Stop fighting your nature
Fulfillment emerges when we meet core needs, let flexible balance guide health, reshape self-perception before action, and channel our natural traits instead of resisting them.
August 2nd, 2025 - Issue #129 - read online
👋 Welcome to Pursuit—your weekly pause for intentional living, self-discovery, and inner clarity. My name is Amir, and every week I share four carefully chosen ideas to help you design a more fulfilling life.
This week at a glance:
✋🏼 Five core human needs
☯️ Health thrives on balance, not obsession
🪞 Start with changing your self-perception
🐅 Stop fighting your nature
✋🏼 Five core human needs
Beyond food, water, and shelter, humans thrive on five core needs: challenge, autonomy, progress, direction, and a supportive group.
Challenge works best when balanced—neither too easy nor overwhelming. Like a well-designed game, steady increases in difficulty keep us engaged and growing.
Autonomy is the freedom to choose, to feel in control of our own path. Progress is the sense of forward motion, of building toward something larger than the present moment. Yet progress alone is not enough; it must be guided by direction—a clear sense of where we want to go and why it matters to us.
None of this happens in isolation. We need a supportive group walking the same way. The right companions motivate us, share insights, and hold us accountable when enthusiasm dips. Working alongside people with a similar direction turns effort into shared momentum and transforms individual milestones into collective wins.
When any of these elements is missing, restlessness follows. When they align, life locks into place. The task is to shape an environment where challenge, autonomy, progress, direction, and a supportive group can all thrive together.
☯️ Health thrives on balance, not obsession
We often picture optimal health as a life run by strict rules—consistent diet, perfect sleep, minimal stress. Yet the people who live longest usually thrive on something messier: engagement and flexibility.
Consider food. An occasional bag of chips (which I absolutely love 😄) will not shorten your life, but chronic anxiety about every ingredient might. The stress of perfection can do more harm than the “bad” foods you try to avoid.
Sleep tells the same story. Consistency matters, though rigid schedules can strip life of spontaneity and connection. I spent months fretting over sleep metrics and am only now learning to relax. Regular rest is valuable, but self-punishment is not.
The most overlooked element is passion. Genuine interest keeps the mind active and the future inviting. A fully optimized, stress-free routine sounds ideal, yet the people who flourish longest are the ones deeply invested in something they care about.
Longevity is less about perfect inputs and more about sustained involvement. Eat well and sleep well, but do not let perfection become another stressor. The longest-lived individuals are not merely avoiding death; they are immersed in life.
✨ From Dr Mike Israetel - Exercise Scientist’s Masterclass on Longevity
🪞 Start with changing your self-perception
We chase productivity, convinced that output alone shapes our future. Yet the true driver is not how much we accomplish; it is how we see ourselves.
Self-perception is never just an inner dialogue. It broadcasts outward, and others mirror it back. Walk through life as someone who expects to lose, and people will respond accordingly—not out of malice, but because we teach the world what to believe about us. Repeated often enough, that reflection becomes reality.
The problem is not only negative self-talk. It is the belief that change arrives from the outside in: more effort, more discipline, bigger wins. As long as the internal story stays the same, each success feels fleeting and every setback confirms an old narrative.
Transformation begins with a new self-view, not with proof. Shift the story, and the world will adjust its response.
✨ From This Is the Real Reason You Can't Change Your Life: Doctor Alok Kanojia
🐅 Stop fighting your nature
Stop fighting your nature. Start winning with it. You're born with certain core traits. Fighting them is like being a sprinter forced to run marathons – exhausting and futile. But these "limitations" can become your biggest advantage.
Your instincts, personality, and preferences aren't flaws - they're features. When something seems to be holding you back that you can't change, the key is to change your environment. What's a headwind in one situation is a tailwind in another.
The most successful people don't fight their nature. They architect their environment to amplify it. Stop asking: "How do I fix myself?" Start asking: "How do I position myself where my natural traits are assets?"
✨ From Stop Fighting Your Nature
🇵🇸 If you want to support my work, commit to donating $10/month to the children of Gaza—living in what is now the deadliest place on Earth.
🎵 Music I’m listening to
You’ll find mostly Ethnotronica, Organic House, World, Disco, and Organic Electronic here:
🎧 If you appreciate the music I carefully select and haven't followed my Spotify playlists yet, now is the perfect time to hit that follow button and join me on this musical journey! 🎶
🌒 Pano: Danceable and electronic obscure songs
🌓 Sisy: Ethnotronica and organic house
🌑 Berghain: Dark, minimal techno and tech house
🌕 Heide: Groovy soul and disco house
🌞 Sonntag: Afterhours shit
🦥 Slow rave: Sleepy techno for tired danced
🌎 World: From Latin jazz to Turkish psych
🌚 Super Slow: For your intimate moments
Previously on Pursuit:
