I went through my midlife crisis in the 90s, and it was a doozy.

Up till then, my life was directed toward success. This was something I wanted ever since I was a small child. I wanted to do something great and creative. Maybe invent something. I wanted to make a difference.

I arrived in the 90s with most of the boxes checked. I had attained success in the way that I had set out to. Then I waited for the feeling of satisfaction. I waited for everyone whose approval I yearned for to approve of me. Nothing. Emptyness. All the approval felt conditional. I was looking for love in all the wrong places, as the song goes. The place to look for harmony is inside not outside.

So, did I approve of myself? No, not in any way. I was living a lie. I wasn't listening to myself. I was letting other people define me. I had another hill to climb, to learn how to listen to the internal chatter always going on inside me. All the voices, who were they and what did they want?

I did a lot of things on this path. One of them is I started writing publicly frequently, and then every day. I took risks, and told stories that didn't used to make it to journalism. I was offered a writing job at Wired. I was developing software to support this new activity, and in the process created something new, this time wasn't aimed at fame and fortune, checking the boxes. It was simply something I wanted to have. Not saying the software I did before was just for checking boxes, that was never the case. Just that this was the first software I made that had nothing to do with checking the boxes.

Another thing I did was start therapy. Eight years on the couch. Talking about myself. Being heard by someone whose job it was to listen.

The first big discovery came a couple of years in.

I was frustrated with something a relative did. I said "I know what they're doing right now." I was sure of it.

The therapist asked: "How do you know?"

That stopped me. I said: "I don't know."

Then I asked: "Why didn't you ask that before?"

Therapist: "I've been asking all along, this is the first time you responded."

The big lesson was, as you dream your way through life, before you make a decision check with your senses to see if the perception was right.

Always ask yourself how you know what the other person is doing.