Today I was asked why I live in Tokyo. The answer — I don’t really know. I was called to live here instead of just passing through. I wanted to experience seasons and city life. I longed to be lost in the world with my pen and curiosity as my compass; I wanted to call Tokyo home.

We can never truly know for certain with anything, can we? We just choose to follow the trail, the story, the heart, the gut — or we don’t.

At times I wonder what the hell I’m doing. I question my purpose just as much as anybody. But I return to the page and the simple things which make me happy, and I find myself again.

I feel now, more strongly than ever, that if I just keep going, moving, and putting my heart and soul into the world, things will fall into place. I’ve been finding solace, joy even, in the fact that it doesn’t all need to happen now.

You don’t have to understand it, I tell myself. Just keep telling the story.

One day I will get to where I hope to be, making a living from doing what I love — published books, a wide-reaching podcast, even a physical, beautiful magazine with a variety of contributors that melds cultures and perspectives.

This won’t all happen overnight. It’s natural to feel like we’re falling behind with all the noise and comparison on social media and elsewhere. We want things to happen now.

But achieving our goals — doing anything worthwhile — takes patience.

There are more unknowns in my life now than ever. Yet, I’ve never been more okay with that, because rather than worrying about reaching some arbitrary finish line, I’m embracing the fact that patience plus consistently doing the work over a long enough period, years or even decades, will take us further than we can know.

It’s taken me here. Being here was once a dream.

I don’t want to look back on my life and wonder why I wasn’t happier on the way to getting where I hope to go. I’m happy now on this crisp autumn morning, pouring my thoughts out next to a beautiful soul who’s also on her quest for a life of depth and meaning.

It feels like I’m slowing down in a way, while also finding deeper peace in the mystery of it all. I’m dreaming big, and I think that’s why I’m content with where I am, still in the chapter of my career where I’m building the foundation.

The bigger the dream, the bigger the timeframe.

So send it.

Expand your horizons and pursue what you’re on this earth to pursue, or at least begin seriously exploring what that might be. Then when on the path cherish every step along the way, the highs, inevitable lows, and everything in between.

What do we have when we don’t know if things are going to work out? When we feel like giving up, or when we feel lost?

Faith in the process.

Trust in ourselves.

I know I can trust myself because of the feeling in my body which comes from writing these words. This process gives me energy.

Day in and day out as I pursue the things that light my soul on fire: writing, my podcast, photography — the various bricks which comprise the foundation of my career — I feel my heart aglow. Warmth pervades my hands as I write these words, an insatiable desire to express what’s within.

That tells me I’m on my way.

There is nothing to solve right now. There is nothing to be. There is nothing to fix, to understand, to change. There is no finish line that we must reach to have made it.

I like to think that by going all in on ourselves, by doing our work without knowing if things will work out, the universe shines brightly upon us. It just does so in ways we can’t grasp or perceive fully in the moment.

Take the weight off. The stars align in retrospect, but while traversing the unknown, we can often only see an empty black sky. It takes time for the stars to shine. Keep the faith. Things will all fall into place eventually.

I won’t wait to be happy in the meantime.