finding my northstar at 28
(OR: "how I became a 28-year-old hermit living with my parents and somehow made it sound philosophical")
Intimidating.
Writing.
Hello from my little corner of the world.
Welcome to my story.
why this, why now
I'm 28, single, no kids, unemployed, and living with my parents in a small town in Costa Rica that feels like the Shire from Lord of the Rings—a place of comfort, safety, and too much predictability. (Minus the hairy feet, though I can't speak for all of my neighbors. Yes Milton, I am talking to you.)
A year ago, at 4 AM during one of my nocturnal walking sessions, a thought had been ruminating in my mind for weeks:
"I am nothing. I am lost. I have accomplished nothing."
That moment—call it a breakdown or breakthrough—became the fault line between my old life and whatever this season is called. Extended existential vacation? Professional sabbatical from being a person? I'm still workshopping the name.
Before we continue, you should know something about me. I've had this peculiar ritual since childhood: putting on headphones and pacing back and forth while music plays, daydreaming so vividly it's almost like leaving this reality. I need this several times daily to function, as essential to me as breathing.
I recently discovered this resembles "walking meditation," which makes me feel less like a weirdo and more like someone who accidentally stumbled into an ancient practice through intuition. (Just let me have this small win over my lifelong "you're so strange" complex.)
Maybe you have your own version of this—that weird thing you do that keeps you sane but you never tell anyone about?
(If not, just nod along and pretend. I'm building rapport here.)
That night at 4 AM, something shifted. Instead of just pacing, dreaming and ruminating on that obsessive thought, I grabbed pen & paper to write down everything I wanted to change. As the list grew, I had my first insight: what I longed for was entirely possible—but I was nowhere near being the version of myself capable of achieving it.
Or so I thought.
In that moment of clarity, I made a decision: it was time to begin the most important romance of my life—the romance with myself and my own story.
(Yes, I just made existential crisis sound like a Hallmark movie. I have my moments.)
the unbecoming
You see, I've always been spontaneous, impulsive, goofy, highly emotional, and not particularly rational. Over the years, I've developed my planning and rational abilities, but they've never come naturally to me. Now, I wanted to intentionally cultivate these capacities without losing the creative spontaneity that makes me who I am, asking myself the questions I've avoided during my 20s:
What do I truly want?
What kind of income supports the life I envision?
What relationships nourish rather than deplete me?
What physical space would feel like home?
What type of coparent do I want?
(And most importantly, how many plants can I realistically keep alive at once?)
This questioning required space. And space required goodbye-saying.
Why such dramatic changes? As Joe Dispenza explains in "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself," our brains are literally hardwired by our repeated thought patterns. The neurons that fire together, wire together. Our thoughts shape our emotions, which influence our actions, which ultimately create our reality and identity.
In essence, I had become addicted to my own familiar thought patterns and emotional states—even the unhelpful ones. To create real change, I needed not just new thoughts but a complete reconditioning of my nervous system. A major shift in identity wouldn't happen by accident—it required intentionally disrupting old neural pathways and creating new ones.
That meant cutting the escape routes I'd been using to avoid confronting my life.
Goodbye Instagram (I've been in an on-again, off-again relationship with social media since 2018)
Goodbye drugs and alcohol
Goodbye raves and distractions
Goodbye cellphone and WhatsApp
Goodbye to everything that wasn't serving my process
Goodbye old life, old me, it's time for a clean slate (dramatic, I know—must be the Latina genes kicking in)
Hello, full hermit life & healthy parasocial relationships with podcast hosts :)
the mission of this season: the privilege of questioning everything
When basic survival isn't your primary concern (thank you, Mom and Dad, for providing housing, food, and shelter for your almost 30-year-old baby), you gain this extraordinary opportunity: the freedom to question.
With this privilege of time and security, I've turned my attention to the fundamentals:
Why do I think this way?
Why do I believe these things?
What led me to this thought?
Why do I react like this and not like that?
Why did I think bangs were a good idea three separate times in my life?
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself these questions? Most of us are too busy surviving to wonder where our thoughts come from. We inherit beliefs like hand-me-down clothes, never questioning if they actually fit us.
