I find I am growing fonder of gardening, listening to music and reading. — Sharmila Tagore

I find I am growing fonder of gardening, listening to music and reading.

Author: Sharmila Tagore

Insight: There's something quietly radical about admitting you're becoming happier with simpler things. Most of us spend years chasing bigger experiences, better achievements, more impressive stories to tell. But somewhere along the way—whether it's in your thirties, fifties, or beyond—you notice that a morning in the garden, a song that stops you cold, or getting lost in a book feels more nourishing than almost anything else. What makes this shift worth paying attention to is that it's not resignation. It's not about accepting less because you can't have more. It's the opposite: it's recognizing that depth beats novelty, that presence beats consumption. A garden teaches you patience and humility in ways no vacation can. Music speaks directly to something words can't reach. A book gives you time to think without distraction, which has become genuinely rare. The practical truth is that these three things—gardening, music, reading—they're available to almost everyone, they cost little or nothing, and they actually work. They don't require performance or validation. You're not doing them to impress anyone. That absence of external pressure is probably why they feel so good. In a world obsessed with scaling up and proving yourself constantly, growing fonder of quiet, solitary pleasures is its own kind of strength.