life, Deconstruction, and Meaning).
Burnout appears to be a growing phenomenon in our society, especially among young people. Identifying the forces at play in our cultural and societal setting is no easy task, yet some underlying problems to which I have already alluded in my previous letters include hurry, busyness, self-induced and social media corroborated insurmountable expectations, lack of true rest, anxiety and stress disorders, insatiable desires; in other words, the life draining sources of our modern day. We might add, or specify, the nefarious virtues of consumerism, Social Media and the hustle culture contaminate our minds and souls, promoting perfectionism, workaholism, overstimulation, and more. Yet, these are not the foundations of the exhaustion epidemic.
Perhaps a more specific and ad hoc wording and contextualization could prove useful by borrowing from clinical research and spiritual physicians whose names and books are listed in the bibliography. By definition, burnout is the total consumption of one’s vital fuel, the extinguishing of one’s inner fire, and the exhaustion of one’s will to live. It’s the suffocation of one's ability to connect with oneself, others, and the world. It’s a state of detachment from meaning, indulgence in coping mechanisms, and just a lesser version of existence. Reorienting our focus on the quote above, burnout is the breakdown of one’s existence in the world. An existential exhaustion.

There are many paths toward this catastrophic state of living, and there are a plethora of states of burnout. Indeed, in as much as there is a general recognition of the phenomenon, both in the academic and clinical world, its precise characterization is not trivial. Yet, the most general causes, keeping in mind the uniqueness of each personal experience, from the research I’ve done, seem to be:
(a) High stress, Low Control, Low Reward work environment;
(b) Increase in workload - value mismatch - crippled sense of reward;
(c) A felt sense of isolation and lack of support;
(d) Undealt with, acute or chronic, stressful and discombobulating events;
(e) lack of access to holistic rest.

To better understand this inchoate and vague list, I will give a personal illustration , but first let’s look at those who are most at risk of experiencing this existential exhaustion: caregivers, social workers, emergency responders, teachers, and project managers. You might recognize a pattern within these roles from which one can come to the conclusion that burnout is the disease of those who care. Indeed, the main instigator of this malaise - beyond the relentless workload, long and difficult hours, poor pay, often poor peer support, often difficult work relationships, being deprived of the opportunity to deal with one’s own personal life difficulties and rest at an emotional and physical level, which play a big role depending on the context- I believe rises when the sense of significance of one’s efforts plummets. It seems almost ironic since these jobs should provide a deep sense of satisfaction. An assumption founded on the premise is that one’s efforts will surely result in the betterment of the people who are being cared for. When people you are trying to save die, or the sick worsen, or the children you are educating and caring for embark on self-destructive journeys, you feel powerless, regardless of how much time, effort, and good-heartedness were invested. This can leave one with a sense of injustice, inadequacy, insecurity, anxiety, exhaustion, or insignificance,  and possibly with a hole in that little part of your soul that was poured into them, only to be ruptured and snatched away.
This phenomenon, which I’ve described here to an extreme, by itself is not sufficient, but when coupled with an incapacity to recover, the primary cause of burnout abides in the “High Stress, Low Control, Low Reward” environment, where the first component impedes rest and tires the body and mind, and where the lack of control and reward drains the heart. Parallel lays the sense of a value mismatch from what the expectation of work, or just life, and what it actually is, in a forced and draining context. To summarize, burnout is experienced when we pour out our vital energy without our soul to be replenished; nonetheless if you are a healthcare provider or a teaching professional, or a naive 23 year old maximalist, or anybody else whose soul has been fragmented and consumed.

Allow me to illustrate through my personal story. During the latter semester the workload from my nuclear engineering studies grew intensely. The challenging subjects and projects left  me with a sense of inadequacy, especially next to my superiorly successful classmates. I became insecure, and increasingly stressed from my sense of perfectionism. Moreover, I lacked a feeling of value in what I was doing. It was as if I wasn’t doing  what I had signed up for and it all felt somewhat meaningless. All the time I was investing, along with money and energy, seemed like vapor in the wind, bringing futile results. I felt this in every area of my life: school, romantic attempts, sports, church, and also this newsletter.
To exacerbate this feeling, while I actually have an abundance of friends, although most are scattered around the world, I felt lonely. I lacked a brotherhood or a tribe with whom to live life daily and  work toward something together. Lastly, life threw me some punches from which I haven’t quite recovered ( again, see my previous newsletters), perhaps thinking that I had, which crippled my sense of joy and spark of life. I was carrying an invisible burden, which felt like chains that dug into my flesh. My soul felt porous and brittle.
I should also add that I was sleeping very little, partly tormented by what  I listed above, partly due to being a professional overthinker and ruminator. This issue made me much more inclined and sensitive to the symptoms of burnout, leading to a very severe case.

The road to burnout isn’t linear; indeed, many factors are interconnected with others in a series of positive feedback loops. If you are stressed, you are less likely to sleep, which makes you less emotionally available and causes you to see the world through scarcity lenses, hence feeling little love from others and even more stressed, less productive, and detached from a sense of reward, and then you cycle back, adding to the eventual contributors. Understanding the symptoms are of utmost importance as I’m going to depict in the next chapter, otherwise you might embark, like me, on infernal circles, ringing you increasingly closer to the cold, dark, desolate pit of Cocytus.

Enemies to lovers

“I dance among skeletons. I swirl around them with pride, I jump above their skulls as if I had no body of my own, I take their hands and hips and throw them around. I dance to this cacophonous composition of death and life with melancholic euphoria. I twirl in an ecstatic crescendo, exploding  as I stomp and stumble on the bones. I fall to the rhythm of the cello as high as I flew to the symphony of the violins. I keep dancing in this graveyard of memories and regrets, tears and despair, nostalgia of the lost and longing for the past. I spring forward  with light and smile at brief instances of joy, to then capitulate again  into my  dark ossuary. My formless body tip toes in the empty white cage, dancing on the bones of my old self.” - Poems from a Broken heart

I turned 23 today (this section and the newsletter that follows  were written on the second of November, the rest took a while between writing, editing and discarding). I am not the man I wish to be. I see  my life like a dance among the skeletons of the men I once was. I move  my feet to the rhythm of a dichotomy:  the longing for an unreachable version of my past self, full  of vitality, and falling all too easily into my old self, of mayhem. I am coming to the realization, in a more felt way, rather than mere intellectual understanding, of the transitory nature of life. I am experiencing the disillusionment of my youthful aspirations and dreams. An intense nostalgia has emerged from/ or has been embedded in my heart. Degenerative habits, crippling mental narratives, destructive desires thought once dead, crawl in and out of my life. Such are my brittle bones.

