Month: March 2026

Plastic Gold Coins

Published on March 22, 2026

Yesterday, as I was reflecting on the loss of my friend Lisa Lux, as I meditated closely on the thin line that separates life and death—me from death; her from life; and each of us from the opposite—and carefully allowed myself to enter that empathetic space of feeling what she might’ve felt and what I was surely feeling… I got abruptly interrupted three times.

…And each was by a different co-worker to talk to me about plastic gold coins.

See there was an event we were hosting at our martial arts school where the students could play arcade-style martial arts games to win plastic gold coins that they could turn in for prizes. And we didn’t have enough gold coins for the night. So my co-workers and I were scrambling to find solutions. Long story short, we were checking out and calling every local place that might sell them and keeping each other updated so we didn’t overlap efforts.

In no way was I upset about this.

But I did find it to be such a powerful analogy for the ways in which death hides behind life.

There I was… there we were (all of my co-workers knew Lisa Lux as well)… mourning the loss of our friend… except we weren’t able to because we kept getting ripped back to the urgent reality—the one where death ceases to exist—by one of the most trivial, insignificant, worthless of items here on this earth… plastic gold coins.

And if plastic gold coins can keep us from thinking about our mortality and death… just think about what even slightly more “important,” “significant,” and “worthy” things can do…

RIP Lisa Lux

Published on March 20, 2026

“Lux” was exactly right.

She was a light.

She was warm, vibrant, and kept away the dark.

She texted me, not even a month ago and said, “Hey I wanted to give you a health update. We came back from our family trip and I had routine scans. They ended up admitting me. Long story short there is nothin left they can do for me and that I don’t have much time left.”

I went and saw her that afternoon.

And even then… even after that text… as she laid there in that hospital bed…

She smiled. She talked about her plans for healing. She commented on how what we were watching was her favorite show.

She cried when we spoke of her son—as a stream of warm wax might run down the side of a well lit candle. His innocence and pure heart meeting the cold, cruel, and dark.

…But only because the world he knew—the one his mom worked so hard to build—was so much the opposite. Her wick touching the wicks of so many around them that what resulted was a brilliance of light—one that even the most cunning of darknesses struggled to fight.

But what was most brilliant about Lisa Lux… is that it was never a fight.

Not light vs darkness. Not us vs. them. Not her vs. cancer.

“Because when you fight, it fights back.” She said.

No.

It was simply an overflowing of warmth, vibrance, and light. From her to her son and husband… her to her friends and loved ones… her to acquaintances and even strangers.

Not to build an army. But to build beautiful light.

RIP. 🙏🏼

The Consequences Of Freedom

Published on March 19, 2026

You’re free to log-in to Facebook—but you’re not free from its algorithmic feed.

You might log-in with the intention of checking in on friends, but what results is a firehose of content that each carefully analyzes your every touch of your finger—down to the pixel—so as to craftfully, cunningly, with an incomprehensible amount of precision… guide you into a rabbit hole… featuring content that keeps you logged in, swiping and scrolling, vegetating and droning for as long as it can manage.

See what we need to realize is that in so many cases in life, we’re free to make whatever choice(s) we want, but we’re not free from the consequences of those choices.

Logging into social media apps is a free choice, but what we get shown is no longer completely up to us.

Hanging out with certain people is a free choice, but what gets done, discussed, and experienced is no longer completely up to us.

Choosing where we spend our time is a free choice, but who we run into, the vibes of the environments, the types of experiences we’re prone to having are no longer completely up to us.

Which is why it’s more important than ever to take control of our free choices and choose to act in ways that minimize the potential downside and maximize the upside.

Rather than log-in to social media apps, maybe we choose to log-in to reading apps instead.

Rather than hang out with toxic types, we make more space for and hang out with healthy types.

Rather than choose to spend our time at bars/clubs, maybe we spend more time at gyms/cafes.

Freedom has consequences… choose wisely.

Work Will Eat All Your Time If You Let It

Published on March 18, 2026

The busier I get, the more tempted I am to steal time from other priorities.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been eating time away from my lunch breaks…

I’ve been staying later into the evenings, pulling extra minutes from my editing, reading, sleeping time…

I’ve even noticed that my thinking is more and more work oriented—most noticeably when I sit down to write… I end up circling work thoughts for longer than usual before I’m able to deviate into other trains of thought.

