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Category: Thinking Clearly

Don’t Let Guilt Ruin Rest

Published on January 11, 2026

One of my college aged staff members told me she felt guilty for “bumming it” during her school’s winter break.

She said she was sleeping in, lazily spending her waking hours on the couch burrito-wrapped in a warm blanket watching Disney movies and doing… well… not much else.

What I told her is guilt will ruin the purpose of break.

I explained that her pendulum has swung proportionally to the side of recovery as it was pushed to the side of exertion (during her semester)—and that it should be honored, not defiled.

During her semester she’s a high performing, “A-Type” personality who has perfectionist tendencies and demands excellence of herself from the second she wakes up until the second she goes to sleep at night.

…And this pushes the pendulum pretty hard in one direction!

By the time winter break hits, of course she shuts down and goes into recovery mode—the pendulum needs to swing proportionally in the opposite direction. For some, they burnout and it swings in that direction at the most inconvenient times. But for her, it swung in alignment with her time off anyway—and she shouldn’t ruin the recovery time by mixing in guilt.

The reminder is simple: recovery needs to be prioritized and honored as much as exertion is.

The pendulum can only be pushed in one direction so far…

A Chapter A Day

Published on January 6, 2026

When discussing New Year Resolutions, an associate mentioned he wanted to read a-chapter-a-day.

His strategy, he explained, was that he had both a “serious book” and a child’s book ready so that on the nights he couldn’t complete a “serious” chapter… he could read from the child’s book instead.

Having attempted and failed this resolution in the past myself (minus the child’s book part), I offered him an alternative strategy.

Rather than making a-chapter-a-day the goal… I suggested he make reading a-page-a-day the goal. This way he could eliminate the children’s book altogether (unless he really wanted to make that his focus read) and read exclusively from the book(s) he most wanted to read from.

The thing about a-chapter-a-day is that chapters are definitely not created equal. And there will be days (most days, in fact) when your appetite for reading and the length of the chapter will be completely mismatched. You’ll find yourself reading short chapters on days when you’re feeling most motivated and staring gravely at the number of pages you still have to go on the days when you’re feeling the least.

The thing about a-page-a-day is that it fixes that. The challenge is equal each day and the strategy is optimized for the days when you’re feeling least motivated—precisely when you’re most likely to fall off the wagon. And if it’s true that we can read even one page on our worst days… then nothing is stopping us from reading every day.

…And what’ll probably end up happening is you’ll read the amount equal to your appetite each day anyway.

Exactly how it should be.

You Realize You Don’t See With Your Eyes, Right?

Published on January 5, 2026

“Most people walk the earth unaware that they are not seeing with their eyes. Instead, they are seeing with their emotions, and often these emotions are just the echoes of their past hurts.”

Yung Pueblo

You and I can live the same day—objectively. But subjectively? We’ll always interpret and internalize things differently—regardless of how identical our days are. Why? Because as is mentioned above: we don’t live from our eyes… we live from our emotions.

You and I might both see a roof over our head, the sun peaking in its head from our bedroom window, and a loved one sleeping besides us as we open our eyes in the morning. Yet to one, roof might equate to shelter, safety, and warmth… and to another it might equate to mortgage due, repairs needed, and work. With the sun, one might see a beautiful day ahead… while the other might see missed morning routine and late. With loved ones by our side, one might see blessed companionship whereas the other might see constant fighting and drama.

This is why, from a visual outside-looking-in perspective, a person can seem to have “it all” and yet, live miserably… while another can seem to have barely anything at all and live joyfully.

The path to getting ahead in life has little to do with what the eyes can see.

The path to getting ahead in life has everything to do with what our emotions can see. And how do we get our emotions to see things differently? With more gratitude? More joyfully? The same way you would try to teach your son or daughter… with time, energy, and effort—except focused within.

Music > Podcasts?

Published on January 1, 2026

There was a time when I was very much podcasts > music. The thought being, if you have the time to listen to something, why not make it something “productive” that can help you gain valuable insight and possibly help you improve your life?

But then I hit a point of saturation where too much of a good thing was flooding my mind. And I realized that what I needed wasn’t more time devoted to productive self-improvement (which is a large part of how I spend my time professionally)… what I needed was more time to let my mind… breathe.

And I am now very much in my music > podcast era.

Because what I learned is that space is just as important as what fills it. Too much stuff in your house, for example, and no space to move isn’t a good thing—more space would be… Nor would too much exercise and not enough rest be—rest is when the body rebuilds and recovers itself… Or when you think about how awful too much work and not enough play feels… the beauty is in the balance.

There’s nothing wrong with podcasts.

It’s simply to say: give your mind/body space to breathe from whatever is heavily saturating it/them.

Maybe even something to cheers to for 2026?

Post Show Depression

Published on December 31, 2025

After a really good music show, some describe the feeling after as a crash—a drastic come down back to reality—even as post show depression.

Because when you’re at a really good music show, you’re not attached to reality as you know it. You’re somewhere else. Somewhere transported, somewhere high above, somewhere freeing and loved filled…

But as I heard someone describe it today… it doesn’t have to be a crash followed by depression… it can be something we gracefully carry back down with us and intentionally integrate into our reality as we now know it.

Because being at a really good music show isn’t a detachment from reality—it is reality. And what’s happening there can happen elsewhere, too. We just have to learn how to carry that updated understanding of reality with us.

Trust And Surrender

Published on December 29, 2025

While at a music show last night, a distressed women crossed paths with a group of friends and I.

After calming her down, we gathered that she lost her friend group and was freaking out because it had been over an hour and there were quite literally thousands of people there… which meant poor (read: no) phone reception… constant changes and shuffles in the waves of people… and to make things worse for her, I don’t think she was even five feet tall—so she was surrounded by walls of people at every turn.

What happened next, though, was pretty incredible.

We created a space for her to calm down… where she could feel safe in the sea of strangers… where she could dance a little of the anxiety away…

And quite literally the moment after I finished saying, “Sometimes this is what happens and you have to just lean into the side quest, and just trust that it will all work out…” she looked back over my shoulder and finds her friend group.

And she started sobbing.

And we all started celebrating.

And we all had a sunshine and rainbows universe alignment moment.

…Had she continued on the distressed, anxiety-ridden path she was on, she would’ve continued in the exact opposite direction of where her friends were. Us creating that space for her got her to turn around and realign with a better path.

And as it usually does… the universe delivered a memory, a lesson, and a remarkable moment all wrapped into one.

Sometimes, as hard as it might be, we just have to learn to trust and surrender.

Wobbly Tables

Published on December 29, 2025

Before sitting down to eat brunch this morning, the waitress asked me if I could get the wedge off the picture frame.

I had no idea what she was asking me at first but I soon realized she was using it to level the tables my friends and I were sitting at, which, she explained to me, she had hidden all over the restaurant…

…It took a total of 30 seconds to get it right and it saved us probably 30 minutes of irritation and complaint about having wobbly tables.

When you’re in the service industry, details matter. But you know what? Details matter just about everywhere else, too.