Someone asked me today what the best advice I ever received was, and after some thought, I came up with this: You never arrive.

I was once listening to a podcast discussing Zen habits and the host said the words “you never arrive”. He was referring to our preoccupations in life. Things we’re worried about, or afraid of, or otherwise causing us suffering in our lives. Those things will always be there because, even if one goes away, another will replace it.

Instead of being preoccupied with “arriving” to a state of mind where we’re not preoccupied because those things have gone away, we should instead train ourselves to form mental habits that minimize the suffering of those things themselves.

That piece of wisdom has stuck with me for a while now, and I believe it’s the best advice I’ve ever gotten.