you never know what's in store

This week, I’d like to tell a story that highlights the reality in life that we never know what’s in store. When we put our best foot forward and strive to have great experiences, we can often be pleasantly surprised.

I’ve discussed parts of my time in Kazakhstan before, but today I wanted to share a time that involved both American classmates of mine and locals.

It all started about 6am when I was meeting up with two American friends at a local park whom I had convinced to join me for a “sky running” session in the mountains. Sky running, as I had learned, essentially means running on mountains. In Kazakhstan, there is no shortage of breathtaking mountaintops and scenic views.

After linking up, my friends and I hopped into an Uber as planned (Uber was new this year in Almaty, but it was helpful). The Imagine Dragons song “Thunder” was playing in our driver’s car, which helped us get pumped.

But soon...the pump wore off.

We were driving down a dirt road for some time and I could tell my friends started to worry that I had provided the wrong location. Our time on the weekends was very valuable since our language course was quite demanding Monday through Friday, and there was also a lot of studying to be done outside of class. The driver even started to get impatient, which didn’t help the situation. However, I was confident that we would find the running group we were looking for.

Eventually, after passing a couple big gates that likely belonged to wealthy oligarchs, we found the group, and all of us were relieved. We ended up running about 6 miles in the mountains and it was an even better experience than I had hoped.

We had fun using our Russian in a different setting and truly challenged ourselves physically.

This story may sound simple, but we could have easily turned around at various points while driving down the dirt road and missed out on such and incredible experience.

When you don’t give up, you’ll be exposed to so many more rewarding times. Persistence is key, which ties into my last point.

In closing, I’d like to share four words that I’ve been saying to myself a lot recently that I know are integral to success in the modern world: focus, efficiency, speed, and persistence.

Very quickly, let’s break each one of these down.

Focus

There’s a war on your attention every second of every day. Battles can be lost in moments of emotional weakness or insufficient planning, and every battle lost pulls you further away from the life you want and the better version of yourself that you could be.

Efficiency

Make smart decisions that pertain to how you work, and limit task switching.

Speed

Act quickly, do it now.

Persistence

Not to be confused with patience. Steady applications of time and honest effort are essential. NEVER underestimate the value of small wins or the harm of small losses—both compound over time. Big losses are inevitable and are lessons, but the little losses with ourselves in daily life should be overcome.

That’s it for this week, my friends. Thank you for reading. To relay the final note that I have for myself in today's journal:

Stay focused, work efficiently, move quickly, and be persistent...because you never know what marvelous times life has in store.

—Thomas