I wasn’t thinking about the song. It was just there, simmering underneath everything else in my mind. Is this what songs do when they’ve found something in you they’re not finished with?

It was Tool. The Grudge. And the line that kept surfacing was this:

Saturn ascends. Choose one, not ten. I’m born again.

My mind had apparently decided this one mattered.

The song does say “choose one or ten”. So I’d heard that part right. But somewhere between the song and the surface, my mind had changed the or to a not. And added the ending, “I’m born again.” A newly assembled three lines that don’t quite appear together in that order anywhere in the original.

What my unconscious had built was a complete thought. A small arc, you might say: cause, decision, consequence.

I didn’t notice until later. And when I did, I sat with it for a while. I’m starting to believe the subconscious mind doesn’t edit at random. It moves toward what it needs to say, hinting at where you need to change, or chart a new course.

The Other Kind of Tired

I’d been tired. Not from a lack of sleep. I know that feeling well, having recently come out of the newborn baby phase. I know how to fix that tiredness, even if you can’t always practically do it. This was the other kind. The kind Nic Peterson describes in Come Home as the kind where you sleep and still wake up tired. You’re well fed. You got a decent sleep. You haven’t been pushing too hard. But the most frustrating thing after all that: you’re exhausted, and you can’t explain it.

So you do what people do. You visit the doc, get blood tests, try supplements, and up the exercise routine. You start gravitating toward energy content through books, courses, and social media. You tell yourself it’s a management problem. But nothing really moves the needle.

Peterson’s diagnosis is blunt:

What if it’s not an energy problem? What if the energy problem is the symptom?

Identity, for most of us, isn’t something we consciously chose. It crept up on you. By the time you’re in your thirties or forties, you’re carrying ideas and beliefs about who you should be from parents, partners, teachers, and maybe a career you were only half interested in but never dared to say so. Some of it genuinely belongs to you. A lot of it arrived unconsciously.

Think about how you tailor your voice, depending on the situation: you pour the heartfelt truth out to your partner, but then there’s the version you give your parents, the front you put up at the party with people who seem to have it all figured out. Then there are the unlived identities quietly accumulating: the musician, the writer, the speaker. Each one a small weight. The sum of them is heavy. It’s hard work pretending to be someone you are not.

Half Here

David Whyte tells a story in Crossing the Unknown Sea about asking a Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast, to tell him about exhaustion.

The antidote to exhaustion, Brother David said, is not rest. It’s wholeheartedness.

And then he said this directly to Whyte:

Half here. That phrase stuck with me. It names something more specific than burnout, and it feels more honest than the typical stress. It’s the cost of keeping too many versions of yourself in play, of never fully arriving anywhere. Whyte was so tired because most of what he was doing had nothing to do with his true powers. There is a cost.

You cannot be wholehearted across ten imagined versions of yourself. The energy that could go into the main thing you care about is instead spent keeping everything else standing.

The Clarification

I was scrolling the Substack Notes feed when this note from Emma Gannon landed:

That’s not a softening of ambition. It’s a clarification of what’s actually being chosen. There is a real joy to be found once you stop treating your life as a project to be optimised and start treating it as something to be lived.

The big insight is:

You can move further in the direction you want from subtraction, not addition.

Which feels paradoxical, as we’re raised to believe more is better. But here, more is just mud.

Peterson’s prescription isn’t dramatic. The issue isn’t the one big decision. It’s the accumulation of all the small ways you keep pushing identities that no longer fit.

Give Away the Stone

Which brings me back to the song.

In context, the lyric “the one, the ten” is about clinging. About the suffering created by holding too tightly to certainty, to control, to a version of yourself you’ve decided is the only one. The whole song is one long argument for release. And the image it keeps returning to is simple:

Give away the stone. Don’t analyse it. Don’t solve it. Just stop carrying it.

My mind turned “choose one or ten” into choose one, not ten. The question became a decision. And then it added something the original never quite features: I’m born again.

