Prateek

do what only you can do, over and over and over. sharpen your unique gifts, invest in your talents, lean into the perspectives and curiosities that come naturally to you. notice what is easy/fun for you and double down on it. this is the path to a life aligned with what you like, what you’re good at, what feels right. einstein said, “creativity is just intelligence having fun.” figure out what your unique form of “intelligence” is, and then let it play. let it have fun. let it be creative. actualizing your unique intelligence—allowing yourself to be creative in a way that actually fills you up and is endlessly fun for you—is one of the most direct paths to self-actualization. joseph campbell always told his students, when they were pondering what to do with their lives, to “follow their bliss” ie: find what is fun for you and follow that! notice what makes the hours pass like seconds, and do it with vigour. at the end of the day, fulfilling our potential is much simpler than we’d all like to admit: it’s finding what you actually want to do, absent of the rewards/status/prestige/external validation you’d get from doing it, and doing that until you can make it the *thing* that you do. it’s trusting what feels natural, realizing life isn’t supposed to be painful, stressful, resistant. following a sense of effortlessness and ease—or in campbell’s words: bliss!—is the non-obvious way to go father in what you do than anything you approach out of obligation or external stress. we often are conditioned to think that high-effort, high-stress, painful tasks are good: they mean we’re working hard, doing something important, prestigious, worthwhile. but what if we were taught that when something comes naturally to us, it’s a sign we should lean even harder into it? that’s what many of the greats suggest: find what is easy for you and hard for others and LEAN IN. you go farther when you’re having fun. suffering isn’t a sign you’re doing something important. success can feel pleasurable. follow your bliss, and let your intelligence have fun. no one knows what feels right to you (and thus what *is* right for you!) except you. trust yourself. and give yourself permission to have fun while you’re at it :)