The Value of Things: Evaluating Success, Self, and Surroundings
Finding Meaning in Overlooked Everyday Things: How Our 21st-Century Minds Miscalculate Value and the Power of Mindfulness and Intentionality
Redefining Your Value and Position Within Your Surroundings
When you place a diamond next to many Swarovski crystals that all look alike, the diamond might think they’re the same. Is this going to be an essay about the ‘you’re better than those around you’ cliché? No, it won’t. Because you’re not. I believe no one is better than anyone else. Some people belong in one place, and others belong in another. Your surroundings should serve you: your outlook on life and your values. We don’t have to fit in everywhere, and that’s okay.
Clothes. I love them. (Trust me, it’s relevant.) My mum is a great tailor—though I needed to take a sewing course to learn how to sew because she’s not good at watching you make mistakes; she has to take it out of your hands and fix it, a bit grumpily and hurriedly. She was born that way, and I love her the way she is. My childhood was full of fabric store memories and my mum sewing beautiful garments—and unsurprisingly, I fell in love with fashion’s crafty side early on. My first attempt to cut and sew a skirt was at age 4—I remember thinking, “They think I can’t do it, but I can,” then cutting the fabric into a trapezoid. I don’t think my mum got angry when she saw it because I don’t remember her reaction.
After 1.5 years in fashion, I realized I didn’t care about clothes that much. I enjoyed sewing as a hobby, but I didn’t care about trends, catwalks, or looking stylish. I like tailored pieces and combining outfits, but it wasn’t even in my top 5 daily priorities. I lost the purpose and meaning behind my work at Belstaff. Then I discovered (actually, I finally found the courage to admit) that I’ve wanted to be surrounded by story: film & TV, writing, and reading. This is what I wanted and needed.
Leaving that job was challenging: I was respected, fit in well with my team, and enjoyed working with vendors. But I felt I there should be a space where my work would feel more meaningful to me—where I could thrive. Being somewhere without like-minded people is risky for our long-term identity; you can lose yourself just to fit in. When you find your people, you’ll shine and reflect each other’s light with bliss and peace on your faces.
I’m a big advocate of being intentional in everything. Only then can we find the most meaningful experiences for us. Otherwise, you might drift away like a kite in the wind, randomly landing somewhere. Finding the place where you belong is deeply fulfilling—and you discover it by knowing your values and what truly matters to you.
Unearthing and Recognizing the Hidden Value in So-Called Ordinary Things
One of the most meaningful moments in my day-to-day life is stopping to watch tree branches shake in the wind or noticing the wind’s ever-changing patterns on the river—sometimes broad, powerful flows, other times tiny ripples. Watching swans swimming without hurry, calmly absorbing everything around them, and sometimes fighting and biting each other. Stopping for a second, being fully present in those moments, and seeing it—really—feels deeply meaningful.
On this Earth, in the 21st century, I happen to be living in London, part of thousands of years of humankind, and my eyes witness this scene of swans while my own kind continues its ridiculous wars, conflicts, and battles. In contrast to our senselessness, animals simply exist as they are: pure, simple, innocent. When I look at them, in a glimpse of a moment, I see our unnecessary fights, our incredible efforts and struggles to become better than one another, and how we eventually end up not needing each other and being lonely. I realize we’ve missed the whole point of existence. We don’t grasp the meaning of peace or joy, or what’s truly worth wanting and seeking. Instead, we climb the ‘ladders of success’ constructed by others and keep playing a game we don’t even care about.
Success Meter – An Artificial Device for Miscalculating Value
We all carry “achievement lists” in our minds: “Once we arrive there, once we have that house, once we have a baby, once we’ve travelled the world…” Then? Then what? After checking off every goal, we often feel a complete void. We come to realise all those bullet points were never actually the point. These milestones are societal constructs.
Imagine living in an Amazon tribe. We share the same century, yet our norms are completely different. Now, look objectively: how much of your time do you give up working just to provide for these so-called needs? I’m not saying we should all quit our jobs and live as hermits—that’s not the point. The question is: do we really need all the things we believe we need? These needs look to me like little toys we give toddlers to keep them busy. We just keep ourselves occupied. Working, wanting to own a house, living in big cities... These things help us maintain our lives, but they’re tools — not the destination.
I know I sound tremendously contradictory—living in London, working on the ninth floor of a big corporate office, and all that—but this is my reality. My reasons are different. I’m an immigrant in the UK, and London is where most immigrants are. I need connection; I need fellow immigrants. I need a job, and I love being exposed to a big amount of knowledge—which big corporates provide.
I don’t do things because I feel I have to or to climb a success ladder. I do them for the values they give me—insight into the story business (TV is a story business to me), working with like-minded, interesting people, and learning, learning, learning. That’s how I see my job.
Living in London is great because of the opportunities this city offers: free museums, musicals, theatres, meetups, seminars—you name it. What a privilege it is to cycle, passing by the London Eye and the Thames on my way to work! How can you put a price on that? The feeling of passing beautiful architecture and nature along the way is a feast for my eyes.
I get to meet people from all over the world who share my passions—arts, history, film, piano, languages, cultures. The people I work with contribute to my growth every day simply by being themselves. I see different ways of being. People from multiple countries, hybrids of cultures—each one a unique, authentic person. That’s the value I get from living and working here. That’s how I see it.
Overall, having a balanced mindset about what’s really valuable is important. Knowing my 6 am reading time with a coffee I make on my Gaggia (my friends can’t believe I have the patience to make coffee for 13 minutes—they prefer one-button machines, which aren’t the same quality; investing 13 minutes gives me 50 minutes of “Aaah, this is so good!” sips during my reading) is so valuable that I work to make those moments happen—moments of creative input and output, sharing the 21st century with Dostoyevsky and Steinbeck. The old fellas understand me.
Wrapping It Up
While I was working in fashion production (trust me, it’s relevant, again), we were calculating everything starting from the very last thing: when do the garments need to be at the stores and in our wholesale buyers’ warehouses? Let’s say it’s the Autumn-Winter 2027 season. It needs to be at their warehouses and our stores by July–August 2027 at the latest. To do so, it needs to arrive at our warehouse around April–June 2027. Is it flying or trucking from our vendors? Based on that, it needs to leave the vendors between December 2026 and February 2027. How long does it take them to produce? Do they have the capacity? We need to lock in their capacity beforehand. We need to lock in the prices beforehand. To save on raw materials, we need to agree with raw material producers in bulk beforehand. That means we need to book fabrics, trims, etc., by around December 2025–January 2026 at the latest. Before that, merchandising needs to decide how many units of each style and color will be produced. Before that, the Design needs to create the new collection. So you can say the AW27 collection actually started its first steps around May–June 2025—a roughly two-year process.
Why am I telling all this? I’m seeing my life and planning it like that: I know I will die one day (sorry for bringing up a sad fact in what should be a motivational essay), and I kind of plan backwards. What is the most important thing for me to do before dying? What is the most important question I have? What do I truly care about the most?
The answers to these questions led me to see that beauty is everywhere, in simple things. And to see those, to feel them, to breathe, to smile, to connect with people—I don’t need to own anything. The most valuable things—none of them—can be bought. Sharing a moment of joy with a friend, feeling fulfilled when writing, cooking in the kitchen with family, seeing a plane fly next to the moon—marking the sky with its path, and even washing dishes while my thoughts wandering in a stream of consciousness or listening to a podcast. We don’t need to arrive anywhere to have them. We need to stop, look, ponder, see, be grateful.
Being human is beautiful.
Existence is beautiful.
