BLOG POSTS
Comparison Isn't the Thief of Joy
Theodore Roosevelt never said it, and the research says comparison was never the problem. The belief that shows up right after it is. What kindergarteners at show-and-tell know that adults forget, and the one word that changes what the comparison means.
What Is a Living Lucky® Salon? And Why?
We handed out nearly forty invitations to a salon, and people asked if they were getting their nails done. What a salon actually is, why Gertrude Stein's Saturday nights still matter, and the one question that replaces "what do you do."
The Pointless Peak
Nobody took the piano. She just can't find the reason to sit down at it anymore, because the reason used to be that it was fun and now there's a better product available in thirty seconds.
We Have Pork Chops Two or Three Nights a Week
Jana has told me, more than once, that she cannot eat pork chops and salmon anymore. I've heard her every time. Then I go to the grocery store and buy pork chops. Not because I don't care what she thinks. Because I'm tired, and it's easy, and the list is the list.
My AI Posted "Paralysis Is Optional" to My Instagram
I wrote a book about decision fatigue. Then, at the end of a long day, mentally spent, I made a decision to hand off judgment to software and not look at what it produced. I'd like to report that the irony occurred to me before Jana yelled. It did not.
Jana Threw Out the Episode About an Hour Before We Recorded
Nobody in the room knows the routine. They saw a dance. We saw the gap between what we practiced and what came out. The gap is real and it's also invisible to everyone but you.
We Turned Off the Lights and Hid in the Bedroom on Halloween
There is no recorded instance of me regretting going out to the driveway. Not once. And I still argue with myself about it every week, which tells you something about how much that argument is actually worth listening to.
I Published Something Wednesday and Was Arguing With It by Thursday Night
You can hold the gas pedal down the whole way. You'll get there. You'll also cook the engine, and you won't be able to describe a single thing you passed. Coasting isn't quitting. It's what keeps the car working.
Ten Hours at a Desk, and Where the Joy Actually Showed Up
My payoff comes at the end of the day, silently, in a journal, in a currency she can't spend. She doesn't get any of it in real time. What she gets in real time is a guy at a desk with his head down who isn't laughing. I got paid. She watched me not get paid.
One Person Out of a Hundred
You throw the ball to somebody and then stand there waiting for them to throw it back. Locked in on one guy. And the whole time there are balls coming at you from every other direction, from people you never threw anything to. That's what took me a decade. Not learning to give. Learning to look up.
I Bought a Board Game and I Don’t Have Friends To Play It With
The games didn't create the connection. They're the reason nobody left before it could happen. Without them that night ends when the plates get cleared, around 7:00, everybody says what a nice time they had and drives home.
People Who Are Quitting Smoking Are Always Quitting Smoking
I quit for nine months. Three separate times. And every time, what ended it was a night out and a celebratory smoke. Celebratory. I'd banked nine months of evidence and then spent it as a reward for having banked it.
Dolly: Lucky To Have Loved Her
Most people who get out of a place like that measure the distance. Look how far I went. That's the whole scoreboard. Dolly ran the other number. Look how far I went and look what I sent back.
Are We in a Trust Recession
Every time you say you'll do something and don't, the thing you said gets a little cheaper. Not to the neighbor. The neighbor forgot about it walking back to the house. To you.
Why Am I So Tired
Mowing the lawn takes forty minutes. Thinking about mowing the lawn takes four days. The forty minutes is the job. The four days is something you made up, and the four days is why you're tired at nine in the morning.
The Reason You Keep Walking Away Saying "I Should Have"
You did not fail to get what you wanted out of that meeting. You walked in without deciding what you wanted, then built the standard afterward out of everything you missed. Four questions to ask before instead of after. Because if you are playing hide and seek, know who you are looking for.
Why You Can't Hear It From the People Who Love You
Somebody who loves you has been telling you the same thing for years and it goes right through you. Then a stranger says it once and it lands like a struck bell. That is not a flaw in your marriage. It is how distance works, and once you see it you can stop being surprised by it.
Standing at the Refrigerator, Unable to Pick Dinner
Jana could not decide which toothbrush to use. We scrolled Netflix for forty-five minutes and went to bed without watching anything. That is decision fatigue, and it is a capacity problem rather than a character problem. In this episode we talk through where it actually comes from, why a broken routine makes you re-decide the same thing ten times a day, and the four resets we use to get capacity back. Including the six days, six weeks, six months brain dump, and why the permission to stop deciding has to come from you.
Your Circumstances Are Not Your Fault. They Are Still Your Responsibility.
There was a stretch of my life where the same sentence kept showing up in my head. Why is this always happening to me.
Your circumstances are not always your fault. They are always your response-ability.
The Four Things You Spend Every Day That Never Show Up on a Budget
Money is not the scarce thing. It is just the one with a statement attached.