My guide to the best city in the world

Happy T.O. day!

Welcome to Travel Onist featuring travel stories, personal growth reflections, and inspiring content for your travels.

Travel

New York City Guide

It’s about time I share some recommendations for the city I call home. I’ve lived in NYC for two years and while I can’t officially call myself a New Yorker, I take great pride in what this city has to offer. Here is my attempt at sharing some of that with you all. I hope you can put it to use someday soon and in doing so, appreciate this great city as I do. Find it here.

Please let me know if anything else would be helpful and I can add it in!

Weekly Write-up

I never expected to be a writer.

But the more I write, the more good things happen.

And the more good things happen, the more I reflect on everything this process has taught me.

I’d like to share those learnings, hoping they will inspire some other unlikely writers.

These are the 6 life lessons I’ve learned writing online for a year:

Fear is fiction

Too often, we let fear prevent us from taking action. Fear is a good thing at its core. It makes us pause and think before doing something that could put us in danger — a safety valve of sorts. But it is only useful in that context.

Outside of protecting us from danger, fear is a barrier to becoming the best version of ourselves.

The problem with fear is it ignores the upside.

Before I started writing online, I was afraid to put myself out there. I was focused on the negatives — the anticipated criticisms. Once I started, I was surprised by the praise, new connections, and general fulfillment that came my way. The positive reality I experienced far outweighed my worries.

The beautiful thing about our fears is that they rarely come true.

Don’t let fictitious worry keep you from becoming the best version of yourself.

To learn how to be yourself, you need to experiment

Early on in life, we are a reflection of the people around us.

There is far too much to learn. Rather than rely on our own experiences, we are forced to rely on the opinions of others.

The problem with this phenomenon is that we end up filled with perspectives and beliefs that aren’t authentic.

The only way to undo that learned behavior is through our own experiences.

That means we need to try things — ideas, food, art, activities — as many things as we can try.

Writing online has been one big experiment. When I started, I didn’t know what to write about. I had some ideas, but couldn’t make up my mind one way or the other. So I tried them all. Some things stuck, some didn’t and I slowly carved out a space for myself in this online world.

I still don’t know what I want to write about most of the time. But I know I like it.

Experimenting has gotten me this far, so I might as well keep going.

What you put in is what you get out

This adage is something most of you have heard. But it took on a new meaning for me recently.

Writing online is the easiest way to attract the people you want to attract.

My content over the past year has served as a magnet for like-minded people. I’m blown away by the friendships I’ve made and the people I’ve met just by sharing some tweets and emails.

It really can be that easy.

On top of that, it’s never been easier to learn from and interact with your heroes.

Whether you want to engage with their content, or you’re putting enough good stuff out there that they want to engage with you — that’s the power of the social network.

The energy you give to the world is the energy you get right back.

You don’t have to know where you’re going, you just have to start

The best thing you can do for yourself is develop a default towards action.

Have an idea? Try it! You’ll never know until you do.

I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather live with the disappointment of a result than the regret of not trying.

I didn’t know if I’d like writing when I started. But I was tired of the fear of putting myself out there and wanted to learn a new skill. So, I did something about it.

The hardest part is getting over that initial hump. Once you’re in it, you figure it out.

As long as you have the courage to start, your self-belief will increase with every “I can’t believe that worked” moment.

Perfectionism is a pitfall

I’m a perfectionist.

I used to deny it. Then, I took pride in my “high standards.” But now, I’m wary of this dangerous pitfall.

You see, high standards are a good thing, but trying to be perfect as a beginner is an impossible task.

The expectation of perfection will prevent you from starting. It’s not noble to wait to share your work until it’s perfect, it’s cowardly and only impedes your progress.

With any new pursuit, adopt the beginner’s mind. You will not be good when you start. But once you start, you can chip away at progress. Give yourself the chance to be great by staying in the race.

That leads me to my next point…

Just keep going

Writing online with no following is brutal. It feels like you’re shouting into a void.

How will you improve if no one will even read your work?

But you can’t stop there, because you haven’t given yourself a chance yet.

I remember being stuck with around 50 followers on Twitter. I was a few months in and feeling incredibly discouraged. Eventually, someone came across my profile and invited me to join a group of like-minded creators.

All of a sudden I had an audience.

Anything worth doing takes time, just keep going.

The work has to be the win

As much as you know you probably should keep going, it’s hard. It is hard to continue to produce when it feels like no one cares.

It is even harder when the metric for success is whether or not people care.

But when the process is the reward, consistency isn’t so hard.

Easier said than done of course. Especially since there are two ways we’re measured growing up across school, sports, etc.: comparison and the subjective opinions of others.

As a product of athletics, writing online for months with minimal engagement, praise, or even acknowledgment, took some getting used to. But I’m beginning to find joy in the work and the growth.

I’ll leave you with a story.

Late at night after winning his first Oscar for Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon, unable to sleep, sat on the couch looking at the award when a feeling rushed over him. He remembers thinking, “Imagine chasing that and not getting it. And getting it finally in your 80s or 90s with all of your life behind you and realizing what an unbelievable waste… it can’t fill you up. If that’s a hole that you have, that won’t fill it.” ¹

External rewards can’t and won’t fill your cup.

The reward has to come from within.

1  via https://billyoppenheimer.com/april-28-2024/

Airplane Content

Cody Ko is another one of my favorite content creators. He is a comedian, DJ, and endurance athlete who makes videos. This video, in particular, captures everything that went into his recent Ironman.

If you like it, I’d recommend you check out his channel Cody Trains, where he documents his training. My fiancée credits the channel as a source of motivation for completing the NYC marathon.

AI Travel Art Piece of the Week

Cheers ‘til next week,

T.O.