I was quick to focus on the decision (one, not ten) because I could feel the weight of all that indecision. But later I felt that last part calling me. I’m born again. It’s not ancillary. It matters. Not in a religious or dramatic way. More as a sense of renewal. It’s what happens on the other side of the subtraction. When you stop hedging, when the energy that was going into maintenance comes back online for other things. There’s a lightness that arrives. I don’t mean instant enlightenment. It’s more of a satisfied quiet from carrying less.

The three lines my mind assembled turn out to be the whole argument:

Saturn ascends: life presenting the same lesson until something releases. Choose one, not ten: the decision, made from underneath the noise. I’m born again: not arrival. A renewal from unburdening.

I don’t think it matters whether you find this in a song, a book, a conversation at dinner with a wise friend, or a quiet moment where something just lands differently than it did before. What matters is whether you’re willing to take it seriously when it arrives.

Small. Repeated. In the direction you already know.

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There’s a promise running through most of the personal development world. It sits underneath everything you’ve tried. The frameworks, the courses, the five principles, or the seven steps.

The promise is this: if you do the right things, in the right order, with the right intention, meaning will follow.

It’s a construction project dressed in contemplative language. You are the architect. Meaning is the building. And if you just get clear enough, intentional enough, focused enough, it will come.

I understand why this is appealing. It keeps you in control. It gives you something to do. And having something to do feels like relief. Especially when the dread is that something important is going unlived.

Most of us don’t wake up one day and realise we’ve been avoiding something. It happens more quietly than that. You just notice at some point that you’ve become very efficient at a certain way of living. One that brushes over feelings. Somewhere along the way you stopped sitting with anything for very long.

But I don’t think the promise is true. You can’t perfectly architect your way to meaning. There’s too much below the surface you don’t even know you’re missing.

And I spent a long time believing it before I noticed it wasn’t working.

I’m a Chartered Accountant with an MBA. I spent nearly two decades in finance, building forecasts, running numbers, and constructing arguments from data. It was always about moving up and to the right on the growth chart. But life is never as simple as a model. You can’t account for everything below the surface.

If careful, systematic effort produced meaning, I would have cracked it at thirty. I had the work ethic. I had the frameworks. I was genuinely good at building things.

What I couldn’t build was the feeling that it added up to something.

I remember getting home late one Tuesday evening after a gruelling month end close. Standing in the kitchen, staring at a bowl of pasta on the table. The career was there, the credentials, the family, the mortgage, all of it exactly as planned. And I remember thinking:

Is this it? Is this actually it?

Not a crisis. Just a quiet, specific wrongness I didn’t have a name for yet.

Here’s what I’ve noticed, looking back: the moments that actually changed me were never chosen. The burnout wasn’t a decision. There was a morning I was unusually slow to get up, slow to get ready, everything dragging. Then I sat in the car for fifteen minutes after pulling into the car park, scrolling my phone. Searching for nothing, hoping for something. Something below the surface was trying to tell me something.

I didn’t design the creative restlessness that eventually became this publication. It arrived and made itself impossible to ignore. Stepping away from a version of myself I’d spent years constructing, I didn’t plan that either. It just became unimaginable to continue.

The things that mattered most didn’t come from getting clearer or more intentional. They came from disruption. From the thing that didn’t fit anymore. From something that had been trying to get my attention for years.

It took me a long time to find a way to describe what was actually happening. The frameworks weren’t the problem. It was what they were doing that I couldn’t see.

Every fire we build makes a circle of light. Inside that circle things are warm and visible and under control. The frameworks, the plans, the forward motion, they illuminate the path and keep the dark at bay.

What we don’t see is what the light is fencing out:

The interruptions, the burnout, the Sunday afternoon where the dread arrives and you can’t locate its source, or the career that no longer fits the person you’ve quietly become.

These aren’t failures of the construction project. They’re what was always moving just outside the circle. Coming through anyway.

You get very good at managing them. The interruption arrives and before long you’ve turned it into an action item. A conversation to have. A book to read. A problem to fix. You buy the book. It sits on the nightstand. You don’t read it. But somehow that’s enough, because the point was never the book. The point was having somewhere to put the feeling so you didn’t have to feel it anymore.

And so you rebuild the fire. Bigger this time. More deliberate. And the circle of light expands.

And what was trying to reach you moves further away.