VALSE DE L’ADIEU

"Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice or ashes." - Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

At the beginning of the semester in September I started my last year of masters, my conclusive year of studies. A rather scary thought. I am not forever 20, with years ahead of me before I start working and am an actual adult. At the same time, I’ve worked so hard. I’ve spent countless hours  dedicated  to studying, serving my church in many capacities. I at times wish I had a bit more fun and allowed myself to be youthful and insouciant. 

Juxtaposed resides another deep dissatisfaction in my heart. In full awareness of my graceless crushing expectations, I can’t prevent myself from gazing at my sacrifice, at all that life, that I gave away for my many pursuits, to then be possessed by a spirit of disappointment. My efforts bear so little fruit, the return of my labor is little. It feels all too vain. From my academic endeavors, to my spiritual sowing and watering, to my physical training, and to this very newsletter. Perhaps from an external glance laudable, but from the eyes of its own maker, no content is there to be found. Never feel enough.

My grandma passed away in September. It was an expected and almost welcomed death as her suffering had burdened her for years. We had a complicated relationship, but I still loved her. My heart cries remembering her radiant smile and bronze skin as we bathed in the sea during the summer. Now both my grandmas are dead. They are not coming back. I miss them. They remain a reminder of our mortality. A thought exacerbated recently between a weeklong trip to Oslo, both my parents going to the ER, and sent home as if crippled and barely capable of moving. My dad’s misfortune frightened my entire being. In many moments I thought his soul could  leave his body sooner rather than later (after a month and a half of fighting he is finally much better).

It’s been quite some time since I’ve pursued a romantic relationship, or since I’ve gone on a date or even been genuinely interested in somebody. This all too quiet peace is disturbed by all the romantic residue I need to deal with. Regret and nostalgia hover in my mind, as I look back at the moments of great joy, the life giving feeling of infatuation, and ponder what could have been if I had been better, a greater man, more in control of my emotions and my tongue, if I had followed the advice I was given, if … . At times I slip into a spiral of self pity evoking a deep pain of feeling unlovable. It’s hard not to believe these voices, as I’m 23 and feel like I’ve been only trashed, exploited, discarded, and frowned upon by girls I was infatuated with, since my early youth. 

My city never felt as much like home, yet, I’ve never experienced such a strong desire to leave it. Partly because I feel there is no future for me to embrace enthusiastically, career wise, romantically or ecclesiastically. Yet, my family, closest friends, my culture, my safe place are here. Recently, a door to move to Oslo partly opened, even if as time passes by, it seems more unlikely. However, for a few weeks, I actually thought I was going to move next year to Norway for a couple of years. Now, I know I want to move, but I have no idea where to land, for what reason, with which community and when.

Lastly, I gasp as I desperately chase what the love of my closest friends, who I dare call family, once felt like. I’ve never witnessed such a sharp shift in my relational landscape. Marriage, dating, different stages of life, moving away, have destabilized the structure and experience of friendship and family in which I delighted, unconscious of its preciousness. Now their hugs aren’t as warm. Their smiles don’t  generate the same joy in my heart. Their love isn't as life-giving.

Reminiscencias

"You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on. And you cannot touch a mortal substance twice in the same state, but because of the swiftness and speed of change, it scatters and gathers, it comes and goes." - Eraklito

I don’t seek to only provide an update on my life, but I wish to attempt to grasp the opportunity to tackle two very important, seemingly unrelated, struggles rising from a nihilistic existential malaise. As described  in the previous newsletter, the main focus of the upcoming Newsletters, entitled “the quest for meaning”, will regard the struggle against the brutal appearance of life as meaningless. There are many sources that refurbish such experience, with even more interesting consequences and, hopefully, remedies. Here I present one. Twas a pair initially, yet for the sake of simplicity and length, I will split the newsletter in two. The next one will tackle the concept of akrasia, or inner dissonance. Back to now:

The transitory nature of life resides at the beginning of our journey. Anxiety, a restless unsettlement of the heart, burning regret, tearful nostalgia stir in our heart as the ground upon which our identity and meaning is founded trembles. Curiously, friends and lifestyles, dreams and places, foods and stories, looks and routines which conjure our sense of who we are and why we are. When a sudden reassessment of our source of value and meaning occurs, the inevitable perceived experience is of unsettlement, confusion and existential malaise. 

Classic examples could be, a midlife crisis or the adolescent rupture of infantile naïveté. Yet, we can group,  this name, many other phenomena, just in different intensities, such as what I’m experiencing now; for example  the end of a big project, an exam session, a relationship, or a trip. Once, we could experience the same feelings when as children we would finish saga’s like Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings (am I the only one?) …  we were so invested in the story that its end drove a swift and gentle existential malaise.

During these life transients, our whole being, in relation to all that is around us, seeks to acquire a new balance, a new story to write, from which a new sense of purpose will arise. Unfortunately, these tumultuous emotions can discombobulate us greatly, inflicting hurts that can scar, or developing coping mechanisms that cripple us, or simply dim our vital light whilst we seek a new balance, if we ever manage to not succumb to our existential malaise.

I thought of not mentioning it, but as I am about to publish this writing, I feel compelled to. Lately my relationship with God serves more as a reminiscences than this life ordering principle and a relational being present in my life. I’ve found no consolation in Him or my faith so far, just a distant bitterness and disappointment. Our relationship with the divine too mutates and our spiritual walk has its stages and transitioning wilderness moments. There is no better image to embody the existential malaise. 

I found that the emotional turbulence we experience, stirred by the transitory nature of life, is an allusion of a darker and more treacherous problem: our mortality. Ceasing to exist is quite a terrifying idea. I lack the courage to express my true thoughts, perhaps I shall attempt it in another newsletter. What I know to be true is that everything good must come to an end, so too bad. Indeed, ‘panta rei’ said the ancient Greeks, everything changes, and we will eventually die. God or no God. 

La Danse Magique 

“In life I’ve learnt that few things matter, peace, love and happiness. And we have to hold on to them, especially love, because what is life without love?” - Tristen, a dear friend

Enough of this sad melody reeking of death. Light ought to fill this inescapable ossuary. I choose strings of hope and a rhythm of cheer to accompany my next steps. Requiem chants are not a cacophony, but sounds of balance in the incomplete harmony of our lives. As I wrestle with my mortality and the very restless change of everything that I hold dear, I appeal to gratitude and love. May it revitalize my hindered spirit! 

