What Are You Really Chasing?

Welcome to Letters of Wonder — a space to explore the truths behind clarity, creation, and what it means to live a truly wonderful life.

I share the scenarios below not to be cynical — but to show you something important about real peace.

That it's not dependent on anything out there.

Because even the most beautiful experiences will one day fade.

1) Lets say you love traveling as an escape.

The moment you travel you feel whole.

But when you’re back home, you feel terrible.

Isn’t that just a temporary solution for peace?

Because what about when you have work?

What if you become injured?

What if your passport gets lost, or the novelty wears off?

Once you stop traveling... you’re back to yourself.

And it’s like, “Oh man, why do I feel this way again?”

2) Lets say you want to find a life partner as an escape.

You feel alone, so you look for a partner to fill the void.

But if your happiness/peace is based off of them being in your life, then what if you end up single again?

And on a long enough time horizon, one of you is going to pass away first.

And it may happen at the same time.

But, what if it doesn’t?

I know this sounds very morbid.

But I say this to highlight that real peace can be found.

And it’s not found in anything external of you.

Real peace is found within you.

Then no matter what you do, you feel content — because inside, you’re complete.

And then you can travel the world or find a partner, and it’s out of fullness, not lack.

Because even if those things go away, you are still whole.

And this leads me to the problem of filling internal voids with external fixes.

Trying to find peace from something external of you.

I share this story because I lived this way for the longest time.

And I still find myself in moments trying to chase things external of me for peace or happiness.

Say, for example, you feel bad for being called skinny.

So you go to the gym for years trying to solve something on the inside

Yes, this is a real story of me.

But it’s not that you hate being skinny.

You just feel that being skinny makes you something less. Something inferior.

So you fix it by lifting weights.

But what happens when you lose weight again?

What if you get sick?

What about when you get old?

For decades, your identity was built off of how you looked.

And could you imagine the suffering you’d go through then?

You’re back in that state of “I need to fix something.”

That’s a never-ending cycle.

This is why it’s impossible to fix an internal state with external fixes.

It’s the same with anything in life.

Anytime you feel a negative emotion — go deeper than just the external cause.

Maybe someone called you ugly.

But it’s not that they called you ugly.

It’s that deep down, you associate being ugly with being something less.

Something inferior.

That’s what causes the spiral.

But say, for example, you start to see “ugliness” as just an external measure.

Then you stop tying it to your worth.

It stops affecting you — because now, you know you’re whole within.

So who cares whether you're ugly or not?

And it's not that you're careless about it. You don't purposefully ignore it or feel some way about it.

You're carefree about it. You genuinely recognize you're still complete.

So next time someone calls you ugly, you have nothing to really defend.

Because it doesn't stir anything up in you anymore.

Now sure, you can find ways to appear more beautiful. And maybe you will.

But either way, you feel the same.

Because your worth is not dependent on anything external.

Once you realize this — no matter what you do or who you’re with — you feel at peace.

Now this isn’t to say you won’t have preferences.

Some people might think when someone reaches this place, they become a hedonist or a nihilist.

But actually, it’s the opposite.

When you’re fully internally content…

You do the things that excite you.

That energize you.

But now they’re rooted in something real — not in a need to fix something.

You exercise because you love taking care of your body.

Not because you’re covering up some shame about being skinny or fat.

You talk to people not because you feel lonely.

But because you love hearing stories or discussing ideas.

Yet, without it — you’re still whole.

This is where you really start to feel your energy and be at peace.

And eventually you realize:

Now I want to pause here and say something important.

Don’t get me wrong — external changes can serve as powerful catalysts.

There’s nothing wrong with using them as fuel to start your journey.

Let’s say you feel lost (no purpose/spark) and the one thing pulling you is lifting weights to prove something to others.

That’s not a bad start.

Because that desire to prove yourself got you moving.

And maybe the gym does light you up.

Or maybe it doesn’t.

That’s something only you can figure out.

In my experience, catalysts often do energize us — it’s just that we’re initially fueled by the wrong reason.

But over time, that shifts.

You start to realize: maybe it was never about proving anything to anyone.

Maybe it was about showing up for yourself.

Or about building discipline.

Or doing something you actually enjoy.

And that shift — that quiet pivot from proving to being — is beautiful.

Because real peace doesn’t come when you hit the goal.

It comes when you realize: I’m whole, whether or not I hit it.

Getting fit didn’t magically make me peaceful.

But it gave me a space to discover something deeper.

And I get it — some things you just have to live through to fully understand.

Truth be told, I could only imagine how hard it would’ve been for my younger, skinnier self to comprehend all this.

And the truth is — lifting wasn’t the only place this showed up.

• I started working on my confidence because I thought I could be better with girls.

• I started building a business because I thought I could become more respected.

• I started talking in a certain way because I thought I would appear cooler to others.

But soon, the narratives shifted.

I realized I wasn’t chasing these things from love — I was chasing them from lack.

They were temporary crutches trying to solve a deeper inner gap.

And slowly… I began to let go.

• I changed my workouts and diet to reflect what lit me up and kept me healthy.

• I began leaning into what fueled me in the business versus chasing an empty paycheck.

• I stopped pretending to be someone I wasn't to impress others (and interestingly, they were never impressed by it anyways).

As I share this, I want to acknowledge that I’m still on the path and have a lot to learn.

But now, I feel lighter.

I’ve been re-reading a few pages of a book called Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

It’s a great book focused on psychology and self-narrative.

In it is a fascinating quote:

This ties into another parallel concept.

We delay peace and happiness, thinking we will get them once we are rich, jacked, or loved.

But it's not about those things.

It's about the internal void that we have inside us.

In the book, Dr. Maxwell Maltz (who happens to be a plastic surgeon) describes that patients would come to him for surgery.

They had low self-worth because of crooked noses or similar — and when he would operate on them, they would feel better.

Until they didn't.

You see, it was never about their noses.

It was about what they believed their nose meant.

And the nose surgery was only a temporary fix.

There’s this beautiful story you may have heard.

It goes like this:

It had been there all along.

But everyone forgot it was there.

Much like us.

We bury our gold under layers of protection, noise, and identity.

But when we chip away… we don’t need to become anything.

We just uncover who we already were.

Okay — so how do you actually find this internal peace?

What do you do?

Well, I don't have an exact answer for you.

Like I said, many things that got me started were a pursuit of external fixes.

One thing I would tell my younger self is this: spend more time alone reflecting and don’t avoid negative emotions by drowning them out.

That way, I would get clearer on everything.

I would pursue that which felt right.

I wouldn't chase things for the sake of pleasing others or to prove something to people.

And if I was already on the path of filling the internal with external, I would take a step back and ask myself what I really want.

And even if that doesn't mean fully stopping, maybe I'd take some time to feel at peace without chasing anything or anyone.

• Things that came from a place of completeness within me.

• Things I wasn't doing to prove something or feel a certain way from.

• Things that felt aligned from a place of peace.

Maybe that's:

• Spending some time with loved ones

• Working on a fun project

• Doing something I used to do as a kid

• Meditating or Journaling

• Or simply sitting in silence

Let that be the start of something real.

Because the wholeness was never outside of you.

It was just waiting to be remembered.