In 2006, Maria Popova began regularly sending her friends emails containing “five stimulating things to learn about each week.” What started as an experiment among a small circle of friends became Brain Pickings, a widely read blog with millions of readers from around the globe. Seven years after sending that initial email, Popova paused to contemplate what she had learned over that period of time. “How do you keep your center solid as you continue to evolve?” she asks in her essay "7 Things I Learned in 7 Years of Reading, Writing, and Living."

This inspiring short video made entirely with stock footage from dissolve.com shares Popova’s reflections on finding fulfillment, satisfaction, and purpose in life. “I share these here not because they apply to every life and offer some sort of blueprint to existence,” she writes, “but in the hope that they might benefit your own journey in some small way.”