Over the past  two months, I have struggled to embrace love for others and life itself. I’ve failed at embracing a wholehearted gratitude for the miscellaneous gifts of life, for the people near me, all whilst knowing they are a vital blessing, for the very breath that flows through my lungs. The air in the latter feels heavy and old. Breathing in a vital spirit through gratitude and love feels so difficult. Despite my shortcomings, fortune has smiled at me in many unexpected ways, providing me with many new friendships, reigniting old ones, offering momentary consolation in novel pursuits, and reminding me of the beauty of being alive.
Fortunately, in the whirlwind of contrasting emotions, patience, curiosity and gratitude rise to my aid in these moments of change. 

Learning to flow in the magical dance, in terms of acceptance of our powerlessness over the transitory nature of everything and the dynamicity of our very identity and sense of purpose, seems essential to live out a meaningful human condition.
I came to better grasp this last reflection whilst coming back from a party with a stranger, who now I can call a friend, talking about an unbelievable life experience. My takeaway from that conversation is that we can’t just “go with the flow”, we should  set aside a proper time, of quietness and reflection, in gratitude and nostalgic acceptance, to “grieve” the passage of a stage in life, relationships, and more, followed by a reassessment and a sort of initiation, a welcoming of and orientation towards the new that is to come. Doing this helps letting go of what has passed, and while orienting ourselves toward what we would like in the new that is in front of us. 

Live, laugh, love to the Max

UPDATES

Next month I will offer a reflection on the existential malaise rising from our inner dissonance.

The last week and a half of November have been truly wonderful. My brother and his girlfriend visited for Thanksgiving, infusing such laughter and love in my heart, offsetting my  struggle with many dark emotions. I also wish to salute you. I am truly grateful for your relationships.
November closed grandly, hosting some friends from Latvia, Croatia, and England whose smiles and hugs brought joy and rest to my soul. The month ended with the birthday/Thanksgiving party of my dear friend, Tristen. His words from his festive inauguration speech shall serve as the conclusion for this Newsletter: “In life I’ve learnt that few things matter, peace, love and happiness. And we have to hold on to them, especially love, because what is life without love?”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Holy Longing - Ronald Rolheiser

DISCOGRAPHY

Reminiscencias - Claudio Costantini

Valse De L’adieu - Eric Christian

Enemies to lovers - Joshua Aalampour

I WANT TO BREAK FREE

“For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.” - John Ortberg

In the previous newsletter, I discussed how we are living inhumane rhythms of life, which manifest in our busyness, hurryness and distractions, further driven by a multitude of forces, primarily a convolution of people pleasing, restless ambition, existential malaise and the narrative of our consumeristic society (that more is better). The global effect is the disruption of our spiritual life, emotional exhaustion, and physical depletion all with their multiple facets and nuances, i.e. restlessness, irritability, escapism and so forth, ultimately preventing us from being a person of love, peace and joy. The solution: simplicity, silence, rest.

Digital distractions play such a major role in this dehumanising epidemic, that I decided to dedicate an entire newsletter to the topic. Furthermore, these focus consuming forces, bridge very nicely the next big topic of this year (gotta read to the end to discover what it is!). Lastly, these recent months I’ve had on my heart to cure my unhealthy relationship on digital screens, since they have wreaked havoc in my life rather than provide value. I hope when you read this, you won’t roll your eyes and think you are being given another rant on how screens are bad for you. I encourage you to seriously reconsider your relationship with the digital, and take steps to take control over it. I know that for some what I will write is mere repetition, basic very well known knowledge, yet perhaps struggle on actually taming their screen usage. You probably have tried, like me, again and again to do something about it, but failed or didn’t get that far. I provide some practical steps at the end for this purpose, even if I too struggle to implement them. Unfortunately, I have not fully committed yet, deceiving myself that eventually better circumstances will come that will allow me to give my whole strength to this, and more, objective. This newsletter serves also for … the world… to keep  me accountable. I want to break free from the cycle. I want to have my focus again. I want to feel human and not a cyborg hybrid. I want to connect with others, my emotions, thoughts and God undisturbed. I want to live my days, few or many, with intentionality free of distraction, and full of vitality.

BRAIN STEW

“He is most free who is most master of himself.” — Seneca

Let me lay out some facts.
We are living in an attention economy. Silicon Valley capitalizes on your focus, investing billions of dollars every year in scientific research to build algorithms and features on their sites and apps that will exploit your psycho-fiscal traits to captivate your mind.
We are living in a post-modernist, post-God, liberal hedo-humanistic (humanism, man is the author of morality, which happens to be centered around pleasure), capitalistic and consumeristic (MORE IS BETTER), pueristic (wanna be young forever) society.
Give a phone, a very recent new technology that is definitely not amoral, promising wonders and miracles, hiding all the possible negative consequences, to a young naive generation and their parents and this is what happens:

• Time stolen from the important (causing procrastination, numbness)

• Disconnection from real life (disrupts attention flow with our purpose and others)

• Social crippling (our social dynamics have been damaged more than we understand)w

• Inflated desire + comparison epidemic + insecurity (r.i.p. gratitude and confidence)

• Overflow of information and false narratives (truth, or the important truth, is obsolete)

• Dependency (Without our phone we feel we can’t get out of the house)

• Promotes laziness (embrace comfort, we watch people live life rather than living it ourselves)

• Brain stew (dopamine overflow, quality and quantity focus, degenerate content, sleep deprivation)

• Discombobulation (Quiet, rest, good boredom, silence, and solitude are non existent)

The result of all of these symptoms? Mental illness proliferation, people missing out on life, relationships half lived, productivity down the drain, and so much more. I could probably write an entire newsletter on each point and more, including neuroscience, psychology and other relevant disciplines but right now, I simply want to appeal to your conscience. Maybe you have more control, but I bet you’re experiencing some of what I mentioned. Let me ask: Do you not feel human at times?

