Essere felici ogni giorno | con Gianluca Gotto

What is the secret to happiness? If a flower is attacked by weeds, what do you do? Do you put another flower in front of it to protect it? Do you add more soil? Do you water it more? Do you repot it? Do you tear it? No, you don't do any of this. The only sensible thing is to take care of the weeds. Eliminate them. The problem with happiness is that people believe that it is a matter of adding something. I will be happy when I have something that I don't have. Instead, you are happy when you eliminate what makes you suffer. The secret to happiness is to stop being unhappy. From the book Profondo come il mare, Leggero come il cielo by Gianluca Gotto, who I have the pleasure of interviewing here in this interview. Thank you for hosting me. It is a pleasure. Both hosted on the channel and in this wonderful place that you call home. Thank you for being here. Gianluca is the author of five bestseller books, this is the last one. He has sold more than 500,000 copies. Instead, I am Irina and I welcome you to the Spazio Grigio channel, a channel where we talk about minimalism, how to eliminate the superfluous and make space. How are you? I'm very well. We are touring Italy to promote the book. I'm also a little tired because, as you know, with a small child, it's a challenge. Yes, I guess so. But I must say that I am very satisfied. I judge the degree of satisfaction of my life based on how many things I would change. And in this moment of my life I would not change anything. So the maximum degree of satisfaction. Beautiful. I read that passage at the beginning because that is the answer of Zen Buddhism on how to overcome suffering, simplify. Does this concept have minimalism? So let's get straight to the point. Do you consider yourself a minimalist? Do you have a minimalist lifestyle? Yes, I consider myself a minimalist. Not by choice, I'll tell you. Because it was actually a choice imposed by the lifestyle that Claudia and I undertook eight or nine years ago. When we decided to live traveling, we realized that you can't physically carry so many things with you. When you travel, you realize that every object you add to your backpack, every element you bring with you, gets heavier. And so we started this process of simplification of our external life, of our material life, which was also born from the reading of a book. I don't remember the title now, but it was about this man in the United States who had decided to reduce all his material possessions to 100 objects. So he had taken on this challenge of the 100 things. I read that book and I liked it a lot and I decided to undertake that lifestyle, which, however, actually already belonged to me because traveling with a backpack is natural. So at first you weren't aware, that is, it was an unconscious journey, but then you knew it was about minimalism. Let's say it wasn't minimalism, we didn't talk about minimalism, so there was no name for this thing. But I realized that actually all the most beautiful moments of my life were not linked to an object, to the purchase of something, to the possession of something. They were actually experiences, often also very short, very, let's say, intended to end there shortly, but they were beautiful perhaps also for this reason. So I had memories perhaps linked to the moments when with Claudia we observed a sunset, to the experiences of the trips we made and they were, precisely, immaterial things. They were sensations. Happiness was a way of feeling, not a question of what I had or didn't have. And so let's say it's all a matter of awareness. Then we got to a point where we started talking a lot about minimalism, also through very interesting channels like yours. I discovered you precisely for that reason, because I was watching a video on minimalism on YouTube and your video appeared in the suggestions. I didn't know, I had never talked about it. It started like that. I remember that listening to this video of yours, these thoughts of yours, made me think, well, it's the same thing I think. I agree. You left a lot to have the lifestyle you have. What is the most important thing you left behind to become who you are? The fear of disappointing others. This is the most important thing I left behind. Or the fear, in general, of being judged by others and therefore, let's say, the thought of what others think of me. It was certainly the most important thing and I say it because in the first years of my evolution, when I was 20, 22, 23 years old, I suffered a lot from the idea that people would not approve of what I was doing. Starting with family, of course, but also friends and also the perfect strangers you meet on the street. If you think about it, it's absurd how much we are afraid of being judged negatively, of being criticized by people we don't even know. Like how we are dressed. Exactly. And social media has amplified this a lot. Because you can stay bad for something someone wrote from the other side of the world that you have never met, and maybe you will never meet. Realizing that there is no perfection in life and that perhaps it is what brings perfection closer and accepting imperfection, and therefore also accepting failures, failures, mistakes, gave me a lot of lightness and it was certainly the biggest burden I left behind. Thank you for this answer. Always talking about minimalism, have you ever regretted leaving something? Something material? Yes. I must say no. The most difficult object for me to leave behind, even for a matter of intimacy, are my travel bags. And that's a problem. Do you keep them? It's a problem because I keep them, but when I'm on the other side of the world, I