KashiaExplores: Tales of Discovery

When I was younger, my emotions rose quickly to the surface. I shouted when I was angry, as if the only way to be heard was through noise. It wasn’t deliberate; it was simply the language I had learned. In my family, emotion was something you projected, not something you examined. For years, I carried that habit without question.

Now I no longer shout. When anger comes, I watch it arrive — a familiar guest, but one I no longer invite to stay. I let it sit quietly inside me until I can take it elsewhere: onto a long walk, or to the treadmill, where I run until the body takes over what the mind cannot carry. Sweat becomes a form of translation, converting frustration into breath. When I finish, equilibrium returns, and the world feels restored to its proper rhythm.

In those earlier years, I was absorbed in myself — always turning the mirror inward, rehearsing how I might appear to others. I wanted to impress, to be seen as interesting, exceptional, alive. Over time, I discovered that the act of listening holds a different kind of power. When you listen — truly listen — the world rearranges itself. Curiosity opens quiet doors. Humility softens the edges of perception. I still long for recognition, but now it’s the kind that carries meaning: to create something of worth, something that might shift the air for someone else, even slightly.

I used to think happiness meant movement — the accumulation of experience, the endless pursuit of the new. I chased it through plane tickets and certificates, new skills and passing fascinations: scuba diving one year, kitesurfing the next. Always another horizon. But now I understand happiness differently. It isn’t expansion but depth. It’s the stillness that follows motion, the moment when all the years of doing settle into being. To sit quietly, to hold one thought steady without trembling — that, I think, is the truest form of joy.