I May Be Wrong: And Other Wisdoms From Life as a Forest Monk

by Björn Natthiko Lindeblad

Success and happiness are two different things.

The implication being that the 'correct' choice is happiness?

Ever since I was little, I’ve loved the mountains unconditionally. They’ve always been my favourite environment, my element. Being among high peaks makes me happy almost by default.

I strongly suspect I was the only hiker that year pretentious enough to lug around a heavy hardback copy of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov,

Only dead people have quiet minds. For as long as we’re alive, we’re in possession of an intellect, and the nature of the human intellect is to generate ideas,

And there might be situations where trust is the last thing left to lean on.

It’s the morning after a stormy night, and the waves have washed up countless starfish. The little girl picks up a starfish and throws it back into the sea. Picks up another and throws it in, too. Then an old man comes along. A grumpy old man. ‘Little girl, what are you doing?’ ‘I’m rescuing starfish by throwing them back into the water.’ ‘But, child, there must be tens if not hundreds of thousands of starfish on this beach. The few you throw back make absolutely no difference, you see that, don’t you?’ Undeterred, the little girl picks up another starfish. Throws it in. And says: ‘It matters to that one.’