I was never a heavy drinker. But there was a time when I got drunk almost every weekend. Altogether, that phase lasted about half a year during my late high school years — in Germany, that’s around the age of 18 or 19.

Once I finished high school and stopped seeing the group of friends I’d been hanging out with, I stopped drinking altogether. And I never got into it again.

In hindsight, calling them a friend group might be an exaggeration. Most of the guys I spent time with were people from school I used to play basketball, soccer, or video games with. As we got older and developed different interests, I realized how little we actually had in common.

Back in school, we always had something to talk about — classes, teachers, exams, and essays. We complained about teachers and joked about other classmates. But beyond school-related topics, the only thing that held us together was getting drunk on the weekends.

Once I recognized that, I realized I was only drinking because I was with them — as it was the only thing that connected us. Truth be told, I didn’t even like these people very much. And they probably didn’t like me that much either. We just kept hanging out out of habit, a routine that started back in seventh grade out of necessity.

When high school ended, I made a rule for myself: I would only spend time with people I could genuinely enjoy being around while sober.

Granted, my circle of friends has been quite small ever since — but, I like the few people in my life that I call friends and family. And, just like magic, I’ve never felt the urge to drink again.

If you want to cut back on your drinking, my advice would be: take a look at your friend group. Could you enjoy their company sober, or do you need alcohol to get along?

If it’s the latter, maybe it’s time to find a new circle or even life without a circle at all for a while. You’re only getting rid of people that you don’t really like anyway, and you probably get out of the habit of drinking. Two upsides, not a single downside.

I use to-do lists almost every day. I set goals for the year, break them down into milestones, and even make New Year’s resolutions. Sometimes I accomplish my goals and stick to the plan — sometimes I don’t.

Creating a plan and defining goals can be motivating. It helps you give structure and direction to your life. But on some days, it also feels like you’re trapping yourself in a self-imposed rat race.

• Complete my STORY52 short story project
• Write the next novel
• Finish editing my last novel
• Write at least ten tweets
• Publish that blog post
• Do your workout
• And don’t forget the day job tasks and household chores
• …

Reviewing that list every day and crossing things off until the page is empty can make me more productive, yes — but when there isn’t enough time and items remain unchecked, it can also feel like I’ve accomplished nothing. It’s draining and demotivating.

That’s why it makes sense to use the opposite of a to-do list from time to time: a Done List. It reminds you of everything you’ve already worked on and achieved.

In 2025:

• I published my next novel, Forever
• I set up my mailing list, including another published book, Endless, which I give away for free to subscribers
• This blog became a reality — and I’ve already written more than 80 posts
• My YouTube tutorial channel grew to over 10K subscribers
• I’ve gained almost 1K followers on Twitter
• Seven of my short stories are already available on Amazon
• I started two more YouTube channels to document my Author in Progress journey (and yet another one is in the works)

That’s a lot of progress since March 2025, when I decided to take my writing hobby a bit more seriously.

Sure, not everything went as planned. Not every goal was achieved. And I’m far far away from being able to pay any bills with my writing. But the list of accomplishments shows a lot of progress after just over half a year of focused effort.

Create your own Done List. Look back at what you’ve achieved in the past six months — and just imagine what you could do in the next ten years.

I never studied philosophy. I wasn’t interested in it back in school. To me, philosophy always seemed like something pretentious that pseudo-intellectuals did in college while smoking a pipe. My only exposure to what I thought philosophy was, as a teenager, came from watching some stoners get high and wonder whether “getting high” would still be called that if you never came down again.

When I got older, I realized two important things: First, my idea of philosophy wasn’t philosophy. Second, if you don’t take the time to explore and build a real philosophical framework for yourself, someone else will impose theirs on you—without you even realizing it.

The Philosophy of Philosophy

The official definition of philosophy goes like this:

The use of reason in understanding such things as the nature of the real world and existence, the use and limits of knowledge, and the principles of moral judgment.

Doesn’t that sound like something everyone should care about?

The problem is, most people don’t. I didn’t either. But that’s largely because philosophy is often presented the wrong way. It is taught as something abstract, boring, and pseudo-intellectual, pursued by people who’ve never had a “real” job and don’t have to deal with real-world problems.

Yet philosophy is everywhere. It’s in everything we do. It is what we are.

What you eat for breakfast reflects your philosophy. What you wear, read, and watch does too. Whom you vote for. The job you have. The friends you attract. Philosophy shapes how you think and dream—it’s who you are.

And when we don’t take the time to define our own philosophy, we leave space for others to define it for us. They can shape us into what they want us to be—before we ever have the chance to become who we truly want to be.

The First Step: Ask Questions

Most things I do in daily life happen on autopilot—driving, brushing my teeth, eating, even parts of my work. The same goes for many people’s political beliefs, life choices, and everyday conversations. I’m not an exception. Sometimes I say things I haven’t thought through. Sometimes I believe things without knowing where they came from. Sometimes I make choices I can’t fully explain.

My interest in philosophy began when I finally asked myself: Why? Why did I do that? Why did I think that? Why did I believe that?

That’s where philosophy begins—with the question why.

The answer isn’t a complex definition from a dusty college textbook. The answer is what makes life better. Why do you believe that a specific politician deserves your vote? Why do you read that book instead of another? Why do you have these friends? Why do you work at the job that you have?

Most people don’t have answers for these questions. We are simply spoon feed the answers the system wants us to swallow via TV, public schools, colleges, religion, mainstream books, and even our friends and parents.

When we start asking questions again, we can define a philosophy that’s truly our own, not one created by others. Only then can we live the life that we want to live and not the one the system wants for us.

The more new things I try, the more I realize that everything works the same way. Whatever you do, it’s not the doing that’s difficult—it’s the starting.

When you want to write a book, reaching 60,000 words feels like an impossible mountain to climb. But all it really takes is sitting down and writing the first sentence. Then, somehow, the next ones follow. Before you know it, you’ve finished your first page. If you keep at it every day, writing a full novel in a month or two no longer seems like a huge challenge. It becomes the natural result of habit.

The same thing happens when you look in the mirror and notice your belly is a bit bigger than it was in your twenties. “Oh, boy, I’m getting fat. I need to start hitting the gym.”

That moment—the choice to get off the couch and move—is what separates people who never lose the weight from those who get in shape. You don’t need to spend three hours a day in the gym. All it takes is committing to five minutes of exercise daily. Once you start, those five minutes often turn into a full 30-minute workout. Again, the habit then creates the result of being fit and in shape.

Writing (and publishing) this blog post took me half an hour. At first, I hesitated. I have a novel to finish, a mailing list to update, a YouTube video to produce, a workout to do, clients to deal with, and my apartment to clean. But as soon as I opened my word processor and typed the first sentence, the rest appeared almost effortlessly. The inner voice telling me to procrastinate and write that post tomorrow went quiet.

With everything I ever did, I realized that doing is easy—once you’ve done the hard part: starting.