I have a million things to do and don’t know where to start. So, instead of doing any of them, I cleaned out my parents’ TV cabinet.

Behind the two glass doors, I found old DVDs, some custom-burned CDs — one with a broken case — and dust. Lots and lots of dust. I took out the movies, checked the web to see if they’re worth anything, and chucked a good 80% of them into the trash. I removed the plastic splinters from the broken case, rearranged everything, and wiped away the dust.

After I closed the glass doors again, I, too, felt a bit cleaner. Calmer. More organized. I still won’t be able to do everything on my list today, but I’ve since managed to do some of it without freaking out — and that’s worth more than the best plan that never gets put into action.

When you don’t know what to do, clean something. Folding the chaos in a battle you know you can win might not end the war, but it’s enough of a morale boost for you to keep fighting the good fight.

It’s a great question — mostly if you answer it without overthinking. What are a few simple tenets that come to mind? Don’t try to articulate a perfectly thought out theory. Don’t look for something complicated. List the rules that first pop into your head. Chances are, if your subconscious has them locked and loaded, they’re the ones who most affect your behavior from one day to the next.

Here are some of mine:

1. Work hard. Effort is not everything, but without effort, nothing turns into anything.
2. Be nice. Hard work is not an excuse to be a mean person. It may separate you from some people, but it doesn’t elevate you above anyone. Treat everyone with kindness and respect.
3. Be as honest as you can. Nobody makes it through life without lying, but only lie if you must — and when you do, do it for the right reasons.
4. Whatever you are, be a good one. It’s okay to only be a few things. A supportive partner. A generous mom. An available friend. No one can be all of those at once, but everyone can be one of them on any given day.
5. Don’t worry. It might sound impossible, but you used to do it, remember? In fact, you used to be completely unable to worry about the future. Tomorrow is only scary if you think about it too much. Instead, how about you…
6. Enjoy the moment. Presence solves nearly all problems, because right now, most of them don’t exist. Savor whatever you can savor that’s right in front of you, and live one minute, one hour, one day at a time.
7. Have no expectations. To most people, the phrase “low expectations” has a bad connotation. They think it means waiting for failure or a bad experience. To me, “low expectations” sounds wonderful. When you go in without demands, everything becomes a pleasant surprise. But if you can and prefer, have no expectations. Don’t make plans for how things should go at all when approaching any particular situation. Resolve to let life play out as it intends to, and you’ll stay open to new paths while handling outcomes the way they ask to be handled — because you’ll wait until you actually know what they’re about.

What is your basic life philosophy? It’s a great question to answer in writing, revisit, and compare notes every year, but most importantly, just ask it. Even if you answer only in your head, you’ll learn something about yourself — from how you see the world to how far you’ve come and where you’d like to go.

What is your basic life philosophy?

The Kinder Überraschungsei, which translates to “Kid’s Surprise Egg,” is one of Germany’s most popular sweets for children. It’s an actual egg made of two thin layers of white and milk chocolate, wrapped in a fine, colorful aluminum foil. When you break the egg’s two halves apart, inside, there’s a little plastic container that holds a toy.

Usually, the toy is some kind of gimmick. It might be a little plastic car you must assemble from three parts, perhaps with some stickers to put on. It could also be a puzzle or an animal. But sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a figurine. The figurines are high-quality, made from one piece, and there’s always a set of several of them to collect. I still remember the slogan: “In every seventh egg!”

Today, I was strolling through a small town that reminded me of the place we used to live in when I was eight. Suddenly, Kinder Überraschungseier popped back into my head. Next to the little town square, there was a grocery store. It was less than a ten-minute walk from my house. So, often, the neighbor’s kids and I went there and hunted for Kinder figurines.

We went into the store, counted the eggs on display, and picked every seventh one. We shook them and listened, trying to determine whether the egg contained multiple small parts or just one heavy piece. We even figured out that you could weigh them on the scale designated for fruits and veggies, and that there was a sweet spot where it was most likely you’d get a figurine. 32 grams, by the way.