This is the idea I keep circling back to, and it’s genuinely uncomfortable:

Meaning has its own timing. Its own entry points. And most of them look like problems when they first arrive.

The unlived life, that persistent sense that something important remains untouched, isn’t unlived because you failed to build the right thing. It’s unlived because you kept rebuilding the fire before the darkness had time to say what it came to say.

I’m not saying the frameworks are worthless. Some of them genuinely help. I’m saying they tend to work at the level of the project, and meaning often arrives from somewhere the project can’t reach.

What you can do is learn to recognise the interruption when it comes. To sit with it rather than immediately converting it into a problem to be solved. To let it say what it came to say.

To let the fire burn a little lower.

And trust what becomes visible in the dark.

That’s what I’m trying to do here. Not hand you a map. But to name the moments you already know. The ones that arrived uninvited and changed something. The ones you’ve probably been filing under “difficult period” rather than recognising as the thing itself.

Because if meaning interrupts rather than gets constructed, the question isn’t how do I build a more meaningful life.

It’s what have I been building fires against?

I’m in the early stages of building something around this, a small, live workshop for people who recognise what I’ve described here. Not a course. Not a programme. Just a room where we sit with these questions together.

If that sounds like something you’d want to be part of, reply and tell me what’s been trying to get your attention lately.
Or reach me directly at matthew@themeaningpath.com

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There is something in me
that already knows.

Every day I get up
I sit down
I walk outside
I come back.

I can't find what it is
that has me returning
to that same 7 minutes and 14 seconds,
over and over again.

One month goes by.
Uneasiness stirs in my stomach.
One turns into three.

Something dark
sinks back to where it belongs.

And suddenly you can see.

Even as your hands still shake.

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Some things we never risk
because we can't afford to lose them.

The letter written, then scrunched into the bin,
only to write again,
folded once, twice,
then buried in the bottom drawer.

The message typed out in full,
read once, then deleted
before you hit send.

The stones we carry in our pockets,
now worn too smooth
for the harshness of the world.

We called it nurturing.
We called it safe.
We did not call it
what it was.

There is a kind of love
that will not move toward its desire.
Like the traveller who has memorised all the roads
and never left the house.

You know this.
The thing you held so carefully
it could not breathe.

The door you did not open
because it was easier to pretend
it was locked all along.

Years and years go by.
And the thing, untouched,
is still perfect.
Still yours.
Still waiting
in the dark —

the dark of never.

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I saw David Byrne live earlier this year. He opened with Heaven. I remember standing there, listening, and not thinking much of it. It felt slow, almost gentle. A quiet way to begin the set. I was more interested in what would come later, the more upbeat, groove-driven Talking Heads songs I’ve always been a fan of. And then I forgot about it.

A few weeks later, I found myself sitting in the backyard on a warm Friday evening, a glass of white wine beside me, in the middle of a work transition that hadn’t fully settled yet. For reasons I couldn’t really explain, I put the song on again. This time it was the live version. I played it once, then again, then again.

The riesling had gone a little warm by then. The song was still playing. At some point I noticed I wasn’t really listening anymore, but I hadn’t turned it off either. It didn’t quite fit the mood of the night. Eventually my wife asked me to change it. Fair enough, it wasn’t exactly Friday-night music. Still, something about it stayed with me.

Then, a few weeks after that, it came back again. Not through any deliberate choice. Just one of those small, almost automatic moments: seeing a word, making a connection, pressing play without thinking too much about it. It didn’t feel like a decision exactly. More like something had already been decided.

This time, something shifted. Not in the song, but in how I was hearing it.

On the surface, the idea is simple:

“Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.”

At first, that can sound like relief. No urgency. No pressure. No sense that something needs to change. After certain kinds of experiences, especially when things have felt a bit full-on, that idea has a kind of pull to it.

But then another line arrives:

“Everyone will leave at exactly the same time.

When this party’s over, it will start again.

It will not be any different. It will be exactly the same.”

And the feeling changes, almost without announcing itself. What seemed calm begins to feel… arranged. What felt like stillness starts to feel more like pattern.

