On my 37th birthday, I received a really important lesson.

A lesson about why we’re actually here.

Because for most of my life, I believed that life is something you have to earn.

That you have to work for joy.

That pleasure comes only after everything is done.

And the truth is… that ‘everything’ is never done.

And suddenly I realized something very simple…

that we’re here to feel.

To experience life.

To feel joy, pleasure, aliveness.

Not suffering.

Suffering can happen, but it’s not the purpose.

And for so many years, I kept postponing pleasure.

There was always something more important.

Something else to do.

Something I still had to ‘deserve’.

But now… I want to experience.

I want to explore what pleasure actually means for me.

And it doesn’t have to look like what pleasure means for everyone else.

For me, it’s movement.

Running.

Walking.

Healthy food.

Going to bed early and getting good sleep.

For me, pleasure is going somewhere where there is nothing.

No expectations.

No scenarios.

Just space… so I can actually feel alive.

And recently, I discovered something else.

Volleyball is coming back into my life.

And I’m not going back to it to achieve something.

Not to be the best.

Not to prove anything.

Just for the pleasure of it.

For the movement.

The dynamics.

The connection with others.

The joy.

And this is new for me.

Because my whole life, I was doing things ‘for a reason’.

And now I’m learning to do things… just because.

And I think the most important lesson in all of this is:

that I am the most important person for myself.

Not someone else’s approval.

Not someone else’s validation.

Me.

And there are only two people I truly want to feel proud of me:

me at 8 years old,

and me at 80.

If those two versions of me are proud of how I live…

then everything is exactly as it should be.

A.