The Only Thing We Ask For
The only thing we truly ask for is to love and to be loved.
It feels like an incredible privilege just to exist and witness this brief moment in the universe’s long story. Sometimes I’m amazed that I can wake up each day able to remember, imagine, dream, and love. I can think about someone I miss, recall a childhood memory, or picture a future that hasn’t happened yet. Maybe this is one of the best parts of being human. We are dreamers with complex minds, and that complexity makes life both beautiful and sometimes very hard.
Today I’m writing from a place of sadness. Part of that sadness comes from saying goodbye to someone who loved our family unconditionally. I’m not sharing this to get sympathy, but because I think being open is important in honest writing. My mind feels like it’s searching for meaning, independence, or a better understanding of everything. I’m not sure if these thoughts are truly deep or just the normal confusion of trying to figure myself out. What I do know is that writing helps. Taking a deep breath helps. Closing my eyes and thinking about the people I love, even those who are gone, helps. These moments remind me that reflecting can be a way to heal.
My sisters and I as children. Looking back, I realize that some of life's happiest moments were the ones we never thought to hold onto.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my younger self. I look back on my life from childhood to now, and I remember little details that once seemed unimportant. I was quiet, soft-spoken, always curious, loved drawing and painting, and thought math just wasn’t for me. Now I realize I had what psychologists call math anxiety, which is actually pretty common. Remembering these things has been surprisingly comforting. It reminds me that the child I was is still a part of me. In some ways, understanding that child has helped ease the imposter syndrome I sometimes feel today. Not completely, but enough to remind me that growth doesn’t always happen in a straight line.
One idea keeps coming back to me: kindness. I’ve started to see how much simple acts of kindness can change things, especially when you don’t expect anything in return. As a child, I was taught to treat others the way I wanted to be treated. Back then, it just seemed like a classroom rule. Now, it feels more like a way to live. I’ve noticed that when I’m patient and compassionate with others, I also become kinder to myself. Kindness isn’t weakness. In fact, choosing kindness when it would be easier to get frustrated takes real strength. More and more, I see kindness and love as deeply connected. If someone asked what I hope to do in my life, my answer would be simple: I want to love more.
Being an artist has changed how I see people. I often wonder why we spend so much time trying to become someone else or trying to prove we’re enough. Maybe that’s just part of being human. We’re living beings with amazing intelligence, but we’re still full of doubts. We’re smart enough to question our own existence, our own minds, and even our own intelligence. Sometimes I think our greatest strength might also be our biggest challenge.
I often think about this when I think about artificial intelligence. I’m both fascinated by it and a little uneasy. Humans, as products of nature, have created something completely new that now learns, creates, and is becoming part of our daily lives. I see the huge benefits AI can bring to medicine, science, education, and many other areas. But I can’t ignore how quickly these technologies are changing. More than the technology itself, I wonder if we’ll keep valuing the things that make us truly human: curiosity, empathy, imagination, creativity, and love. Those are things we can’t hand over to machines.
Studying education has turned out to be a way of learning about myself. It’s given me words for questions I carried for years but didn’t know how to ask. It’s helped me understand learning, identity, motivation, and, maybe most importantly, the people closest to me. The more I learn, the more I see how much I still don’t know. Consciousness is still one of humanity’s biggest mysteries. We have a name for it, but we still can’t really explain what it is.
Because of this, I’ve become careful about looking for people who say they have all the answers. Advice can be helpful. Wisdom is always worth listening to. Parents, teachers, mentors, and friends often notice things we don’t. But in the end, no one else can really know what it’s like to live inside your own mind. Only you can access that inner world. Only you can find out what truly matters to you.
Life is incredibly short. If we’re lucky, we might get about a hundred years. Compared to the universe, that’s just a moment. So why spend that time trapped by fear of what others think? Fear is natural. It evolved to keep us safe and helps us react to danger. I don’t think the goal is to get rid of fear. Instead, I think we should try to understand it, calm it, and keep moving forward anyway. Every tough conversation, every painting, every race, every time we’re vulnerable reminds me that courage is just fear with action.
If there’s one lesson I want to remember, it’s this: love your family. Love your friends. Love your work. Love the mornings and nights. Love the hard days because they make the joyful ones feel even more special. Love the process more than the outcome.
Perhaps that is all any of us are really searching for.
The journey is the reward.
In loving memory of Koby.