It isn’t quite rest. It’s closer to repetition. The party doesn’t really go anywhere. Nothing shifts, nothing surprises, nothing becomes anything else. It ends, and then it begins again, in exactly the same way. And somewhere in that, the idea of peace starts to give way to something else. Something more contained than I first realised.

I think that was the moment it began to feel like a kind of loop. Not obviously oppressive. Not dramatic. But closed in a way that’s hard to describe, but easy enough to feel. And once that sense arrives, it’s difficult to set it aside again. Because some recognitions, once they happen, don’t really let you return to how things felt before.

There’s another part of the song that stayed with me, though it took a little longer to notice why.

“It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all

could be so exciting,

could be this much fun.”

Read on the page, it sounds almost light. But the way Byrne sings it is different. There’s a slight strain in his voice. Not exaggerated, just enough to register. As if he’s leaning into the idea a little too firmly. Trying, perhaps, to convince himself. Or to keep something else at bay, something that doesn’t quite disappear just because it’s ignored. There’s a gap between what he’s singing and how he’s singing it.

It started to feel less like a description of heaven, and more like a question about it.

Around that time, I was already in the middle of my own questions. Moving away from one kind of pressure, without being entirely sure what would take its place. There’s a kind of relief in stepping out of something that has become too much. I could feel that in myself, the desire for things to settle, to quieten down, to ask less of me for a while.

But there’s also a quieter uncertainty that follows. What, exactly, are you moving towards?

It’s easy, in those moments, to imagine that what’s needed is a life with less disturbance. Fewer demands. Fewer edges. Something calmer. More contained. Something that doesn’t keep asking quite so much of you. But the song seemed to be pointing at something else. Not a warning exactly. More like a question you hadn’t thought to ask yet.

Because if nothing ever really happens, if nothing changes, nothing surprises, nothing asks anything of you, then it’s not only pain that disappears. Something else fades with it. Aliveness, maybe. The sense that your life is still capable of surprising you.

There’s something unsettling about a life that stops requiring anything of you. Not at first. At first it just feels like rest.

This isn’t really an argument against comfort. We need forms of stability. We need spaces that hold us, especially after periods that have taken more than they’ve given. But there’s a difference between a life that allows you to rest, and one that has become so settled nothing can move. Or worse, a life that no longer requires anything from you at all.

I didn’t notice any of this when I heard the song live. Same words. Same performance. But a different moment in my own life.

It makes me wonder how often we come into contact with something meaningful before we’re ready to recognise it. Or how many things only make sense when you hear them again, later.

I’m not sure what “heaven” is supposed to be. But it doesn’t feel like a place where nothing ever happens. It feels, perhaps, more like a life where things still unfold, where something can still shift, or surprise, or matter.

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I was driving when I heard David Whyte say something that stopped me cold:

“The first step to something deeper is stopping the conversation you’re having right now.”

I sat with that for the rest of the drive.

For the past six months I’d gone quiet. Still thinking. But nothing felt ready to say. The voice I’d been writing from no longer felt like mine. It wasn’t just a voice. It was a version of me I’d constructed — curated, future-focused, and overly positive. But I’d quietly outgrown him.

When that happens, an anxious whisper creeps in: Who am I? What am I doing? Where is this going? Have I wasted time?

But I’m starting to see it differently. None of it was wasted. It was part of something.

Stepping away to find something deeper isn’t quitting — if anything it takes more guts than pushing on. Sometimes it’s the only honest move left.

What it requires is admitting something uncomfortable:

The voice I’ve been using is too small for where I’m going.

So you stop. You give it space. You let it dissolve.

Rush back before something has actually shifted and you just rebuild the same thing. Different words, same voice, same problem. The output feels off but you can’t locate why. Because what actually matters hasn’t surfaced yet.

I won’t romanticise it. The last six months were hard. The kind of hard where several things shift at once and none of them are under your control. There were weeks I thought the creative part of me had died — gone forever! For someone who has always counted on that part of themselves, that’s a terrible loss. But the one thing I didn’t do was force my way back. Strange, as I never consciously decided that. I just instinctively let the silence happen.