think, I keep them in a cellar. And I think, what if that cellar leaks? What if they steal them from me and read everything I wrote? And it's a thought. It's a thought that weighs me down. And so that is still a material bond that I have and that I intend to resolve when I have some time. In what way? I would like, but it takes some time, I would like to photograph all the pages and then let them go even physically. Okay. Many people who do not know minimalism for real think that it is about giving up, giving up something pleasant, such as shopping, a nice dress, or eating out, or buying beautiful things. What do you think about it? I think that minimalism in Italy has been seen as a forced reduction and therefore as a sacrifice. And this is not true. Often it is also thought that minimalism is equal to a poor life, materially. That is, you are a minimalist if you have nothing, but above all if that nothing you own, that little you own, is of little value. It doesn't have to cost much. Yes. You can't be a minimalist if you have a phone of a certain level, if you have a computer of a certain level, if you have a car of a certain level. It's not that. In my opinion, minimalism is having, it's a bit like quoting the title of your book, having only beautiful things. And having those few things that work well, that have value. Often the things that have value also have value in monetary terms. And it's fine like that. For example, it happened to me in a period of my life to often change my smartphone. And this is a question that, on which we must also pay attention for an ethical issue, because the materials with which smartphones are made also imply a certain exploitation in certain parts of the world. It's not an ethical issue to change your smartphone every three months. And I did it because, because I was always looking for those that cost little. But those that cost little were those that then lasted very little. A large investment allows you to have something that lasts over time. So minimalism for me is absolutely not giving up on anything. But really, I have to quote your book again, but having only beautiful things. Speaking of books, the last book is fantastic. It's one of those books that make you grow and help you live a better life. A question about the book. What is the middle way, which is mentioned throughout the book? The middle way is that balance that guarantees us, perhaps not happiness, but a form of serenity, a form of calm, of tranquility, of absence of disturbance. And I find it very fascinating that the whole history of Buddhism is based on this. Because the Buddha was this person who had had the opportunity to live 29 years of his life as a very rich prince, immersed in the most extreme pleasures and all his desires were immediately fulfilled. And then he realizes that that is not real life. Real life is something else. There is a lot of suffering in life. Then he decides to go to the opposite extreme. He gives up everything, stops eating, stops taking care of himself, even starts to hurt himself, stops sleeping, no longer feels any pleasure, but even that is the way. And I find it very beautiful that 2,500 years ago he realized that everything we do in life must be done with balance. And that every time something causes us suffering, there is always an imbalance. This is true in sentimental relationships, in relationships with our children, with our parents, with our co-workers, with our boss, with our work, with our ambitions. When we speak in the West in positive terms of obsession, of being obsessed by a dream, I don't think there is actually something positive because even when you are obsessed, even when you reach the goal of your obsession, the object of your obsession, in the end you are not even that happy because you have to aim higher again. Balance is essential, in my opinion, to be able to stay calm, to live a serene life and it is something that I try to bring into everything I do. The space in the middle is a concept that left me a little surprised because it is something that I did not know but it is also the reason why I called my channel Spazio Grigio. In the sense of that space between two extremes, between white and black, where the best solution is found, the rightest solution for everyone. So when I thought of this name, I thought of a space where everyone could find the answer they are looking for. And when I found this concept in your book, it explained to me what I felt without really knowing it. One of the fundamental points of the book is that you should not look for happiness, let alone serenity. I think it is mind-blowing. Yes, it is a nice change of perspective. Can you explain this to us? Yes, it is not so much a question of not looking for happiness but of not putting happiness as an absolute priority because happiness is a feeling. It is a feeling that comes and then goes, that does not stay forever. You cannot be constantly happy, while instead you can always be serene. There is a sentence that Claudia told me recently that I find very interesting. She said, when we are depressed, we cannot be happy. But when we are depressed, we can be serene. Because they are two different things. Happiness is something that comes when something happens around us, when life gives us what we want. In fact, we can say we are happy to have a son, to have a partner, to have a job, to have a house, to live in a certain place. But we cannot say I am serene to have a son, I am serene to have a partner. It also sounds bad. Why? Because happiness is something that happens and that we like, while serenity is how we feel. It is something that concerns our inner world. I had never taken this into