How to Experience Life More Tangibly: The Value of Ritual and Necessary Difficulty

I recently took a trip to Lijiang, Yunnan.

Although I had four days in total, far too much time was eaten up by transit on both ends, and I didn’t actually do many activities while I was there. I wasn’t especially exhausted, but it definitely didn’t feel fulfilling.

It felt a lot like one of those two-day weekends where you sit around passively reading for two days straight. You barely use your brain; you catch a few sparks of inspiration, but nothing deep. Then Sunday evening rolls around right before you have to head back to work, and this hollow emptiness sets in. As if those two days were quietly stolen from you all over again.

How do you bring a concrete sense of tangibility back into life?

My first takeaway lately has been ritual. Traveling isn’t the most important part, and neither is snapping photos. What matters most is what comes after: editing the pictures, weaving them into a story or a photo collection, writing down a few reflections. Taking something ordinary, sticking with it consistently over time, and stringing it together until an ordinary daily routine turns into something you can see and touch in your hands—that’s when it naturally takes on a tangible reality of its own.

Another way to frame “ritual” is “productization”—or turning experiences into finished works. That framing makes your actions far more focused.

The second takeaway is introducing necessary difficulty. The brain naturally avoids hard things, but “easy” leads straight to boredom, and eventually to emptiness.

I’ve read an immense amount of Duku (a Chinese long-form magazine). Not only do I subscribe every year, I’ve even tracked down and bought complete sets of back issues from earlier years. In every single issue, there are always a few essays I love to tears. I could lie through my teeth and recite the old line: “Even if you forget the books you’ve read, they still become part of your flesh and blood.” But I can’t convince myself. Beyond that row of books lined up on the floor, what’s actually left of all those moments that once moved me?

Travel works the same way. Following the same generic route as everyone else, looking at the same generic sights—in less than a week, you’ll already be homesick for that cramped little corner you hole up in back in the city. The necessary difficulty here might mean hunting down a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, making new friends, or working toward some bigger goal. The one thing it shouldn’t be is that mindless checklist: decide you want to travel, pick a destination, tick off a tourist photo-op, post to WeChat Moments, and head home.

In all likelihood, these two takeaways boil down to the same thing. And because of them, I’m finally starting to feel some confidence about completing at least a few of the goals I set at the beginning of the year.