Our phones are so integrated into our daily tasks, all the time, from morning to evening. We go to bed next to it, after a conscience ‘this isn’t great for me’ scroll, and wake up checking messages or the news. We mindlessly scroll as we have breakfast. We listen to music or a podcast while we are going to work on a bus where everybody has their neck bent and ears covered. We quickly scroll through our notifications whenever we feel the slightest hint of boredom, losing the flow of whatever we were doing. We will gladly avoid any possibly awkward social interaction, like a colleague we don’t know at all, or moments of silence in a group. Then, we go home  to ‘rest’ by gazing like a zombie at a larger screen to go to bed repeating the cycle. Any glimpse of real life, like a random encounter with a friend, or a really fun party, are quickly taken away as our eyes are immersed in a sea of bright light to fill empty moments which were meant to allow us to absorb what had just happened, but we are too quickly unentertained. Instances of spiritual connection, inspiration, dreaming, good intentions, rapidly fade away to the vibration in our pocket that notifies us that we can kill our focus again. At the end, feeling more empty or captive than anything else most of the time.
Am I the only one who has experienced this? Do you not not feel human?

WHERE IS MY MIND
“This new normal of hurried digital distraction is robbing us of the ability to be present. Present to God. Present to other people. Present to all that is good, beautiful, and true in our world. Even present to our own souls.” - The Ruthless elimination of hurry by JMC

I believe that my phone has been one of the greatest instruments of havoc in my life, posing a threat to my spiritual, emotional and physical wellbeing and stability.
Let me get vulnerable.

My journey with computers and phones started when I was young, with family movie nights. I remember how much I would get invested in those movies, feeling and expressing such intense emotions, especially when the movie ended ahah. The joy of youthful creative empathetic mind… I miss it (dreamy Max emoji).
Then I encountered video games through my dad’s cell phones, PC and PlayStation (FIFA, Lego Starwars, Call of duty, Clash of Clans were my favourite). As soon as I was given my own computer and phone they took over my life. I only wanted to play these games (the amount of fights with my parents because of this… insane). On top of these, I was also very invested in cartoons like Dragon Ball, Pokémon, Phineas and Ferb, and a few programmes like Master Chef. When Social Media, such as YouTube and Instagram came along the TV became an obsolete instrument.
As my childhood wonder disappeared, my addiction to digital entertainment increased. Sleep deprivation, missed friendships, anger issues, dissatisfaction with life, bad grades came along. To my deep regret, I was also introduced to pornographic and pseudo-erotic content, which eventually became one of my worst demons. The destructive consequences of my  encounter with this monster are too many to include in this newsletter, they might find their place in another one. In short, even if now the struggle is different as I am much more in control, I still deal with unhealthy coping mechanisms, the sexualization of my brain, having my head full of disturbing images, lots of sleepless nights full of shame and regret, and much more.
Allow me to expand on one of the more lethal poisons that infected my soul: Social Media. I was too young, immature and naive when I first had access to it. My social skills and status were still developing, and in need of a lot of work, my sense of worth was too brittle, my eyes too undisciplined, my sense of purpose undefined and weak. I was full of insecurities and already partially addicted to screens. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact results of my unrestricted usage of Whatsapp, Instagram and so on, but I’m pretty sure it took away more than it gave. In the end it only provided me with easy fake connection, numbness, insecurity, laziness, hurt, dissatisfaction, addiction, … just a lesser version of life.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Our digital instruments are such a powerful tool. They have brought a lot to my life. I learned how to cook, photography, philosophy, I stay connected to my friends, I watch spectacular movies, and more — yet I find myself writing these words with a quenched soul. I can recall in my mind in a fast and erratic sequence glimpses of their destructiveness in my life. Even if things are different today, after many years of battling with these demons, I feel like I am still under their rule. Regardless of my awareness or attempts to do better. 

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
“The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.” — Seneca

The causes of our digital discombobulation are many. To our misfortune, they are decorated by a positive feedback loop, which means the cause produces an effect that only corroborates the cause to intensify the cycle. Hurry, exhaustion, early child exposure, mere bad habits, clever algorithms are some. Yet, I discern a primordial one, often alluded to but never outright declared, nevertheless of utmost importance: a disconnection from an intentional life of purpose. A crippling existential nihilistic malaise crawls into many people’s souls, suffocating their very will to live life fully, and leaving them gasping for anything that could end such atrocious pain, turning to the easiest, strongest, most numbing, fake existential comfort we have: our screens. Indeed, when we are lacking a sense of purpose, not at a cosmological level necessarily, but a daily level too (of course the former permeates the latter), the inner vacuum screams to be filled. Human kind has invented many ‘fake comforts’ (referred to means through escapist behaviour, often from a dissatisfied or painful life) or ‘fake fillers’ which will temporarily satisfy the existential vacuum, which will growl for more food like Dante’s lust wolf. Our screens are one of these. Ironically, they are the very thing that exacerbates this meaningless corroding force.

Let me be more clear, dropping the chain of fancy words and illusive images. When we don’t live our life with purpose, we live a life of pleasure and comfort. Nowadays, the easiest and most normalized way of doing things is our digital entertainment. When we don’t live a life of intention, we live a life of glittery distractions. When we don’t know what to do with our time, we turn on our screens and forget about the rest. We don’t feel the sense of urgency and gratitude for being alive and having the ability to enjoy people, art, adventure, … or whatever it is that means being fully alive to you. Instead, we binge watch, scroll and chat. Then we get overstimulated, our neurocircuitry is fried, our sleep worsens, our brain dulls, the spirit in our soul becomes a whisper not a fierce wind of vitality, and life just doesn’t look so bright and colourful anymore.
The sad thing is that it’s so hard to notice it at times because we are so used to it. We are disconnected, discombobulated and it’s so hard to get back on track. Our standard for what our life and relationships should look like is so low. Not only our focus gets crippled, but it also has been forcefully shifted on frivolous things too. Our relationship with the digital ultimately, for most of us, discombobulates our soul-focus from living a full, present, intentional life.

RESISTANCE
The cost of something is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. - Thoreau in Walden

How do we resist this powerful technology, so full of wonder and convenience, yet  seldom more giving than it is destructive?

I still want to videocall with my brother at random, instantly communicate with my friends to organize our next big event, watch free lectures on mathematics and physics, entertain myself with movies and climbing videos when I want to relax, listen to music when I’m feeling groovy, use navigation maps to go to the same places that I always forget where they are, share beautiful memories with friends and family, publish this Newsletter and much more, which wouldn’t be possible without these almost magical devices. All these things bring value to our lives and some seem almost non negotiable. But if I don’t want to be under the rule of doomscrolling, frenetic notification checking, sleep deprivation, constant distraction, pornographic and pseudo erotic stimulation, comfort induced laziness, I must be ready to make some sacrifices.