For some, this is how it goes. And work continues to creep further and further into everyday life and steal more and more from everything else—you know, the things that keep you balanced.

But as the old adage goes, we meditate when we’re free… and when we’re busy, we should meditate twice as long.

Resist the urge to steal time from other priorities. Fight for balance. Too much work and not enough play, remember, isn’t even good for work anyway.

“I Don’t Know How You Do That Sober?”

Published on March 17, 2026

…Somebody said to me after an evening of dancing.

And the short reply is that I learned how to mostly stop caring what other people think. I’m not fully immune or perfect at this, but I’ve come a long way.

The longer reply is: I used to wonder the same thing!

I would become so overly critical about how I looked or of what people thought of me that would I typically stand paralyzed in a corner watching others. And it wasn’t until I had a few drinks that I felt like I could loosen up and move more freely.

Then I read something that said something along the lines of: Why do people drink anyway? It’s to change their state… so that they can give themselves permission to act silly, be bold, or dance uncaringly. But this is simply a mindset skill. One that can be learned. And once you can learn how to change your state without the drinking… you can become unstoppable.

…Or an uncaring, dancing machine.

And so I practiced this. I went a full decade completely sober. Not even a sip of alcohol once. And I practiced changing my state. Being more silly and authentically myself. Being bold and confident and decisive. And dancing as uncaringly as I was able.

There are still times when I hesitate or catch myself too much in my head. And like anything in life, it’s a process. One that still has many iterations of improvement yet to go. But one that has taken me many iterations forward from where I was.

And so can it be for you.

Three Layers To Getting To Know Somebody New

Published on March 16, 2026

When getting to know somebody new, we start with how they treat us. We interpret their words, do careful tone-checks, dissect their body language, and try to understand, based on everything we’ve gathered from social interactions throughout our lives, if this person is kind, virtuous, and trustworthy or not.

Another layer down is to see how they treat strangers—particularly those who don’t attract any particular interest to them or those who do something that’s rude or upsets them. We’re talking about waiters, janitors, and maybe homeless folks… or people who cut them off in traffic, spill a drink on them, or say something off-putting. When there’s no perceived value that can come from the interaction, or the threat of a negative value exchange, their public-facing masks sometimes fall and you see a different side of them… a more authentic side.

And then there’s another layer down yet… and it’s how they treat the people at home. See strangers don’t carry our history… they don’t activate our wounds… they don’t mirror back the parts of ourself we’ve avoided for years. Our spouse does… our children do… our family does. And kindness to elicit a return… or to maintain an image… isn’t really kindness at all. It’s a barter… it’s a facade. And if building a home with this new person becomes an eventual thought in your mind… explore how they act in their current and/or previous homes. It’ll reveal a depth that’s simply hard to explore otherwise.

P.s. Shout-out to this video for the inspiration for this post.

Warm and Kind and Opinionated Doesn’t Always Mean Friend

Published on March 15, 2026

Inside each of us are two selves engaged in ongoing negotiations about how to spend the available resources of the day.

The One is loud, about the now, and loves quick dopamine hits.

The Other is quiet, long-term oriented, and loves compounding returns from investments.

The One says, “You’re too old,” “You’re too weak,” “You’re too tired,” “You’re too late,” “You’re too busy…”—Let’s hit up TikTok instead.

The Other whispers, “You’ll do what you can,” “You’ll get stronger,” “You’ll give only what energy you have,” “You’ll be happy you went anyway,” “You’ll make time for what’s important—let’s take away from screentime instead.”

And the reason The One is so cunning and conniving is because it never presents as the enemy… it always presents as your friend.

And rather than gear up for battle against a full fledged, sword drawn, lion roaring enemy who’s charging at you from the other side of a battle field… you sit there with this “friend” who’s giving you warm tea and a blanket and whispering “Relax” and “It’s no big deal” and “It’s just this time” and “You’ve already been so good” and “You’ll look silly” and “You’ve got so many other things to do…” and a million other excuses that are oftentimes—quite hard to refute.

This is where WE need to get clever and strategic.

And in the same way we might politely say “Thank you” or smile and nod or rebut back with whispers of our own—and get up, excuse ourself out, and move forward with our life in real life—it’s good to remember that warm and kind and opinionated doesn’t always mean friend.