consideration until I discovered Buddhism in a period of my life that was very dark, precisely because I kept asking myself why am I not happy? Why am I not happy? And I looked around for the cause of my unhappiness. But around me, my life was perfect. Because I had spent nine years of my life building it, having that free lifestyle, cultivating the relationship with Claudia, living in the places where I felt at home, in Asia. Why didn't it work? Because I was looking for happiness but what I was missing was serenity. And so I started this inner journey that started on a hot morning in Bangkok where I went to speak with this Buddhist monk who gave me this change of vision that was quite disconcerting. He made me understand, by telling me the story of the Buddha, that perhaps the goal is not to try to be happy but to try not to be unhappy. That is, we think that happiness is adding something to our life, while in reality perhaps we can already find a beautiful form of serenity, a very important form of well-being, removing the causes of our unhappiness. And I remember that returning home from this temple to the guest house where we were, I looked around and for the first time I wasn't looking for happy people who in my head were successful people. I was looking for people who didn't suffer, those who suffered as little as possible. You already saw people from a different perspective. Yes, exactly. Because if you think of a happy person, you look at how they drive themselves, how others look at that person. You mean success, right? Yes, success, the status that that person has. If you want to see serene people, you look for those people who feel good while doing what they do, at the moment they do it. And so there it is no longer a matter of material things, it is no longer a matter of status. You can be happy even the Buddhist monk who sweeps the floor as he was the one I met. It's interesting this thing about monks that you approach a person like that and start talking to them, give them advice. It's something that doesn't happen here in the West. No, no, it's not. And to finish the speech about serenity, do you feel like you've found serenity? Yes, I feel like I've found serenity and I realize it because when life gets complicated, when life gets too frantic, when things don't go the way I want, I still manage to appreciate the experience of life. And I think it's a bit like what I was telling you before, I wouldn't change anything about my life at this moment, even though my life isn't perfect. But I've learned to accept what I can't control and to appreciate also the fact that life is an immense experience, extremely vast, in which there are aspects that seem favorable to us and aspects that seem unfavorable to us. But maybe it's us who see them this way. Maybe life is simply life. There are no positive moments, no negative moments. There are no lucky events and no unfortunate events. It's us who give these labels. With our thoughts. Exactly. Maybe life is like a flame and the flame burns everything you throw at it. The flame doesn't know the difference between a piece of paper, a piece of plastic, a piece of wood. The flame burns. And maybe we should stop desiring and receiving only what we want because the only moment when our flame won't burn something we don't like is when that flame will be extinguished. When there will be no more life to live. That's the moment when nothing bad will happen to us. Right. Let's go to the next ones. In your book, however, you say that you were an agitated person. You were an impatient person, a pessimist, even someone who said bad words. It's hard to believe knowing you now. From what you write, it seems that it was meditation that changed you. Does it really have this power? Yes, it was meditation, especially for agitation. It has this power. Why? Because each of us is different and does different things every day. But if there is one thing that unites us all, at least in this part of the world, it's that in every moment of our day we are doing something. We are actively committed to do something. Meditation is the practice of stopping, of stopping to do, of stopping to act, of stopping to want to change things, of stopping to want to live life as if we were at the center of a stage, as if we were at the center of the universe. We sit down, we close our eyes, we also close all these external, non-stop stimuli outside of us, we breathe and we are present to ourselves and in those moments we calm down. When then our mind, which in Buddhism is indicated as a crazy monkey, which is a beautiful metaphor, a crazy monkey that jumps from one alien to another like you jump from one thought to another. Unconsciously. Exactly, it's a crazy race, it's called crazy precisely because there is no logic. We sometimes think about things that we have not chosen, they simply happen. When we manage to calm this crazy monkey and go back to live our lives, all the problems, all the worries, all the anxieties seem to us much more manageable because we have brought calm inside us and calm in Buddhism is associated with mental clarity and mental clarity leads to the wisest decisions that we can make in our lives and from the wisest decisions serenity is born and from there happiness is also born. So it's a practice that I definitely recommend to everyone to bring into their daily life. If not sitting with crossed legs, doing what I call micro meditations while we prepare coffee, while we wash the dishes, I know you have also read the book of Thich Nhat Hanh Yes, being present, doing everything as if it were the most important thing. Yes, and doing one thing at a time. Exactly, because multitasking is a kind of