But I realised — David Whyte describes it as the inner core becoming molten. Not broken in the way we usually mean it. Something older than that. Molten. And in that state you can’t rush anything. You can’t force clarity. You can’t manufacture something honest just to stay visible. You have to wait until something settles into a form that can actually carry the weight of what you’ve been through.

The voice isn’t louder. But clearer. There’s something to say again, and this time it feels like it’s actually mine. Not a return to where I was. Something else. Something I don’t have a name for yet.

So I’ll ask you this:

Where in your life might you need to step away for a while?

Because if you’re constantly forcing the next thing, there’s a real chance you’re missing the thing that actually matters. Not because it’s hidden. Because you’re moving too fast to see it.

And sometimes the most honest thing you can do for your voice is to stop using it for a while.

It hurts the most that I have not been writing.
It hurts the most that I am no longer making music.
It hurts the most that I stopped doing things for myself.
It hurts the most that I let my creativity die.

Still, it never died in my heart.

It hurts the most that I no longer make time for reading.
It hurts the most that I only walk in the evening darkness.
It hurts the most that cooking has become a rush.
It hurts the most that I am so distracted by the phone in my pocket.

Oh, how I crave that clear, open space.

It hurts the most that I no longer travel to places that make me feel alive.
It hurts the most that I only see my friends a few times a year.
It hurts the most to have walked down countless dead ends.
It hurts the most to think of all the dreams I'll never have time to pursue in one lifetime.

But somehow, I make my peace.

It hurts the most that I don't smile as much.
It hurts the most that I chose money over passion.
It hurts the most that I can't remember the last time I had a good night’s sleep.
It hurts the most that a glass of red wine is my escape.

Anything to quiet the mind.

It hurts the most that I waste my days worrying about things that never happen.
It hurts the most to long for what I can't have.
It hurts the most to feel helpless.
It hurts the most that I have this ability to procrastinate on every damn decision.

What hurts the most is that I have no faith in myself.


It hurts the most that someone I love is dying.


And what rings and rings in the depths of my ears, is the time you said,
"We never have fun anymore."

It hurts the most that I have nothing left for you.
It hurts the most to realise that by disappointing me, I disappoint you.
It hurts the most that my kids mostly see the tired, angry, and exhausted version of me.
It hurts the most to think of all the ways I am failing as a parent.

But then I look at you, and your beautiful face,
and I realise
I am lucky
and I am
happy.

I've been away for a while. This is what came out when I finally sat down to write again.

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In what ways are you 
diminishing yourself?

In what ways are you 
diminishing your work?

In what ways are you 
diminishing your partner?

STOP.

It's time for you to rise.
It's time for your work to shine.
It's time for your love to blossom.

Spring is here.
If you choose it.

It starts with 
you.

Reflection

Reflect on the three questions opening this piece.

Life is hard enough as it is without all the extra unnecessary load we burden ourselves with. And there are the million ways we like to chop ourselves and our loved ones down.

You do this habitually, much to your better self’s disappointment in you.

But there lies the tricky bit.

Those habits.

Not so easily changed. And so we continually find ourselves doing things we aren’t proud of. But maybe that change could be a worthwhile pursuit…

How freeing would it feel to relieve yourself of that weight?

Just making all this conscious is a massive leap forward.

Once you are aware, you can act.

YOU can act.

If you choose to.

On today’s walk — the moon was spectacular! I’m endlessly fascinated by the beauty of the moon. How cool is it that we get to see it?

We all have our weak points, 
some more obvious than others. 
Are you aware? 
Or are you blind to them? 
If you know them, 
you can learn to live with them. 
If you don’t, 
they will rule you
and, 
eventually,
ruin you…

Reflection

Too many fall for their blind weaknesses in a momentary lapse of judgment, often in a pathetic way, which could have been easily prevented.

Pair with this quote from the Greek philosopher Diogenes:

“I have seen the victor Dioxippos subdue all contenders at Olympia and be thrown on his back by the glance of a girl.”

You have strengths.

But you also have those things which you know can bring you undone.

How can you better prevent those lapses from ruining you?

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On today’s walk — a family of ducks:

What you seek 
is closer than you think.

What you need 
is already in your life.

Where to go next 
is so obvious it’s hidden from you.

