Welcome to Verstreuen—meaning “to scatter”—where I unpack the ideas I’ve collected this week in my 🗃️ Zettelkasten, “note box,” personal knowledge management system. Here, I’ll share the highlights, insights, and stories I find interesting—and think you will too!

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🗃️ This Week’s Highlights

This week's notes come from 57 new additions to the Zettelkasten—here’s the three that stood out most to share with you:

🟨 The Dangerous Mistake of Chasing What’s In Front of You

🟦 Your Vehicle Into the Unknown

🟥 The Button That Helps You Stop Obsessing Over Your Work

There’s something primal about a ladder. See one in front of you, and a part of your brain itches to climb. Rung by rung. Upward. Always up.

It’s not ambition—it’s wiring. Our minds crave challenge the way lungs crave air. But the brain doesn’t care what the ladder leads to. It just sees something difficult and assumes it must be important.

That’s how most people end up living lives of deep misalignment.

They go from school to job, job to promotion, promotion to title—not because they chose those goals, but because they were there. Because the world handed them ladders, and they mistook placement for purpose.

What’s dangerous isn’t the climb. It’s the inertia. The way momentum can disguise itself as meaning. You work harder, gain recognition, get applause—and somewhere in the noise, you stop asking why you started. One day, you wake up and feel the dull ache of misdirection.

So here’s the real question:
What ladder do you actually want to be on?

—🗃️—

Every journey starts with a need: the need for security, recognition, or identity. At first, we're driven by ego or survival—not by wisdom.

We don’t pick up a paintbrush, launch a startup, or start writing out of enlightenment.
We start because we want something. Approval. Income. A sense of self.
Very rarely do we begin something with the goal of pure mastery but we start all the same it’s enough to get us moving.
Starting for the “wrong” reasons is still starting.

Then comes the long stretch: the quiet, often endless grind.
The applause fades. The algorithm moves on.
But if you keep showing up you begin to feel the rhythm of the work.
It stops demanding validation—and starts offering insight.

The craft starts to guide you.
You’re no longer chasing outcomes; you’re in conversation with the work itself.

Mastery.
it isn’t an endpoint—it’s a mode of travel.

Your skill becomes the structure you build on, a base for exploring bigger questions.
You stop needing certainty. You start moving with curiosity.
You’re not just doing the work—you’re exploring what’s possible through it.

Mastery doesn’t close the loop; it expands the landscape.
The goal isn’t to “arrive” and stop.
It’s to ride your skill into places you couldn’t reach as a beginner.

—🗃️—

I rarely post on Instagram. So when I decided to share something from a recent trip, it felt heavier than expected.

Creating the post was easy. I liked what I made. But posting it? That was scary. There was genuine anxiety: What if I missed something? What if it lands wrong? What if I can’t fix it once it’s out there?

That’s the pressure of publishing—it feels final. Once you hit “post,” it’s live. You can’t unshare it, and you can’t fully control how it’s received.

Jeff Bezos has a good framework for describing decisions as either two-way doors or one-way doors. Two-way doors are reversible—you can step through, and if it’s not right, you can step back. These decisions should be acted on quickly with minimal analysis. One-way doors however? Once you cross the threshold, there’s no going back. these decisions deserve more analysis.

Publishing is a one-way door. But schedule send turns it into a two-way door—at least for a little while.

It gives you space to think. To breathe. To have time to remember to capitalize the word you forgot.

It’s not procrastination. It’s pacing.

It’s not hesitation. It’s intentional distance.

Schedule send creates a buffer between the vulnerable self who creates and the calmer self who releases. It lets you commit to sharing without demanding immediate courage. By the time the post goes live, the fear has faded. You’ve likely already moved onto the next thing.

—🗃️—

Closing Thoughts

This week’s notes revolve around a quiet but powerful insight: our lives are shaped less by how hard we try, and more by the direction we choose to move.

• We’re wired to climb—but if we don’t consciously choose the ladder, each step can take us further from who we really are.

• Clarity comes when our work becomes more than a means to an end—when it turns into a path toward something deeper.

• Even with the right ladder and the right path, we still need to let go—giving the work room to breathe, and ourselves space to do the same.

These insights form a simple sequence:

• Choose with intention – Ask why this ladder, not just how high.

• Commit with devotion – Let your work evolve from a transaction into a journey.

• Release with trust – Create space so anxiety doesn’t hijack the mission.

The thread through it all is agency. Challenge only nourishes when it aligns with purpose. Mastery only frees when it’s freely chosen. And sharing only brings peace when it’s released with trust.

Whatever you're building—your career, your craft, or a single post—pause long enough to aim it in the right direction. Walk that path with heart. Then step back and let it meet the world on its own terms.

Because the goal isn’t just to climb, or to perfect, or even to publish.

The goal is to live a life where every upward step, every refined brush stroke, and every shared piece reflects the same intentional center.

Thanks for reading Verstreuen! 👋 Until next week -GH