illusion. Do you agree on this? Yes, I also understood over time that concentrating on so many things is like not concentrating on anyone. Very good. Yes, it's like when there are so many important things in reality no one is important. This is a sentence that I stole from you, in fact, that I used to a no, I didn't steal it from you, come on, that I shared in one of my presentations. I said, there's a friend of mine who says when everything is important nothing is important. That's it. How true it is. And I also think that sometimes it happens to everyone, it happens, it also happens to me to maybe find ourselves at the end of a long day, very intense, very full, and it often happens to have a moment when we stop being lucid and we say, but what happened today? I mean, I did a lot of things but I don't even remember one. Why? Because we can only remember what we pay attention to and if we live a life without attention because we do a thousand things all together, what will we remember about this life? And that bad feeling that you have of saying, I look back and the ten years of my life seem to have flown away. But also, the week has passed and you say, but when did the week pass? Exactly, we're already on the weekend. We're already in November. When did the summer pass? What did I do? In fact, I have to say one thing, that the thing that unites us, we've been friends for a while now, right? But the thing that has obviously tightened the bond a lot is the fact that you and Claudia got pregnant more or less at the same time. Yes. I mean, your son was born a month and a half before Asia, our daughter. And if I look back, now they have, what, 13, 14 months? If I look back now, 13, 14, 15 months seem like long years to me. So it means that we lived them with presence, with attention. And it's a beautiful thing. It's almost a way to extend time, don't you think? Yes, yes, yes. In almost every chapter I found references or maybe connections with minimalism and I didn't expect this at all. I didn't expect there to be so many aspects, principles, and values in common between Zen Buddhism and minimalism. I didn't expect there to be so many aspects, principles, values, and principles in common between Zen Buddhism and minimalism. They are not literally specified, but as a minimalist I read them between the lines. I remember we were in Lombok in Indonesia, the first time you told me and you told me so many sentences saying, this is minimalism. I never thought about it while I was writing them, but it's true. For example, you have to learn to let go. You can't be happy if you always think you have to let go. I'm not just talking about things and clothes, but also about old memories, school notebooks, movie tickets, maybe where you went with your ex-partners, things your son used to do sports that he hasn't used for more than 10 years. I noticed a lot of resistance in people to let go of objects, materials, to which a memory of the past is linked. For example, I remember when I was 10 years old and I was thinking about the past. Why do you think? Because we Italians are very nostalgic about many things. We have this idea that once it was always better and this goes for everything. I mean, you talk to anyone, no, not to anyone, obviously, but to many people, most people have this tendency, in my opinion, to mythize the past a little, to make it more beautiful than it really was and to always consider the good times of life and maybe for some it is also actually like that, but this way of thinking, even if it may seem a little romantic, a little poetic, in reality, in fact, prevents us from appreciating the present and so much the present, very soon will be the past. So, I often say when a person wants to look back and be satisfied with his past, he should work on the present. The past is something in which we can have a form of happiness linked to memories, to the sensations we have felt, but we should always do it with the awareness that it is past. There are many people who live mentally in what it was and this, in my opinion, prevents you from realizing, to quote another of my books, that something wonderful always happens, but it doesn't happen yesterday, it happens here and now, in this moment. This resistance, in my opinion, is something that we, as a country, as Italy, are a country that doesn't look much to the future, but is also a bit afraid of the future. So, when you are afraid of the future, you tend to lock yourself in what it was, in the safety of something you have already experienced. Ok. I think that the past, when I think about the past, I think it has played its role. The past has given me skills, knowledge, experiences that I have now. Bringing me here, where I am, how I am, has played its role. It is not necessary to bring me behind this past. By letting the past go, we are able to open up better to the future, that is, to the new, to what is more suitable for us. For this reason, I consider it very important, and I often underline the importance of remembering the things that are more valuable, that we no longer use, perhaps also linked to unpleasant memories, to memories that we simply do not need to remember in everyday life. Often, in fact, this happens when a person dies, a person close to us, we tend not to want to leave anything of that person, but that person was not the objects that we remember. Within us, a mechanism is unleashed through which memories become much sharper, sensations become much stronger, because we do not have that object to cling to, and therefore, in order not to lose the memory, we tend to remember things much better. Objects have the power to remove, in a certain sense, the magic of the