The first big step is a radical change in perspective by embracing a new philosophy that envelops technology and your time (what I’ve alluded to so far and the quote above). Next, the  philosophy must be applied by constructing rules and reasons for the usage of digital screens and - not an easy task at all - there must be accountability. Finally, and most importantly, actions need to be taken to counter the side effects of technology, so that we can live a life of intention.

Here is what I (try to) do:

Philosophy:
(The cost of something is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run)

• Technology is not neutral and it is designed to exploit my physiological mechanisms

• Most of its damage is not in the immediate consequence, but the gradual accumulative effects: the clutter is the problem

• I will only use technology meticulously, choosing only that which fosters value in my life

Rules:

• Schedule: Phone off from 20:00–8:00 & whenever I’m with people (especially at school)

• Traveling: If I can, I’ll leave my phone at home when I go to class (no music, yes, sucks, but my mind is clear), sometimes it’s boring, but prayer, reading and meditating suffice

• Instagram: 15 min per week, one day, next to a friend who can enforce it

• Videogames: only with other people (exception: Super mario bros from browser, when in the bathroom eheh)

• TV: Only with other people, I watch movies or TV series only if I really want to watch them, if they are good (not just to waste some time)

• WhatsApp: Check 3 times a day (unless I’m communicating with someone for a meeting or for organizing something), no long conversations , just quick information . Conversations take place either by phone or person [tbh this is the hardest]

• Blockers: A friend has the password of an app that helps enforce some of these rules and filter any unwanted content

Counteractions:

• Enforced time of reflection and initiation:

  • A morning prayer to connect with the purpose of the higher and the day

  • 15 min of gratitude, growth, grind evening reflection (what I’m grateful for, where I could’ve done better today, and what I want and need to do tomorrow)

  • Moments of solitude and silence weekly

• Intentional scheduling

  • My time throughout the day and week is sketched out, I have an idea of what I need and want to do for every slot of my day

  • My leisure time is very intentional. Nothing is left to chance, so as not to let boredom give way to my digital addictions. Now, I do so many cool things: learn an instrument, get my driving license, read many books, hang out a lot with friends and more.

  • I always have big projects going on to stimulate and occupy my mind (you don’t have to do what I do, but I think having big adventures or project to work on for months or a year is really important to be motivated and less easily distracted)

I’m far from perfect, but this new approach has really changed  the quality and outlook of my life. Living a life of intention has been curing the existential nihilism I alluded to in the previous newsletters and here as well that, especially us boys, feel so often. Yet, I know it’s not so easy to just make it go away. Surely, whether our digital distractions are the chicken or the egg, they play an important role feeding the disease. This  vitally corruptive force, which I have wrestled with my whole life, will be the object of the discourse in my newsletters this coming year..

Today, I feel human again.
I feel connected to others, myself and the principles I want to live by. I feel in control. I feel God. I feel focused. I feel emotions. I no longer have crippling anxieties and insecurities. I feel alive.
But, that’s only till I don’t, because I slip back into the same habits. And it sucks. When that happens, I feel languor and meaninglessness invading my soul, or I just feel yucky and discouraged by my own self sabotage. I know that whether I just doomscrolled for a few hours or worse, I must get back up, and commit again, without compromises or excuses, ask help, and once again truly seek the extraordinary sense of vitality that comes from.
There is nothing more human than that.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE NEWSLETTER

After 1 year of trial and error, trying to find my own style and process of writing, expression and presentation for this newsletter, I have finally reached great satisfaction with my result. Here is a little presentation:

It starts with a problem in my life.

I find some books on it, usually 3 or 4, and read them with the occasional auxiliary contribution of podcasts and youtube videos.

I think about it, and start writing. I bring it up in conversations with random people and wise friends to gain insights and new perspectives. Then before publishing I ask my mom to proofread it (thanks mama) to perfect my imperfect English.

Every newsletter is characterized by the same features:

Main title - The key word of the NL

Subtitle - the theme of the NL

Thumbnail - a picture that I took either while writing the NL, or from a story narrated in it

Chapter Titles - they are taken from song titles, in some way connected to what I write below them (and I report title and author at the end of the NL, as a sort of game if you got the ref.)

Quote - below every chapter I insert a quote from a book that I read for the NL that inspired or enriches the text below

Chapters - I try to make it as vulnerable and authentic as possible, ensembling personal storytelling and didactic explanation, inspiration, all meanwhile making it humorous when possible, deep, thought through, well written, relatable, and raw (which is disrupted by the need of editing) [I don’t use ChatGPT, only for quick research if I have to]

I hope this makes you appreciate these newsletters a bit more.

I would also like to add all of this content on substack, and perhaps even make some related videos on Insta.

Let me know what you think of this :)

At the beginning of September, I celebrated the 1st anniversary  of this newsletter. It’s been quite a year. I have definitely lived it to the max, having a lot of fun, traveling, delighting in many friendships, working hard, but also making many mistakes, feeling broken and hopeless, and learning to get up and keep going to become stronger, because that is what living to the max is.
I can look back and smile at my  personal growth achieved thus far,  even if unexpectedly painful and tribulated. I actually learned and am learning to live out the moral and practical implications of my newsletters. I’m very content with the amount of knowledge and wisdom I intellectually gained, and hope to integrate fully in my life. I also had the opportunity to have amazing and deep conversations with many friends and family. A big topic that emerged from these surrounded the topic of the meaninglessness of life. So, my next chapter in this journey will be the purpose, meaning and absurdity of life.

It fits very well. I started with the initiation of the endeavor (NL 1: THE PURSUIT OF THE GOOD LIFE), my attempt to grasp the meaning of ‘the good life’, to then introduce the first part of the quest: Deconstruction (NL 2: Reconstructionism). In which I described my hope to go through the abyss of deconstruction as a means to verify the worldview through which I approach the problem of the good life. In the next 4 newsletters (NL3: MORITURI, NL 4: GRATITUDE. NL 5: DESIRE, NL 6: HURRINESS) I attempted to describe the importance to conquer your focus, what you pay attention to, where your eyes gaze upon, what you value, in relation to living a prosperous life and the possible causes or conditions that promote, what I call, abrupt deconstruction. A term signifying a type of deconstruction lacking intellectual honesty or emotional stability or spiritual health for which results in leaving one’s faith hurting, damaging relationships and often embracing a not so prosperous way of life. And now, the meaninglessness of life. Focus and the latter are strictly related. Depending on what you gaze upon, your values and perspective, life can seem incredibly worth living, or not.

