Akash is a fitness enthusiast, aspiring writer, and creator of "The Modern Z" a podcast where he invites students and Generation Z individuals to share ideas, stories and experiences. Akash's value was "true self-awareness" and through the first part of the conversation he explained how various books and the ancient Greek philosophy of stoicism shaped his approach to life. He believed true self-awareness was critical so that you could develop the right amount of skepticism and humility to constantly learn, grow, and ultimately become the best version of yourself. 

As Akash explained this it sounded really good, but I wanted us to make it real. The concepts were all good and useful, but they were just concepts. So we pushed further in the conversation to understand, personally for him, what this all meant and how he got to this point in life. Akash shared that when he was younger he was overweight, bullied, and not happy with his life. This lead him to focus on improving his physical well being and once he saw himself transform in that sense, it became much easier to focus on his mental transformation. He no longer wanted to be the class clown who desperately wanted people to like him and instead began to focus on who he really was and what truly mattered to him.

This lead to a really interesting debate about what the end goal of life is really all about. I have a strong working hypothesis that at the end of it all, we humans are all seeking some form of joy/happiness/pleasure. Everything we do- helping others, climbing mountains, running marathons, building businesses, meditating in caves-- all of it is done because we want to feel "good." Akash believed chasing happiness was too superficial and life has to be about achieving a deeper sense of fulfillment. To him, life has to be about that moment towards the end of your life when you can look back and feel like you've done the things you were supposed to do and have a deep sense of satisfaction and completeness towards life. I don't disagree with Akash, but I do think the final step in that thread is that you want that feeling of fulfillment because it makes you feel "good." We discussed all of this and kicked around different philosophical beliefs and ideas. Thanks to Akash for being on the show and challenging me to think deeper about my views on life.