sensation, of the memory of a person. Okay. In the meantime, we have turned on the lights, Claudio, your companion, and I understood that you have an important role in your life. What is the impact that you have had in your life? Claudia is certainly the most important person in my life, without a doubt, not only at the sentimental level. I believe that love, let's say, is revealed in certain moments, in certain gestures, in certain situations of life, and it cannot be explained, rationally, because I am so in love with her. And I can't even explain all the love she gave me, and all that we have lived in these 16 years together, because we have been together since high school. But I can say that she is the most important person in my life, also because we have always had shared dreams, and therefore we realized our dreams together, motivating each other. And this is a very important thing, obviously. For example, it is also beautiful when two people disagree on small things, maybe musical tastes, culinary, what to watch on TV, at the cinema, or on Netflix, or whatever one watches. But, let's say, the horizon must be that. You have to look in the same horizon, on the great issues of life, it is important to be aligned, and she and I have always been aligned, so I also see her as the person with whom we talk, because people see me, they see my name on the covers of books, but in reality I would not have obtained anything of what I obtained without Claudia, because she does an invisible job, let's say, she does a job behind the scenes to make sure that my words and my books reach as many people as possible. She is a social media manager and therefore she has this competence with social media, which she already had before we started this project together, and it is a fundamental job, because the world is full of beautiful books, but no one reads them, so I do my best to write beautiful books, but then she is the one who manages to get them to people. In fact, for this reason all the provents that are in our project, the royalties of the books are also all divided in half, because this is literally a project in which everything that I do, she does too. Yes, I think it is something that not everyone can understand. No, maybe I never said it. Yes, I think it is also difficult to understand, because one says ah, but how? You are the one who writes the book, we see you. It's a bit like it happens to you too with your Spazio Grigio project, you are in two working together, but people only see you. But it fits, I think, you are like this for so many realities, actually. You know, being able to trust someone you trust so blindly is as important as conveying your message. It's a great fortune. But we don't see her very often. No. It's her choice, it's part of her character. And what does she like to do? It's absolutely her choice. Indeed, sometimes I ... It wouldn't be ... I mean, don't you feel a little, maybe, envy, let's say, because you are a figure that people know, and you, instead, don't? Or, anyway, less? Look, Claudia is a rare animal, because ... because she is strange, also because, in the positive sense of the term, obviously. I mean, I'm extremely lucky because I'm with a girl who is really one of a kind, right? You say? Of a unique type. Okay. Because she is very determined, very ambitious. But she is a person who never puts her pride in the middle. She never puts her ego in the middle. And this can be seen from the fact that, anyway, she never makes decisions thinking about, for example, the professional level of work, but also of life. She never makes decisions thinking that she is above others. She always takes them for the common good, let's say, of the family, of the project. She is a fantastic person, because everyone would like to have a person like this by their side. I think everyone would also like to have a person who speaks like this about them. But it's the least I can do, really. With everything she does for me, and then I know I also do a lot for her. But the thing that makes her really special is this, the fact that she is able to motivate you and is able to, let's say, pull out the best from you without ever putting her pride and her ego in the middle. But having said that, it must be said that she is a very reserved person. Since I've known her, she is a person who cares a lot about her space, about her private life, and therefore it's a natural consequence. It wasn't, it's not a sacrifice for her not to appear. Ok. It would be a sacrifice to appear. In fact, sometimes I tell her, maybe, well, show her, or something I would like to do for years, and in fact once I talked about it and everyone told me come on, please do it, and write a book maybe together because she is a very reserved person who has found her dimension both on a personal level and on a professional level through this life of ours that in the end we built exactly as we wanted it. Perfect. But let's say that Claudia did it that way. And you ask me what she likes. Yes, what she likes to do. She is a person who loves the sun, loves the hot weather, loves the sea, loves that kind of life, a barefoot life, let's say so. And she is a person who, among other things, loves to cook a lot. And the thing that in my opinion suits her best because she puts a passion and an attention really extraordinary. Before I told you that it is not easy to explain love, falling in love, but there is this image that I have in my head of her who in the evening is there fixing the spices and chooses the spices for that dish she is cooking and it takes us some time, right? And she is there thinking about what to put, what not to put. Those are the moments when I really