I have been transfixed with one of the best podcasts I have ever listened to. Yuval Noah Harari spoke to Tim Ferris for a little under two hours and left me with so much more to think about now regarding knowing suffering and also knowing yourself.

It is easy to find out what makes us happy, and what brightens our mood because it’s instant and identifiable. But what even is suffering and what it is doing to us is a much harder thing to pin down and solve. Pain is suffering, we can understand and highlight the issue and at least try and solve the issue.

We don’t have enough money perhaps is causing us misery, so the easy solution is to try and get more money. However, is the money really the problem, or is it the illusion we need more money, or the things we buy that causing us to be miserable. As Yuval talks about there as much deeper mechanisms at play in our lives and without understanding them and ourselves we could be trying to solve proximal issues and not the real root causes.

Perhaps this links back to mindfulness and meditation above, but so many people I know are completely uncomfortable being alone with their own thoughts to a stage that they are constantly distracted from themselves. Knowing yourself and being aware of what is going on inside you is one of the most important things you can do to improve so many things in your life.