After I returned home that night, I happened to browse my go-to classifieds platform for deals on Pokémon cards. I found some underpriced offers and saved them for later, and I realized: Finding a no-brainer deal on Pokémon cards now gives me the same feeling opening a Kinder Egg and discovering a figurine used to give me a quarter-century ago. Everything has changed, and yet, I’m still a collector. Always have been, it seems.

It’s nice to discover what has been there all along — but sometimes, ironically, that requires trying something new. Yes, always continue to reinvent yourself, but remember that finding yourself is also a job that never ends.

A friend of mine wants to build a cabin out in nature to rent out and maybe even turn into a full-blown lifestyle brand business later. At our annual Mastermind meeting with another friend, we convinced him to shoot some video footage of our AirBnB. They’re walking through the house right now, and he’s narrating as he goes along.

At first, he wasn’t so convinced of the idea. “Maybe you’ll use it for a Youtube channel to start growing the brand,” I said. “Maybe you’ll use it as a reference while constructing your own cabin later,” the other friend said. Our friend is camera-shy and doesn’t love talking on video either. It took some nudging, but eventually, he went for it. I’m 100% sure he’ll be glad he did it later — even if all he does is watch the video back one more time and feel proud of his accomplishment.

Even for the projects and work you’re excited to begin, not every part will be easy. Not every step will feel comfortable. But what you can always take comfort in is the chance that you might be glad you did it later on. Often, that expectation alone creates some of the effect.

It’s okay to be nervous when stepping into the unknown. But as long as you can see a glimmer of potential in there, try to take the step anyway. You may not feel like a fish in water now, but you might be glad later — and sometimes, that has to be enough.

Years ago, a friend told me about a successful entrepreneur who had moved to our tiny village. “He sold his last company, and he wants to start his next one right away!” he told me. My friend helped him set up a stunning website showcasing his latest creation: Swiss cheese fondue to go.

The product came in a custom carton box, complete with bread, spices, and a microwaveable container. The idea? Heat the box in the microwave for just two minutes, then get to enjoy authentic Swiss fondue in a small portion.

I remember how impressed I was by the whole thing when my friend first told me about it. So was he, I think, and his respect for the guy was contagious. Here was this guy who, already successful, came to a new place and committed in a big way. The entrepreneur bought a small old workshop 50 meters from our house and transformed it into a fondue factory. In the winter, he held weekly dinner events there. The local newspaper featured him in a story. You could even order the boxes online!

But winter came and went, and every time I walked by the factory, it seemed to be a little less active than before. One day, the red, branded cars he had parked in front of there disappeared. The last post on their Facebook page appeared less than 18 months after they had started. When I last checked the now-defunct website, he had pivoted to providing fondue for other restaurants. But now? It’s been a few years, and…silence.

There are a lot of lessons in this story. About not being impressed too easily. About words like “successful,” “sold,” “featured,” and even “entrepreneur” having near-infinite ranges of what they might mean. About how tough the food industry is, how hard it is to repeat past success, and how bad timing can kill the best idea.

Perhaps the most important lesson of all, however, is one that will never stop ringing in my ears because my parents repeated it so many times when I was younger: Everyone uses water to boil.

It’s a German saying, and it means there are no magicians among us. Whoever they are, whatever they are trying to do, every person will use all the skills and resources they have to accomplish their goals. No more, no less — and sometimes, those skills and resources simply aren’t enough.

Even the world’s richest man can’t warp humanity to Mars with a snap of his fingers. He must painstakingly build the technology it’ll take to carry us there, and he might not live to see it done.

Beware the person with an all-too-impressive resumé, but most of all, beware your own belief that you might have grown wings overnight. Everyone uses water to boil, and whether it’s cheese fondue or rocket science we’re trying to cook, we can’t bend the laws of the universe to hit the right temperature any faster — and in some cases, we can’t hit it without burning our hands at all.