realize how ... But you always move. And the spices? But she takes them with her. But really? She takes them with her, the most important ones, obviously. Then she informs herself if we go to a country. Now, for example, probably at the end of the month we will go to China. Ok. So she is already informed about the spices she will find there and it is a real discomfort because we go ... maybe at the airport they check, they ask what is this jar of chili, but she cannot live without chili. But I have to say that for her, cooking is ... Seen from the outside ... She would tell you it's not true, for sure. She would tell you I'm just cooking. But actually, seen from the outside, for her, cooking is a form of art. And really, there is poetry in the way she does it and all this love and all this poetry that for me are the best I have ever tasted in my life. So, Claudia, that's all. And to conclude, Claudia, and I definitely have to tell you, is the greatest motivator, the greatest motivator I have ever met. She is a person who, if you lock yourself with her in a room for five minutes and you are a little down on morale, is able to really pull out the lion inside you, to pull out a desire to live, a desire to do extraordinary things. She is able to motivate you and this is an immense fortune because in the darkest periods of my life or the slowest, a conversation with her really gave me that push I needed. Beautiful, beautiful the way you talk about her, beautiful that you met and that you are growing together. Because sometimes you think, ah, you were lucky to meet her or she was lucky to meet you, but actually you create each other. That's true. This relationship, this relationship is created. The couple, you know, is said when there is no more you and me and there is us. And actually I see in our relationship the elements that I put and the elements that she put and then I see a whole one where there is no more distinction and this is a very beautiful thing. Because now you are not the people you were when you met the Asian girl. We have our beautiful Stefano who is a month apart and we know that it is not all roses and flowers. They are more difficult moments and more beautiful at all. But when there are these moments that become difficult, challenging, maybe frustrating, how do you manage these moments? Is there a thought that helps you? Look, since Claudia and I are two very different people, very different, sometimes it happens in the presentations that people ask her do you meditate? Are you a Buddhist? She says absolutely no. She is much closer to a stoic philosophy, taking life for granted, living life with the maximum intensity and in an extremely active, proactive way. So, we have two different ways when obviously a difficult situation happens, maybe the girl who wakes up many times at night or the girl who is sick or the girl who still has to be managed, has to be changed, has to be entertained, maybe you are on a very long journey and you have to come up with something, maybe you are tired and then maybe the frustration rises a little inside you, we have different ways that, however, help especially the other person. So she, when we are in a difficult moment, she always reminds me that we have never chosen an easy life and we tend to believe that a simple life is the same as an easy life, but she tells me we have chosen a simple life and a simple life means having what you need, not having distractions, focusing on what matters, a life a little on the philosophy of minimalism, or those few things simplify, then eliminate the superfluous, the distractions, what does not really bring value, or those few things that mean everything in my life, that is a simple life and it is a life in which it is easier to maintain control, but she always tells me we have never wanted an easy life, if we had wanted an easy life 13 years ago we would never have left Turin, we would have stayed in Turin, I would have done the dog sitter, I would have paid a lot, I would have continued to do that and we would have remained in our bubble of unhappiness but of security, many times we give up happiness because it is risky, and then we settle for an unhappy security, and we have never done it because we preferred a difficult life and an easy life, going back, the same thing, if we wanted an easy life we would not have had a child, we would not have decided to go from the other side of the world and do all the experiences we have done. In a life, let's say, full of challenges, there is growth, there is evolution, become who you really are, become the best version of yourself, express your potential to the maximum and so she always reminds me, she tells me if we had wanted an easy life we would have taken other decisions, we chose this life because this life is more different from others, because I am more Buddhist, more Zen, I have a view more related to acceptance of the things we cannot control so it often happens that when the child wakes up in the middle of the night and screams we are both there and we are disturbed there and we would like only to sleep there, sometimes to change and nothing remains the same so these moments, no matter how difficult, will never come back maybe we'll have another son and so we'll wake up again in the middle of the night but it won't be the same thing this moment is unique, it's unrepeatable and so for this reason it's precious and so instead of hating it, we should realize that if we don't learn to appreciate it even despite the frustration, the suffering that it brings, if we don't learn to appreciate it, it will happen in 5, 10, 20 years that we'll look back and say, how I miss those moments I often say this