I alluded and mentioned this topic in my newsletters, most explicitly the last one which served as a sort of bridge. It’s quite a sensitive topic for me, but so relevant in the world, among young men and to this very journey of mine, I just have to open Pandora’s box. I’m quite uncertain where this part of my journey will bring me, but I’m sure it won’t be lacking in emotional and intellectual depth. I will walk through abysses that I’ve not explored in a long time, which mere memory glooms my heart and suffocates my heart’s smile. Hopefully, this deep dive into these cold, dark, vast waters will conclude not in my drowning in despair and anguish, but in an Enlightened serenity and permeating irradiating joy. If not out of my own strength, out of the abundant deep love of the many around me. Indeed, no matter the discovery of what crawls in the creeps of the existential abyss, the love that I know for and from my friends, family, life itself, will keep from never stopping to … 

                                                                     Live Laugh Love to the Max

DISCOGRAPHY

I want to break free - Queens 

Brain stew - Green Day

Nothing else Matters - Metallica 

Where is my mind - Pixies

Resistance - Muse

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World — Cal Newport

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry — John Mark Comer

Dopamine Nation - Anna Lembke

CAN’T STOP

‘It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it’ - Senex

It’s 5 am, on a Thursday in mid-February, I wake up sweating after a very anxious and interrupted sleep. My body feels stressed and under pressure. After a few hours of frenetic revision, I leave to take an exam, which I had studied hard for. I take the exam, but my mind is struggling to solve the complex mathematical problems. Once done, as soon as the professor gives us permission to leave, I immediately run to the airport and hop on a plane to Paris. The city of love provides me with a weekend filled with meaningful conversations, fellowship, fun and learning, but also with panic attacks, anger, insecurity, cynicism, and a feeling of exhaustion. My body feels so sick, weak, and exhausted that even as I am surrounded by many friends, I can’t feel any love, even from my closest friends. Eventually my mentor sits me down and earnestly tells me: ‘You are now suffering the consequence of a restless, hurried, overstimulated lifestyle. You need to slow down, build a habit of resting, and simplify your life. Repent and be ruthless about it’. 

Wow, that still hits me now. Just the way he said it, as I was in my pit of desperation, it touched a deep cord in my heart. It had been feeling chronically exhausted and depleted for months, with a whole series of consequences to my spiritual, relational, emotional and physical wellbeing. I went home feeling broken, craving to dwell in the arms of my parents and rest in the comfort of my abode, to just relax, and slow down. I felt connected to a higher way of seeing the world, more detached from the mundane and meaningless, embracing only the important and the good, and feeling at peace.

This sensation quickly faded as my incapacity to sleep progressed, and the busyness discombobulated me as the new semester began. All my efforts became vapor in the wind. The consequences of my hurried, over busy life were plenty: feeling like I was flirting with a burn out weekly, exhausted every other day, on the edge all the time, quick to (explosive) anger toward those closest to me, not able to be in the present, missing out on the depth of the exciting, meaningful, and joyous experiences at my disposal, and just disconnected, from myself, others and God.

I felt fragmented, in my (too) many pursuits, which had lost their meaning (this newsletter as well). I didn’t even have the space to mourn my dying grandparents. An act of love left me drained, easily leading to resentment, even feeling lonely in the midst of crowds of people who love me. In my constant inner exhaustion, I developed an addiction to many fake comforts like social media, Netflix, video games, and even worse, escapist behaviors.

In my attempt to live a full life, I was completely missing out on life to the full!

(WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO) COMPLICATED

Since the beginning of the  year, I have been discussing the theme ‘focus’. The main ideas are: (1) the quality of your life and your own self depends on what you  pay attention to AND (2) in a world of distractions and comparisons, practicing gratitude is essential, especially to prevent abrupt deconstruction’, which often comes from a dissatisfied and resentful heart (see NL4 ). 

I further explored the connection to the human condition of being desire driven beings: (1) the importance of understanding and taming the inner motions of our heart, since the root of many human problems are ´disordered desire´, which lead to a disordered life AND (2) disappointment, unmet expectations and impetuous desires without supervision can lead to an abrupt deconstruction (see NL5).

In this newsletter, I want to explore another aspect that influences our ability to focus and causes abrupt deconstruction (and one of the biggest epidemics of our times): ‘hurriness’.

If you just scratched your head in response to the final word of the previous sentence… yes, it’s not an actual word, I made it up, it’s a mix of hurry+business and it’s definitely not a cover up for the mistake that I carry from the previous newsletter.
I define it as a lifestyle of an overbusied mind, overfit schedule, not accounting the limitations of being human, in disregard of what is truly important, motivated by the underlying lie that ‘more is better’. The result of this epidemic?

Our digital lives consume our real ones, our infinite to-do lists overwhelm us. We live artificial and socially induced worries.  Our minds are crushed by inhumane expectations to keep going at a frenetic pace; moreover over-stimulation kills room for boredom and quiet. Sleep deprivation is the norm. Enslavement to entertainment and highly addictive numbing distractions is celebrated. Ultimately, we are detached from a deeper sense of life. We become spectators of the present, missing out on true connection with our loved ones, ourselves and God.

‘Hurriness’ is a cacophony for our souls.

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Let me put it in a plainer way. 

We are not meant for this pace of life. The abundance of digital distractions, ambitions one can pursue, choices in career, hobbies, and entertainment, and the enormous social ambiences we get to enjoy, are also the means through which we live such frenetic lives. The reason on the other hand resides in the worldview narrative and morality which abides in the West (and not only): More is better.

This lie inherent in our human heart has been inflated and sugar coated by the rise of consumerism. Its ramification pushes us to live insane lifestyles: the more money the better, the more events and parties the better, the more success the better, the bigger the house (or any material good) the better, the more travels the better, the more you do the better. We want to be everything, do everything, own everything and feel everything, now. Add onto this laziness, being disorganized, unaware of one’s limits and distractions. The result we live a busy, restless, hurried, overstimulated, lifestyle. 

There is always something to do, something to listen to, someone to talk to, something to watch, … there is always something so that there we have become alienated to rest, boredom, solitude, quietness, and simplicity. If not busy in things to do and take care of, we are busy in our minds, if tired physically, we are emotionally and spiritually, if not in a hurry with our agenda, we feel the hurry of life slipping though our fingers, if not … well we probably are overstimulated (digital addictions are reeeaaal), if not surviving, we might just be content with a mediocre version of life.

This hyperbolized generalization is written through the lenses of my own life, yet to some degree some of you I bet relate and resonate.

If so, allow me to introduce the symptoms of this sickness and my fight to win it. 