Shinra Kusakabe is a firefighter. But not any firefighter. He fights both with and against fire. In the world of Special Fire Force Company 8, humans spontaneously combust — and while some learn to control their flames, others succumb to them and must be, well, put out.

Shinra hopes to be in the former category, and while the young hothead’s fiery feet have already proven powerful, he must tame them if he is to ever stand up to his biggest enemies. During one training session, Shinra tries to bundle and concentrate the flames shooting from his heels while hovering in the air — and promptly falls on his ass. He briefly reflects on his mistakes, but then Shinra concludes: “Hmm, thinking won’t get me anywhere. Just don’t give up. Best I try again right away!”

Shinra’s colleague, the scientist Viktor Licht, watches him from the sidelines. Living up to his last name, he enlightens a fellow observer: “He’s clever. Most problems are solved solely by the decision whether you’ll do something about them or not. At first, you simply have to start and experiment. Otherwise you’ll never find out what you really need to think about. Solving problems is hard because you need to try lots of different things.”

If a challenge has been staring you in the face for quite some time, chances are, you no longer need to wait for lightning to strike. You already know you don’t know the answer. So for better or worse, you’ll just have to get going. It’s courage, not cleverness, that’s required.

Once you start throwing ideas and effort at a problem, it’s tough skin begins to soften. Sooner or later, it will show a crack. That’s what you’re really looking for: the solution you can’t know about until you’ve tried all the ones that won’t work.

A firefighter can’t think about how to best extinguish a blazing inferno when he’s standing right in front of it. He’ll just have to grab his gear, run towards the flames, and try. Don’t overthink what can’t be accomplished with thinking at all. If you truly want to solve your problems, start.

There’s rest, and there’s “rest.” The former is when you’re not only committed to relaxing but also spending your recovery time doing actually restorative things. A walk without music. A long shower. Watching a whole movie without checking your phone. It’s rare, isn’t it? Perhaps a bit too rare, maybe?

I, too, spend way too much time “resting” the latter way: You’re not doing anything productive, but you’re still busy. Your brain is on. Your mind is racing. You’re speed-tapping through Youtube videos, trying to get smarter from a podcast while cooking, or incessantly checking the news for no reason. That’s not rest. It’s a different kind of exhaustion.

You can’t always rest when you want to, but you can cultivate a calm mind that’ll stay level even in difficult situations. In order to do that, however, you’ll need to actually rest when you truly have the chance.

Don’t waste your recovery time. Protect it as strongly as you fight for your productive hours. Don’t let busyness creep through your workday and into your much needed recuperation. When you rest, rest, and you shall return with seemingly infinite energy.

I just watched a 2.5-hour Q&A to figure out how CoolTrainerRyan amassed his vast, million-dollar Pokémon card collection. Of course, I already knew the answer.

Ryan talked a bit about how he got back into the game. He talked about his day job, how everything was cheaper a few years ago, and how grading companies turned around submitted cards a lot faster. But everything you need to know about “making it,” be it as a collector or anything else, you could learn from a single sentence: “I took that shit eleven times.”

“That shit” is the CPA exam, which verifies your ability to work as an accountant at the highest level — if you pass it, that is. The exam consists of four big sections, tested in four hours each, and you must pass them all within 18 months to get the certification. Ryan didn’t make it the first time around. Or the second time. Or the third. Then, he started studying. Four hours a day. Eight hours a day. Twelve hours a day.

Eleven times. That’s more than a week’s worth of pure exam-taking time — studying not included. Nor the emotional turmoil or physical fatigue. As soon as you know this one little fact about Ryan, you know it all. You can picture him refreshing the new eBay listings every ten seconds. You can imagine him driving a U-Haul halfway across the country to pick up a huge collection on the cheap. And you just know he worked like crazy to build up his collection.