to Claudia it wasn't so difficult, I was young exactly, it wasn't so bad I often say this to Claudia, let's appreciate these moments because they'll never come back and the things that never come back are things that have an immense intrinsic value so even when life gets hard on the one hand we say to ourselves, we've never chosen an easy life and it's fine because for this reason we have this life and on the other hand we say to ourselves, these moments will never come back, let's try to fully appreciate them Travelling is part of your lifestyle what is the place, the country that has remained in your heart the most? surely Bali and Indonesia because Asia was born there so I say Bali as the first place that comes to mind for this reason, our daughter was born so you know, they say that the only thing that exists forever in life are the children so the only thing that comes to mind forever is Bali because our daughter was born there but actually of every place in the world where we've been, even the ones where we haven't lived the best experience possible or real memories or places that have remained in my heart because and you know what? we always tend to talk about trips referring to where, where I've been but we also need to include when, because based on the period of your life, you lived the place in one way or another so it's never really just where, it's also when it's right here and now it's the place and the time of your life so you know, there are beautiful places that I loved so much but maybe because I was in a very happy period of my life 18 years old, single, family exactly, they are different things they are different people the person who travelled in Australia by car with Claudia and we slept in the desert under the stars no, we were in a car we were in the back and that old, broken car was our home, our means of transport our kitchen, everything they were, to me now the most beautiful trip of my life but where to do it again now it would be a nightmare maybe yes, exactly, so there's not just the where there's also the when and I have to say that all of Asia was for us our land we got lost in the West and in the East we found home in a way but it's my next question yes, I'm anticipating because the last time we saw each other was in Bali a few months ago for us it was a vacation a family trip for you it's in a way home is there a place you call home? I tell you but I don't call it home home for me after all these years is Claudia's embrace it's a feeling it's no longer a place home for me is really where you are yes, and now maybe home is arriving at 7 or 8 in the evening Claudia starts cooking the steam that comes out of the pot I play with Asia that for me is home home is taking a walk in the morning with the rising sun or home is hugging in front of a sunset home is hearing the sound of the waves before falling asleep and all these things are not linked to a specific place they can happen in many places in the world home for me is this feeling I totally agree home is where we are in any place in the world I mean my husband and my son and our body is also our home but in my opinion someone wants to know is there a place you would like to call home? at this moment no no because Claudia and I think a lot and we often talk about it we think a lot in terms of how you feel we are used to taking life asking ourselves what I have achieved what I want to achieve where I want to go but we don't often ask ourselves how we feel we do it often and it happens almost always that we answer I feel good but if you feel good in your life in your lifestyle, why change? why add something new to go back to the issue of minimalism why not simply be grateful for what you have we have a life that has its challenges obviously because not having a home also has practical consequences sometimes not simple but we are fine and since so far it has worked we will continue like this at least until Asia I won't have to go to school how is it to travel with a small child? it's less dramatic than we expected but we know that yes, we know that in the words of others compared to reality it's a matter of maybe already of habit to travel so we, being two people who have been traveling for years it seemed quite natural to us to grow it in this first year and a half in this first year actually, let's say, educating it to travel but there is also another thing to say and this is another very buddhist thing we tend to overestimate the risk of an error of a failure, of something that doesn't work if you leave for a trip and that trip doesn't work it didn't go as you hoped it's not the end of the world tomorrow the sun rises the same life goes on it's not that we have to be stuck in the error we don't have to judge ourselves for having tried maybe we should be a little more strict with ourselves if we haven't tried but in the end everything is experience everything is life it's not that you say, who made me do it but now I think about it as we said before but you know it was a good experience in the end I can say I did this to have done that train trip in India to have slept in that place yes, of course the situation at the time was not easy but everything is experience, everything is life when you travel, travel travel light especially now that there is the little girl because honestly I don't think I've ever seen suitcases yes, it's true we are used to traveling only with two quite large bags and a backpack with the girl it hasn't changed much for now in the sense that we travel with an extra bag for her sometimes it happens that we bring a trolley because maybe we have and especially for food in the sense that if you want to live traveling with a