(I) FEEL SO NUMB

“Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil” - Carl Jung 

To better understand the symptoms I’ll introduce the root problem from another perspective at a deeper level:

1. Distraction:  At times we procrastinate, sloth around, and get distracted so easily by trivialities, digital and material consumerism. with last minute becoming the norm, our minds are very busy as well as our schedule (just with useless “scrolling”), the quality of our focus drops, and the urgent suffocates the important. Lack of discipline, disconnection with ones call in life, bad habits, materialism are at the root.

2. Pride: The big one, at least for me. In the book ‘Crazy Busy’, Kevin Deyoung explains how “The presence of extreme busyness in our lives may point to deeper problems—a pervasive  people-pleasing, restless ambition, a malaise of meaninglessness.”. Think about that. Trying to compensate for an internal void of meaning with an overfilled schedule, great pursuits and receiving admiration and appreciation from pleasing the other.

I relate so much to the previous statement. For the sake of my social status and the desire of love from others, unconsciously, I have pushed myself beyond my limits in responsibilities and giving of my time (and not only). The desire for glory, as a means of identity, respect and meaning, has pushed me to wear out my mind with quantum physics and so on (terrible choice). The existential discomfort which never leaves me I tried to suffocate with a life so full it just had to be full of meaning. All of this is exacerbated by the sense of urgency that kindles in my heart after almost dying from. 

Ironic are the consequences.

‘What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul’ (Jesus of Nazareth)

(B) Regarding the consequences or the felt effects, they’re  plentiful. I will present the list offered by John M. Comer in his best selling book ‘The ruthless Elimination of Hurry’ (which I strongly recommend): Irritability - Hypersensitivity - Restlessness - Workaholism - Emotional numbness - Out-of-order priorities - Lack of care for your body - Escapist behaviors - Slippage of spiritual disciplines - Isolation (if a few of these words resonate or spark your curiosity, ask chat GPT what the author meant for them). Personally, when I read this list my jaw dropped. So many struggles that I’ve been wrestling with for years finally found a cause.

What if I so easily blow up in front of my dad not because he is annoying or untidy (which he is both at times, but  also an incredibly good father, love you), but maybe I’m so tired and stressed that I just don’t have the ability to reasonably respond to whatever futile triviality bothers me.

What if I indulge in 3 hours of Netflix at the end of the day due to the felt exhaustion that never leaves me, unable to engage in more life giving leisure as I’m too tired.

What if the reason why I feel so disconnected from God is because for the past 3 months I’ve not sat down in tranquility without a rush to try and feel his presence and contemplate his reality. 

What if I don’t feel like I’m really living, really present, able to absorb the beauty if my life, feel the love of my friends, connect with the divine, engage in true leisure, misaligned with my true self and its values because I’m too busy, too in a hurry and too tired?

What if my worse moments as a human were caused by living in disconnection to the human sacred pace of life?

I’M SO TIRED

“Love, joy, and peace...are incompatible with hurry.” Ruthless Elimination of Hurry - JM Comer

Healing from this sickness is really difficult, especially for me as I suffer from a grave state of it.

One of the reasons why I prolonged the sending of this newsletter was my periodic relapse. Hence, you will find what I aspire to live up to, but find great difficulty being consistent about it.

The solution is not scheduling optimization, not more time in a day, nor more vacation, but slowing down, resting, simplifying our ‘every day’. 

Like when  you are playing music, too many instruments at once require great mastery that few have. If you don’t follow the tempo you miss out. If you listen to one song after the other you aren’t really able to enjoy them fully. 

Or an essay with no pauses, too many ideas, riding an overarching climax will be inaccessible to the reader.

For me this has meant a lot of sacrifice and discipline: prolonging my masters program, going to bed earlier (to wake up earlier), having a long moment of solitude and reflection in the morning welcoming God’s wisdom and spirit in my heart, getting comfortable with boredom and silence (eliminating music and podcasts), being ruthless about my digital distractions, doing less of my newsletter or other pursuits, and taking a whole day every other week of total cut off from work where I get to fully experience life through community, play, food, engaging in activities that most represent being human.

At least I try to. Failing about every other week… but when I do manage life looks different, feeling alive, tranquil, joyful, whole, grateful, l even in the midst of difficulties.

… to be continued on the relation of ‘hurriness’ and deconstruction and more practices on ‘the solution’

UPDATES

As you might have read in my last newsletter, I was very busy these months. I would love to tell you in detail all that I did and went through but I could fill an entire book. So, I’ll only share that recently life is very good, as I’m travelling, seeing friends and family in majesty of the UK.

Today I will celebrate 1 year of Life to the Max. By mid-September. Stay tuned for some big updates :)

                                             Love Laugh Live to the Max 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry - JM Comer (Out of all the books I read during this year, this has been the most transformative)

Crazy Busy - Thomas de Yung

De Brevitate Vitae -  Seneca

MUSICGRAPHY

I’m so tired - Beatles

Feel so numb - Nirvana

(Why does it have to be so) Complicated - Avrii Lagne

Can’t stop - Red Hot Chilli Peppers

If I could save time in a bottle

Greetings to all of you who dare invest your precious time reading my meek reflections on life.

Firstly, I’d like to apologize for not having published anything for the past four months. Life has been busy—very busy. My days went by fast. My weeks slipped through my hands like dry sand. I observe the grasp of my time growing tighter, shrinking. I gaze upon these grains—boring, repetitive, redundant, some ugly, stained, corrupt—but many appear like diamonds, rubies, emeralds. Yet whether a grain is blessed with beauty or reeks of a beastly ugliness, they all share the same destiny: escaping from my hand, captured by the wind of time. Most grains of sand fly away, lost forever. Yet a few, heavier ones fall nearby, so I may still contemplate their beauty. And so I smile, as the ocean breeze caresses my face, catching a glimpse of the beauty of what has been—and will never be again.

That was a weird introduction. It’s an adaptation from a poem I wrote on the shortness of life. I tried to describe how fast life passes, how I just can’t stop it. Even when I try to pause, take a deep breath, and truly appreciate the wonderful adventures I’ve been on, they still fly away. I have to squint to see those grains, but they fall amid so many others that cloud my sight. I hate this condition of mine—or perhaps I should say ours, as I believe many of us fall prey to this frustrating scheme of life.

