What a Year of No Goals, No Social Media, and No Plan Did to Us

G:
As an immigrant in the Netherlands, I grew up with a clear checklist of what life should look like: learn the language, master the culture, get straight A’s, land prestigious internships, and, ultimately, become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer. (Many Middle Eastern parents will recognise this dream.)

For years, I followed the list meticulously. City to city. Achievement to achievement. I wanted to belong. To prove that ambition, discipline, and persistence could make a life that mattered. And yet, somewhere along the way, I realised that checking boxes didn’t make me feel alive.

The promotions, recognition, curated milestones, they looked impressive on paper. But inside, I began to ask: did I even want these goals? Was success about achievement, or about attention to what I truly valued?

R:
I went to art school to be free. To work with my hands. To experiment and see where ideas might take me. Almost immediately, I discovered my talent: graphic design. And just like that, a plan was born, to become the best designer I could be.

For a while, it worked. I honed my craft, won recognition, built a career that looked impressive. But I lost the curiosity that had brought me there. I lost time to wander, to let ideas breathe, to see what might emerge without a plan.

Eventually, I realised I was following yet another blueprint, this time of talent and ambition rather than grades and corporate ladders. And it wasn’t enough.

So we stopped planning.

No goals. No constant connection. No laptops, no notifications. Just seeing what would happen.

At first, it was disorienting. Untethered. Rudderless. But in that empty space, we began to notice what we hadn’t in years: the way sunlight touched the moss, the sound of wind through branches, the rhythm of our own breath. Life, stripped of deadlines and likes, began to feel luminous in its small details.

At first, we thought it was just relief. But something deeper was happening. Our attention began to change. We could focus longer. Ideas arrived without force. Time felt different, slower, but fuller. Research shows that time in nature restores what psychologists call “directed attention,” the part of the brain responsible for focus, creativity, and decision-making. When you remove constant stimulation, notifications, noise, urgency, the brain shifts into a softer mode of awareness. It begins to notice again.

Creativity, we realised, doesn’t come from pushing harder. It comes from making space. Rick Rubin writes that creativity isn’t something you chase, but something you allow. Sitting in stillness, walking without a destination, letting boredom appear, these became the conditions where ideas returned naturally.

In many ways, we felt like children again. Not in knowledge, but in attention. The world regained texture. Light through the trees felt new. Ordinary moments stopped feeling like transitions between important things. They became the important things.

A year passed. And somewhere in that time, we stopped trying to optimise our lives. We stopped asking where we should be next. We started asking simpler questions: What feels good? What feels true?

Sometimes, the answer is nothing extraordinary. Just coffee in the morning. A walk through the trees. An afternoon without a plan.

If there is anything this year taught us, it’s this: you don’t have to disappear into the forest to find yourself. You can start smaller. Leave your phone behind. Take yourself somewhere quiet. Walk without measuring distance. Sit without needing to document it. Let your mind wander long enough to remember what it sounds like.

Not every moment needs to lead somewhere. Sometimes, it’s enough to let it be exactly what it is.

It wasn’t that the world became different. We just began to see it again.

Objects, ideas, books, spaces, and moments that feel considered. Useful. True.

We’re glad you’re here. Let us know if there’s anything you’d like to read from us. Hope to talk to you next week.

Gisele and Rudmer