child you can't completely rely on what you find so you have to bring some things with you some good things some things maybe not easy to find so in that case we sometimes brought a trolley because it's more rigid and so we avoid combining disasters but I have to say that even in that case we didn't have to add much I'll give you the example of our trip to India when we were in India for a month and we toured a lot every day in a different place and a lot of people wrote to us how do you deal with food? I asked myself the same we trusted each other in a way it was an act of faith towards life because India we immediately identified it as a country similar to Indonesia where you have a lot of children and so having small children is normal unfortunately if you go to a restaurant in Italy with your little son there are a lot of barriers between waiters and people sitting at the tables that make you want to go to the restaurant but not there the children are everywhere they are accepted everywhere and there is no person who doesn't know what to do with the children and so seeing this in the first days we said instead of doing the shopping in every city since we go to the restaurant every day let's try to ask the restaurant to make us something suitable for the child let's say hidden we made ourselves hidden rice boiled potatoes we made ourselves the dal which is a typical Indian dish based on lentils plain, so hidden, without spices, etc. and we gave that to Asia to eat and she really liked it maybe we had our good oil that we brought from home boiled vegetables, boiled potatoes we managed to feed her in this way she fell in love with the dal so when this came this typical dish that comes, which is very narrow it looks like a chalice where they put the dal as soon as she saw it, she got agitated because she understood that something was coming for her so adapting, in my opinion, you can do everything beautiful, do you want to leave us some clues for the next trip? I think I've already said something before yes, you said China on China, exactly let's say that we have always had wanted to visit and that, absurdly, in the end we waited to have a child to do it and they are even more demanding we wanted to visit China and India and in the end, among what happened in recent years the limitations and everything we visited India with our daughter, in three and this may seem strange and on the one hand one could say, imagine you had visited it before you would have enjoyed it more but you want to put the magic of saying I have always dreamed of seeing India and I see it with my daughter not only with the woman of my life, but also with my daughter the other country is China because I am very, very fascinated by Taoism which is this ancient religion or philosophy of life which at some point for a series of extraordinary coincidences met Buddhism in China and from there Zen Buddhism was born and so I am very curious to visit China to better discover Taoism and to go and discover a country which I find very fascinating so the next trip will be that after I will necessarily have to find a place in the heat where life is simple, yes but where I can write a new book because I have tried to write it let's say, piece by piece around, between presentations trips, etc. but I really need to stop which is my next question yes, some clues for the next book the next book will tell what happened in our life from where my first book ends so the coordinates of happiness ends with us making the dream to live traveling I will tell from that moment around 2016-2017 until today so I will tell how our project has expanded, the experiences we have had the trips, the meetings the life lessons what happened in 2020 and how we lived it because we lived it in a very alternative way very particular and then how we came to become three to have Asia and above all the choices and thoughts that we had that led us in that direction because Italy is a country where you are very afraid of having children so I think a slightly different point of view which maybe also helps to see the beautiful aspects of having children I hope it can be useful to many people who ask themselves this question that maybe they would like but maybe they are also conditioned by a lot of negativity you would have noticed it too I have practically no friend who has children I don't know if it happens sometimes me neither and we are no longer 21 we are 33 you are 35 we cut this yes by the way I also read your first book which I loved, it's your first book I read which is your first book I read and which was your first book exactly I also loved that anyway, this too, a powerful book thank you I leave it below in the description I read it in a moment when I needed it as much as one can be aware maybe arrived on certain topics on certain aspects of life there are moments in which there is life in between and you get lost this book, in my opinion, brings you back to reality, gives you an awakening thank you, I am very pleased but actually, look we should always have this attitude in Zen it is said that the pure mind is the mind as a beginner so one who does not think he has ever understood everything in life so I too, in fact, continue to learn to read and among other things a nice book awaits me to re-read because I already had a way to read your book at least in pieces when it was just a file I will definitely find great ideas in your book on one thing, which is minimalism I've been doing this for a long time ok, thank you for this chat, for being here and I wish you only such beautiful things thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart this is a bit like my memory Namaste I love Stefano