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Category: Thinking Clearly

Why Is It That Grandma’s Cooking Always Hits Different?

Published on April 8, 2026

Even when you follow the exact recipe… use the exact ingredients… in the exact proportions and prepared in the exact same ways… as is described exactly by your grandma herself?

How is it that it always tastes better when it’s done by her?

…I think it’s because love is an ingredient.

And I mean it in the same way that onions or garlic might be an ingredient.

Love transcends the metaphysical and becomes something tangible… something tasteful… something delicious…

It becomes a literal part of the recipe. And there’s no good substitution for it.

You either pour your heart into the recipe or you compromise and try “Attentiveness” or “Precise” or “Careful” or “Good enough” or “That’ll do…”

But you’ll always taste the compromise. Nothing tastes the same as pure, unconditional, un-rushed love.

And so it is for just about everything else you choose to do and make and create in this life.

Worrying Can Be Productive… Until It’s Not.

Published on April 1, 2026

Worry can be productive so long as it’s turned into strategy.

If you’re packing for a trip, for example, and you’re worried about forgetting something… that energy can be converted into building a list that you can check and double check before you leave.

But understand this: once the strategy is done, worry is no longer productive.

…It becomes an energy leak.

One that drains you of one of your most precious life resources—especially before and during a trip. And it’s here that you should shift strategies away from building lists and focus that energy on plugging leaks.

What I tell myself, for example, is that I’m resourceful, I’m flexible, and I trust I’ll find a way to figure things out—even if I forget something. Heck, I’ll try to even turn forgetting into an adventure and lean into serendipity.

This past weekend, for example, I left my $600 music show wristband at home. Which was probably one of the most important items to NOT FORGET. And, yup, I didn’t even realize it until I was already 1,000+ miles away, driving to meet up with my friends for the event.

But… guess what? …After a quick freak out and some calls… I figured it out.

Things won’t always have a neat and tidy and exciting ending. But, excessive and unnecessary worry won’t help that either.

…When you can learn how to plug energy leaks, though? And how to let go of worry? And how to trust in yourself? …I suspect things actually WILL turn out in the aforementioned ways WAY more often than you might think.

Life Is Confusing

Published on March 24, 2026

Do not let confusion scare or intimidate you.

For this is what the first stage of all learning and growing feels like.

Simply reply to confusion with curiosity. Ask information-gathering questions. Flex your problem-solving muscles. Think critically and thoroughly. Be flexible in your approach and open-minded to new ideas. Take long walks.

Life is confusing.

And those who avoid it avoid life herself.

And buried they stay inside a mound of monotony, ease, and trivial. For the only way you’re living a life of complete clarity is if you’re not challenging your mind (or you’re enlightened, but I wouldn’t know anything about that).

So, no. Don’t let confusion scare or intimidate you. In fact, use it as a reverse compass of sorts. Lean into it. Explore it. Wrestle with it.

What results on the other side is something much closer to life than the opposite.

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.

Uncovering Something Original

Published on March 12, 2026

Figuring out who you are is like writing an essay.

Try to rush it and you’ll end up sounding like a copy-pasted version of somebody else.

Take your time and do the research… kneed your findings with your past experiences and current opinions… wrestle with words… iterate, iterate, iterate… hit publish and present yourself to the world…

And you’ll sound like the unique individual that you are.

Do this again and again and again… and you’ll sound more and more and more like who you were always meant to be.

Not because you weren’t when you rushed… but because you didn’t copy-paste.

…You did the hard work of uncovering something original.

What Keeps Us Young

Published on March 9, 2026

What keeps us young isn’t our looks… it isn’t our physical fitness… it isn’t our knowledge of trends, fads, and what’s cool.

What keeps us young is flexibility. Yes, flexibility in body, but maybe even more so: our flexibility in mind.

Flexibility in mind allows us to adapt our definition of looks as we age; it allows us to redefine what physical fitness means as our bodies change; it allows us to move fluidly, unapologetically, confidently forward into new domains… ones that keep us thinking critically, curiously exploring, and growing in understanding.

Those who obsess over one very specific look, try to freeze their face, skin, and body on that look… and chronically live referencing a past that makes them more and more miserable the further away from that one look they drift.

Flexibility allows us to let go of specific definitions and live in the present. Which allows us to learn how to glow brightly as we are—without any taints of comparison lingering around.

Who we were then and who we are now are not two versions to be compared… but an iterative version that should be cherished and honored.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And if your eyes are tainted with a certain definition of beauty… how are other people’s eyes supposed to see the present version of you? Because believe it or not, our eyes create a filter that all other eyes must pass through. And if that filter is one of self-consciousness, disgust, and doubt… then that’s what they’ll see.

But if it’s one of self-confidence, acceptance, and grace… then how could others not see you in a similar, youthful light?