I want to remember my days. The small moments. That really warm hug. That random message that arrived at the perfect moment. That brain spasm while eating a delicious meal. That loud laughter after a (probably not mine) joke. And the big ones too: all the emotions of an adventure, a graduation, a long-awaited retreat, a wedding. (Falling in love? Just kidding, that hasn’t happened yet.) And yet, all these memories—with their little details and vibrant emotions—are destined to merely be named, stained by the fog of our faulty brains, never to be felt again in the same way.

Despite this somewhat melancholic prelude, I’d like to share some memories from the first half of 2025—Life to the Max—the beauty and the ugly, along with some of the most important lessons learned. This is mostly for me, but maybe it’ll be fun to get a glimpse of what “Life to the Max” really looks like. :)

Beautiful that way

I started the year facing a tough exam session. I felt confident in the beginning, but after my first exam, everything went downhill—with four failures. Thankfully, I did get two perfect scores. During this time, I also began having sleep issues, which affected both my mental and physical health and kept me from performing at my best.

Meanwhile, I traveled quite a bit: Paris, Sofia, Prague (twice), Tallinn, Trieste (three times), Bardonecchia, Amsterdam, and Elba. Each trip had its own special reason—like a climbing World Cup in Prague (a dream since I started climbing), a church retreat, teaching conferences, visiting friends and family, and so on. These were all incredibly pleasant trips—enriched by new friendships, deeper connections, lots of laughter, an abundance of beauty, and, of course, delicious food. In contrast to all this goodness, the health struggles I mentioned above weighed on me emotionally and mentally.

In everyday life, some best friends moved away, new ones moved to Milan, a close friend got married, and others graduated. I endured romantic disappointments and broken friendships, but also formed new bonds and deepened others. I taught several times—sometimes even got paid, which still surprises me.

This semester I’ve taken spectacular courses like Fission Reactor Physics and Solid State Physics. I train calisthenics six times a week and climb occasionally. I delight in cooking, having friends over, going to parties, organizing events, spending time with my family, and more.

Clearly, I’ve lived a full and incredibly good year—but it hasn’t been without difficulty. I set out to grow in specific areas like communication, which has long needed my attention. My progress has been slow. I’ve often felt stuck, even witnessing firsthand the damage poor communication can cause—followed by a heavy sense of shame and regret that’s hard to shake.

Until recently, I also battled a deep sense of failure—as if most of my pursuits were failing—and felt that everything I was doing was meaningless. (Things have improved a lot.) I also have a tendency to magnify the negative instead of the positive, which made some relationship disappointments feel bigger than they were. Slowly losing my grandparents—even though we aren’t very close—still has its weight.

This is Life to the Max: a full life. Full of adventure, delicious food, amazing people, exciting sports, various endeavors, lots of learning, and lots of emotions—still untamed, often not positive, and exacerbated by my restlessness and health struggles. But looking at it all—accepting my humanity, knowing that through perseverance I will do better—I recognize that I am extraordinarily more blessed than cursed. My life is beautiful that way.

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Crucify your mind

Here are a few things I’ve learned during the first half of the year. I’ve written about most of them in my newsletters (some not yet published), but learning the lessons goes beyond writing about them. There are many, but I’ll limit myself to one takeaway per month (+ a few extra quotes for reflection):

January – “Let a single ray of sunlight fill you, and you will always find satisfaction in all circumstances.”

The ability to control our perspective, to be satisfied with small things—this is the sign of a peaceful heart. It allows us to see life’s vibrant colors, even during hard times. Easier said than done.

February – “We see reality through the lens of our brain.”

Obvious, yet rarely understood. Our brain is constantly telling us stories—about what’s happening outside and inside. Often, they’re wrong and dangerous: This comfort will ease my pain. I’m a failure because I didn’t succeed. I’ll never be loved because my crush doesn’t like me. That person is a monster ( because I’m projecting past trauma onto them). 

Be skeptical of your brain. Try to truly understand why it is telling you something- or that thing—especially through your strongest emotions and recurring thoughts.

March – “Anything you do, give it your max.” & “There is no tomorrow.”

Pun intended. We often do things halfway—because we’re lazy, distracted, or waiting for the “right” moment. We take wonderful pursuits for granted, sabotaged by our phones, poor sleep, lack of purpose, and lack of urgency. Make the most of what you’re doing now.

April – “Rest, otherwise you will only enjoy life’s zest.”

I’ve struggled with restlessness for years. My ambition, enthusiasm for life, thirst for meaning, and pride have pushed me to live life to the fullest—but sometimes beyond my limits. Learning to truly rest is helping me avoid burnout and exhaustion as a lifestyle. To fully enjoy life, rest is essential. Sounds basic, but many of us have no idea how to do it (hint: no phone).

May – “Learn how to communicate, and you will have access to the hearts and minds of people.”

Communication is one of the most important skills to learn. It’s obvious, and yet it’s often ignored. We are wired for connection, and most of our struggles and successes come down to communication. Learn to communicate—and to understand how others communicate—and great relationships can follow (and the opposite is true, which is what I experienced these months, yay).

June – “Perseverance will triumph over hardship.”

I managed to turn around some of my “failures” (though they weren’t truly failures—I just have high standards), especially in my university life and friendships. In February, I was ready to give up—not just on that. But perseverance brought abundant blessings, especially in wisdom, character growth, problem solving and emotional control.

I encourage you to think about your year so far. Smile at the blessings you have been gifted by life, and meditate on what you’ve learned

Final words

Again, I’m sorry I haven’t published anything lately. I still don’t have much free time—summer is full of adventures. So far in July, I’ve gone to Amsterdam for my beloved brother’s graduation, explored the gorgeous island of Elba with 10  brothers and sisters (love you guys!), traveled to Trieste, passed all my exams, and now I’m headed to a two-week spiritual camp in Switzerland, both as a counselor and a camper. And that’s just July (and a bit of August)!

I’ll try to publish the newsletters I haven’t yet (they’re written, collecting digital dust). I’m considering whether to continue this project as it is, reorient it, or put it on pause for a bit—or maybe even bring it to a full stop. I’m really tired. My life is great, but with the health challenges, spiritual wrestling, emotional exhaustion, and doing so many things, without having quite figured out how to properly recharge myself, this newsletter (the reading behind it mostly) is just a bit too much.

To all of you who’ve encouraged me to keep publishing: thank you. :)

Songs that inspired the chapters of this newsletter:

• If I Could Save Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce

• Beautiful That Way – Noa *(inspired by La Vita è Bella)

• Crucify Your Mind – Rodriguez

PS: Do you like the new format of the newsletter? or better before?