Life

If there is one habit you should perform every single day for the rest of your life, which one should it be?

Exercise.

Exercise isn’t just about fitness, as millions still believe. It’s what many would call an “anchor habit”.

Here are the core reasons why exercise is that one habit:

The obvious reasons:

• Prevents chronic diseases
• Increases healthspan and lifespan: Consistent exercise ensures that, at 70 or 80, you still have the functional independence to move freely and avoid falls.
• Better sleep: Helps you fall asleep faster and reach deeper, restorative sleep stages. This, in turn, dictates your energy levels for the next day.
• Cognitive sharpness: Movement increases blood flow to the brain, which improves focus, memory, and even creativity. It’s often the best “problem-solving” tool we have.

The less-obvious reasons:

• Naturally regulates your mood, keeps you “happier”: Exercise triggers the release of hormones – endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin – they fight against daily stress, anxiety, and the “burnout” of modern life.
• More energy throughout the day: It seems counterintuitive, but spending energy on exercise actually trains your body to be more efficient at producing energy, so you feel less “drained” by your daily tasks.

The least-obvious reasons:

• You eat better: Yes, even if you are addicted to junk food.
• The best of them all – You get better at doing harder things: It builds self-efficacy—the belief that you can commit to something difficult and see it through.

• Exercise + an appropriate human diet
• Deep life (inspired by the book Deep Work by Cal Newport)
• Deep, positive, lifelong relationships

Yup, that’s it!

Connect More With

People who are confident, successful, yet humble.

People who are consistent with the virtues you want to be consistent with. For example, being with people who exercise every day, come hell or high water.

Stay Away From

People who are too sure of themselves, all the time. They hardly admit they don’t know things about things. They preach every moment they get.

More Points to Consider

You should be careful about whom you ask for help. You never know who would hold it over your head years later.

Mine is tea and coffee. That is all. I do not smoke, drink, or play video games for hours and hours at a stretch. I am not here to show you how virtuous I am. I don’t care about that. Nor am I here to judge you if you do any of the above. I care even less about that.

I am here to share that this world is far from perfect. This digital age that we are in, with fewer friends and more illnesses. So this vice, then, gives you a sort of comfort.

Now, let me clarify: when I say my vice is tea, I am not addicted to it; I don’t drink 8 cups of coffee or anything like that. I call it a vice because I hate to rely on a substance that is addictive. I don’t want to rely on it as a stress-buster, or because I have nothing else to turn to when I feel lonely. But life can be tough sometimes, and when you don’t have friends, at least you have tea (and coffee in the morning). So, what is YOUR vice?

How would you define true success in life? It is when you have arrived at a stage in life where you do not need to convince or desperately persuade anyone, except maybe your immediate family (and even then, only to some extent). When I say ‘convince,’ I mean you don’t need to impress anyone by wearing clothing you aren’t really comfortable in or by owning a car you can’t really afford. That is when you have truly arrived.

Have you ever felt the entire external surface of your heart as it beats? I am not talking about the heart pounding against your chest when you are stressed or excited, which I guess is technically called palpitations (which I feel particularly when I drink a lot of coffee while fasting).

I am talking about you being able to feel a 3D model of your heart. I am not even sure anyone could feel that way, because I might have been half asleep when I felt it. But it was wonderful and shocking at the same time. Wonderful because I have never felt it before, shocking because it reminded me of the fragility of life. Life. That was it. That was the generator powering my entire body. And there is no backup.

Imagine, after a power cut, you can see a machine running your entire house, far, far away from town. And there’s an important event, like a wedding or a birthday party, going on. Don’t you constantly make sure there’s enough fuel supply for that machine, that everything’s working alright? Well, we don’t behave the same way with our body’s machine, our heart. Until you can see it (or feel it, in this case) like you could a generator.

That feeling was a reminder that life is fragile. And your body is running on a single generator, with no backup at all.

We are facing a comfort crisis. We constantly choose comfort over mild struggle—whether it’s the air conditioner running 24/7 or a burger just a click away. This habit of favoring comfort now is costing us comfort in our later years. It’s like spending money we don’t have on credit cards and ending up with a mountain of debt.

Suggested reading: The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

Even older people are prone to this. Instead of allowing their bodies to heal naturally from a common cold or mild fever, they simply take a few pills. What do they do the rest of the year? They forward WhatsApp messages like “7 easy exercises to flatten your belly in 3 days!” from their armchair.

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

On hot, sunny days, I turn off the AC in the car when I’m alone and sweat a lot. I make sure to have enough water with a bit of salt added. This is obviously best done when you know you can freshen up right afterward.

I often fast for long periods, a practice known as intermittent fasting.