The Alright Writer

I hate how perfectionist I can be sometimes but I’m glad I prevented myself from bringing that habit into my writing. By choosing to publish one article a day for my first entire year of writing, I didn’t get the time to be a perfectionist. I had to move on to the next piece quickly.

The result was a whole lot of crappy articles. So many you wouldn’t believe. Want to suffer through one? How about this one? Enjoying the awful bolding everywhere and the disorganized ideas? Exactly two years later, I wrote this one. A bit better, right? …

I’d be nowhere close to speaking the 6 languages I speak today without challenges. I know some might think this is an overstatement.

I think it might be an understatement.

I went from being a stereotypical monolingual French person to a polyglot who’s studied many languages and even speaks three that most people consider “difficult” — Korean, Japanese, and Chinese — although once you learn them, you realize they aren’t all that hard.

I often thank my consistency for having been able to reach a good level in all my languages. It was crucial in becoming a polyglot. …

I love the idea of flow. Isn’t it great to be able to have words flow on the screen? The problem is that you have other things to do in your life as well. You need to stop at some point.

It’s also not always that easy. Sometimes, on the contrary, you struggle with finding the next word. You want to keep writing but feel stuck. You fight against the thought of giving up midway but it seems like nothing fits well.

I’ve found deadlines can help in both situations. It helps find a way to close an article you…

My friends all know I’m hard to reach but the ones I’ve known for the longest also realize that wasn’t always the case.

I used to reply to messages on the spot. If I was awake, you could reach me and be certain you’d get a reply within the next 30 minutes at most. Longer was the exception. Nowadays, if you got an answer within the next 5 minutes of your first message, that’d be a sign it’s your lucky day.

Not being so present on social media is an amazing habit, to say the least. Most people can’t even…

People who don’t publish articles online think it’s easy and anybody can do it. They aren’t wrong about the second part but they have no idea how far off they are for the first one.

When you start writing online, you immediately realize the difference between writing an article and writing a good article. You find out how hard it can be to string ideas into a cohesive article. A few months later, you’ve learned the basics and start struggling with something people who only read never noticed. Finding ideas to write about.

I remember struggling as well and, as…

A language-learning journey is full of realizations. Some small, some massive.

You first realize the language isn’t as crazy as it sounds. You notice the writing system makes more sense than you originally thought. You then come to appreciate the instances where you’re able to introduce yourself for the first time, the first 5-minute conversation, the first time you naturally used a word you struggled to remember, the first time you watch a movie without subtitles and understand it, the first book you read, etc.

The longer you study, the more such realizations you’ll experience. Each will feel unique and…

When I first dove into self-improvement, I thought the most important part of my day was the morning. Later on, I realized it was the last hours before I went to bed.

Now I know there’s nothing like the pre-dinner time.

You can’t spend a productive morning full of energy without a good night’s sleep. You can’t get a good night’s sleep without having let go of the past day. You can’t let go of the past day without finishing your tasks and having prepared for the next day.

With that reflection, it’s easy to think everything comes down to…