I'm in the process of deconstructing my identity—trying to understand where this entity we call "I" comes from. Simultaneously, I'm designing a blueprint for a life that fills me with joy, learning how to play the money game in a way that provides comfort without compromise, and discovering how I can be of service to a world that, frankly, doesn't seem to know what it needs from me yet.
This is the paradox of my current existence: never more uncertain about who I am, yet never more clear about what matters.
the ideas that changed everything
When I finally crawled out of my 4 AM breakdown-breakthrough, I did what any good Zillennial would do – I went looking for answers on YouTube, podcasts, and in books I'd been meaning to read.
(Zillennial, by the way, because I exist in that weird generational limbo—too young to claim full Millennial existential angst as my birthright, too old to instinctively know which TikTok dance goes with which sound.)
Thank God for all the thinkers who have collectively illuminated my path.
the trap
Have you ever felt like you're constantly reaching for something that keeps moving away? Like you're chasing some imaginary version of yourself that's always just out of reach?
Think about it. From childhood, we absorb ideas about who we should be—from parents, teachers, Instagram, cooler friends, movies, whatever Disney princess or superhero imprinted on us as kids, and someone who always has an opinion about your life choices. We collect these expectations like souvenirs, building an idealized image of ourselves that's actually a Frankenstein monster of other people's values.
Sigmund Freud called this the "ego ideal"—a perfect projection of who we believe we should be. The problem? It's designed to be unattainable. The goalposts keep moving.
You got that promotion? Great, now you need a bigger house.
You got the relationship? Cool, why aren't you married yet?
You got married? When are the kids coming?
Got kids? Why aren't they in violin lessons and speaking Mandarin yet?
It's exhausting, right?
Martha Beck has been crucial to my understanding of this trap. In "Finding Your Own North Star," she explains how we each have an "essential self" (our authentic core) and a "social self" (the version we've created to please others). When these two selves are misaligned, we feel lost, anxious, or empty—exactly what I've been experiencing.
Building on this, in "The Way of Integrity," Beck calls these misalignments "social cages"—systems we've unconsciously constructed around ourselves. She compares this trap to Dante's dark wood—we're all just wandering around lost because we've built these cages around ourselves.
She guides us toward finding our "North Star" instead of following someone else's map. She basically says, "Hey, you're in a psychological prison of your own making, and here's the blueprint for escape." The way out? Integrity, which just means becoming whole again. Reconnecting with that inner compass that always knows which way is north, even when society is screaming at you to go south.
(My inner compass apparently wants me pacing around in my parents' living room at odd hours.)
Reading this, I had to ask myself:
When was the last time I actually followed my inner compass instead of chasing external validation?
When did I last make a decision because it felt deeply right, not because it would look good on social media or please someone else?
The answer was depressing. But also liberating.
the games everyone plays
I went deeper down the rabbit hole and found Dan Koe's work. He described exactly what I'd been doing—playing "social games":
The career ladder game
The relationship status game
The approval-seeking game
The buy-stuff-to-feel-better game
The self-development game.
I recognized myself in all of them. Like that time I stayed in a marketing job I hated because it sounded good at parties. Or when I dated that guy because he checked some boxes on paper. Or when I bought those expensive boots that pinched my feet but made me look like I had my life together.
These reflections led me to a question I now ask constantly: What stupid little game am I playing right now? Who wrote these rules, and why am I following them?
breaking free: the 4-hour epiphany
Once we understand the trap, we need practical strategies for escape. Here, Tim Ferriss offers a roadmap through his "4-Hour Workweek." Let me share what actually changed my thinking.
At its core, Ferriss's book isn't about working four hours (despite the clickbaity title). It's about redesigning your relationship with work entirely. He introduces a simple framework:
Define what truly matters to you (your values and ideal lifestyle)
Eliminate anything that doesn't serve those values
Automate what you can to free up time and mental space
Liberate yourself from geographical and financial constraints
He talks about creating a "muse"—an income source that requires minimal ongoing management. In 2007, this often meant e-commerce or dropshipping businesses. But in 2025, the landscape has transformed.
Today, a "muse" might be:
A course teaching something you know
A community platform where you facilitate connections
Digital products
Content that generates passive income through multiple streams
Ferriss also introduced me to the "Blue Ocean Strategy" (from W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne). Imagine two types of markets:
Red Oceans: Crowded, competitive spaces where everyone's fighting over the same stuff.
Blue Oceans: Open territories where you can create something entirely new. You're not fighting for market share; you're creating it.
Building on this blue ocean concept, Ferriss reinforces it with Kevin Kelly's idea of "1,000 true fans"—the notion that you don't need millions of followers, just a dedicated community who deeply values your work.
In fact, his prediction that creators could sustain themselves with 1,000 people each paying $100 annually has evolved into what Li Jin now calls the "100 true fans" economy—where even deeper relationships with fewer, more devoted supporters can generate sustainable income.
Dan Koe expands on this by emphasizing that the future belongs to creators who can carve out their own category. As he puts it:
"The internet has made it possible for anyone to build an audience and monetize their expertise, but most people are still playing by industrial-age rules in a digital economy."
This brings me to a personal fear: becoming trapped in the very systems I'm trying to escape. What if building a YouTube channel or personal brand just becomes another form of enslavement? What if, instead of a 9-to-5 boss, I end up with thousands of followers demanding constant content?
(And I know how stupid this might sound—dude, first publish something before worrying about a hypothetical audience, I know.)
But Koe addresses this directly by distinguishing between:
Attention-based creators who become slaves to algorithms and audience demands
Value-based creators who build systems that serve others without requiring their constant presence
The key difference isn't in the content itself, but in the business model behind it. Creating systems that deliver value without requiring your constant time and attention is the crucial step that many creators miss. So the real question becomes: If I want to be a value-based creator, how exactly do I build a system that generates both meaning and money without becoming another form of self-imposed slavery?
the freedom equation
Naval Ravikant, Tim Ferriss, and Dan Koe all emphasize one truth:
"You aren't free until you stop selling your time for money."
Ouch. Because every job I've had was literally me selling my limited time on Earth for cash. And not even that much cash.
Think about that. If you must physically show up somewhere for 40+ hours every week to earn money, you're not actually free. You've just found a comfortable prison.
The way out, according to Naval, isn't complicated:
Build or buy equity in something (ownership > salary)
Create multiple income streams (diversification > dependency)
Use leverage—code, media, capital, network—to multiply your impact
Live below your means (freedom > stuff)
When I first encountered these ideas, I felt simultaneously liberated and terrified. Liberated because I could see a path to freedom. Terrified because I need to escape the matrix.
"Money is the lifeblood of society as we know it and unless you want to hide off in the woods because your perception of money got the better of you, the only option is to merge purpose and profit." - Dan Koe
Right now I am hiding off in this small town, thinking about, as he puts it, my only option: Merge purpose & profit.
the questions that keep me up at night
This brings me to the questions that haunt me during my late-night walking sessions:
What is my category of one?
How do I find purpose and translate it into something that provides both meaning and livelihood?
What's the unique combination of my skills, interests, experiences, and perspective that no one else can offer?
Where's my blue ocean?
Who is my most authentic self?
I still don't have an answer. And that's okay.
I don't want to play other people's games anymore.
I want to find that sweet spot—where my authentic self meets the market's needs. Where I can be fully me and make a living doing it.
But here's the tricky part: how do you find your authentic self? And how do you translate that authentic self into something that creates value for others in your own blue ocean?
These aren't rhetorical questions. I'm genuinely asking. Because I suspect I'm not the only one struggling with them (I hope).
why i'm writing (and why you might want to follow along)
So here's where I am: in the messy middle.
Rather than waiting until I've "figured it all out," I'm documenting the journey in real-time.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff, who created Ness Labs, explains that making your learning process public dramatically increases its effectiveness. It creates accountability, community, and unexpected connections.
So this is my "Tiny Experiment": writing to share my journey of questioning everything—from my relationship with work to my understanding of self.
In the words of Bella Baxter from "Poor Things":
"I am Bella Baxter. I am a flawed, experimenting person. I seek outings and adventures. Bella's so much to discover. And there is a world to enjoy, circumnavigate. It is the goal of all to improve, advance, progress, grow."
I commit to writing honestly—a weekly newsletter with perhaps two articles per week. I'll share what I'm learning, what I'm questioning, and what I'm discovering along the way. I'd love for you to join me.
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