I was asked an interview question that I couldn’t answer and decided to write about it. I wrote the question in bold text at the top of a Google Document, and 3 hours later had a few thousand words sprawled out. This document is now filled with tens of thousands of words and titled Thoughts.
I never reached a conclusion to the original question. I still haven’t. But I gained immense clarity on my life after writing.
The next time I wrote, I was on a flight departing LAX. The time after, I was in San Francisco. This wasn’t a daily journal, and still isn’t. I’d mainly write about topics on my mind in a sparing fashion. However, each entry (if you’d like to call it that) would include thousands of words just like the first one.
Now, this document includes my 2024 recap, useful learnings from a couple of relationships, what I consider the core pillars of people, ambitions of mine, reflections, those whom I can never repay, and many more topics. Reading this document would provide anyone with a high-level understanding of me and my life.
On a random Wednesday, I met Sam Lessin over coffee at his house. Among other topics, I mentioned that I write a lot. He remarked that writing is one of the most useful things someone can do when young, urging me to publish and timestamp it publicly. It facilitates clarity of thought, potential foresight, and is one way to build a public image. For those that don't know, Sam has been writing for the past decade at wlessin.com.
The difficulty here was that my writings, like I mentioned, were entries with thousands of words. I paid no attention to being concise and this obviously isn’t effective if others are going to read it. Sam refuted saying:
Ever since, I decided to intentionally publish my writings. This marks the first of that endeavor. My original document still meaningfully exists and I urge everyone to do the same.
Thanks, Sam.