If you really want it, get it. It’s only a matter of work and dedication, applied over a long enough period. And if you must retake the exam? Then you show up five, eight, eleven times — until you pass the test, make the deal, or hit 100,000 subscribers.

The next time might be the one that breaks the dam. Keep believing, and don’t quit too early.

April being April, we went from 24 degrees Celsius on the weekend to 2 degrees and snow this Thursday. You can only weather so many changes of the elements before one catches you off guard, and so by the time I got to my train, my shoes and socks were completely soaked.

After I arrived at WeWork, I took off my socks and hid them in a corner, hoping they’d dry by day’s end. But what to do in the meantime? My fabric sneakers were still wet too, but I couldn’t run around a co-working space barefoot either.

When I went to the toilet and looked at the paper towels, lightning struck: “I’m gonna make my own socks!” I wrapped some of them around my feet, and after some experimentation with how many layers I needed where, my paper socks were ready to go — and once again, so was I.

I ended up wearing my makeshift socks all day long, and, thankfully, when I went home at night, my socks were dry enough for me to put them back on. Mission accomplished! End result? Not bad.

For all our technology, prediction algorithms, and convenience at the push of a button, sometimes, the best days are those where you go back to the Stone Age. Where you’re facing a simple, foundational problem and come up with an equally simple but elegant solution. Start a fire. Fix a chair. Put together makeshift socks.

The plot twist may be benign, but the feedback it sends is real: Even in our world of highly specialized and complex everything, you can still make change. You can affect things. Transform them. And make the world better for it — even if, at first, it is only your own little one that benefits.

Remember the basics, and be proud of your makeshift socks.

At some point in Vikings, boat builder Floki leaves his hometown of Kattegat. His wife and daughter both have died, and so he surrenders himself to the sea. After weeks adrift, he ends up in Iceland, a desolate but beautiful place.

Having explored the island for a while, Floki finally begins to see his new mission: Tell his people about his discovery, and bring new settlers into this foreign land. He sails back, he manages to convince a few folk to join him, and together, through great peril and hardship, eventually, they reach Iceland.

But what is this? The land is barren. One can hardly farm. The temperatures are even colder than in Kattegat, and there’s almost no game one can hunt. What hellhole has Floki brought them to? Naturally, Floki’s followers are angry, and fights soon break out among them.

The whole idea of settling eventually fails in spectacular fashion, and not too long afterwards, Floki once again finds himself adrift at sea. One day, he will indeed discover a new home, but for now, the boat builder hasn’t built his last vessel just yet…

There’s a beautiful balance in Floki’s story. Sometimes, he knows exactly what he wants, and he runs right towards it. At other times, he is completely lost. Everything feels pointless, and so he does nothing on purpose in particular. And sometimes, Floki knows he is lost but refuses to accept it. At those times, he chases a random goal — mostly to chase something until a better target comes along.

Is Iceland really the best place for the vikings to settle? Probably not. But it’s a new, empty place they can settle. It might be worth a try…

When the settlers struggled to find their destination in their tiny boat, Floki could have tried to divert them to a different destination. He could have turned the boat around. But he didn’t. He kept laying out a beautiful — perhaps a bit too beautiful — vision of Iceland — because he knew that destination, any meaningful destination, really, might make the difference between his followers starving and pulling through.

Last year, I knew exactly what I was doing. I had a Trello board, milestones, and kept cranking away. Then, the plan stopped working, and while I adjusted accordingly — I stopped working on tactics that no longer showed effect — I’ve now been adrift for a few months. I can feel myself getting tired of that drift. I need something, anything, to sink my teeth into. And I’m starting to realize that, probably, any goal will do the trick.

Tune in to your inner compass. Find the right balance. When it’s time to meander, meander. When it’s time to be laser-focused, focus. And when it’s time to grasp for whatever rope will get you out of a slump, reach out and pull yourself up. Ahoy, sailor! May the winds be fair and the seas follow you wherever you go.