How to get there 
is by being more of yourself

When to do it is now, 
it’s always now. 

Your intuitions 
are truer than you like to admit.

Reflection

What is your intuition telling you in this moment right now?

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Misty mountain tops:

Sometimes I imagine 
having a beer in heaven 
with all my old work bosses and colleagues.
What a strange but wonderful thing 
it would be 
to all get together again, 
one last time.
The good and the bad.

It makes me realise 
how precious those times were.
Even the ones I didn't like, 
I have a strange fondness of now.
I think this is because, 
as I age, 
I realise that life is short, 
and bitterness only intensifies 
the suffering. 
You have to 
let go 
of what hurts. 

Where did they trend after we crossed paths?

To the mean ones, 
did they ever feel sorry 
for what they did?
Do they seek forgiveness?
Or are they just as blind to it now 
as they were back then?
I'm curious,
Did they ever work through their sh*t?
I hope they did 
for their sake 
and their loved ones. 
As I mature, 
I realise that everyone has their reasons
—their struggles 
and their pain. 
It's rarely personal 
but rather a reflection 
of what is happening 
inside. 

I want to say:
I forgive you.
I wish you well.
I wish you happiness.
And to be free of suffering. 

To the good ones, 
my appreciation and respect.
It takes a beautiful soul 
to show up with presence and grace 
in the face of adversity 
and let people know 
you care. 
Even when you don't see 
eye to eye,
There is a way you can carry yourself, 
That garnishes a certain 
admiration. 

And for the roles I played in the mess,
I am truly sorry.
But for the lessons gleaned 
I am eternally grateful.

Reflection

It’s fascinating how perspectives change over time.

Who did you think of during this piece?

Is there an action you need to take?

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Why don’t I have anything good to say 
today?
I don’t know.
The well is dry.
For too long now, 
it seems, 
I have wandered these dry, salty creeks, 
drawing no fruit from my labours.

I begin to wonder:

Why am I doing this?
What am I doing it for?
Is it worth it?

A voice screams from deep within:

"Yes."
"You are doing it for me!"

And for that one life 
is all the motivation 
you need.

Reflection

Hint:

“I” is “You”.

You are doing it for you.

Keep going.

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And there are plenty of other people to do it for… Here I am with my 2 boys last Sunday, celebrating Father’s Day here in Aus:

How often
do you think of your father?
And in what shade
of light?

Whether you like to admit it
or not
He occupies a cell 
inside your heart. 

Eternal bricks in your wall,
some good parts 
and some bad.
As much as you try to shake them
They live within 
you.

You smile 
at the ones you are grateful for.
And shudder 
at what you are not 
so proud to 
admit.

Your father,
A driving force in your life.

How did he shape you?
How did he inspire you?
And in what ways has he 
let you down?

Here lies a treasure trove of lessons,
Which becomes your gift 
to the world.

It’s interesting to ponder,
Who is your father?
Do you know him? (or did you)
Like, really, 
know 
him?

My guess is no, 
you only knew a part of him.
You only knew the part 
he wanted to show you.
Or the part he was 
incapable of 
hiding.

Think how much you 
hide 
from the world. 
Or what you can’t even remember 
to share. 

The struggles, 
triumphs, 
tough trade-offs, 
love 
and heartbreak. 
The ways you’ve grown, 
and things you'd rather forget.
It’s all there, 
in a human life.

We’re all 
a work in progress, 
and people are lucky 
(or not so lucky) 
to catch us 
at various stages 
of that 
progress.

And that 
is something 
all fathers 
wrestle with, 
whether they show it 
or not. 

Reflection

It’s Father’s Day here in Australia tomorrow…

Sit with this one.

There is something to be found.

How does this piece speak to how you want to show up for those you care about?

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On today’s walk, the sky was alive with passion:

Today, I pulled out an old journal, 
which I was excited to read, 
until a shadow cast over me.

I was shocked at how lost I was, 
how confused I was, 
and how scared I was.

And it wasn’t even that long ago.

The second thing that struck me 
was how now I could see those issues 
with absolute clarity. 

There were no longer any unresolved questions, 
and there was no noise muddying my mind. 
What was once a turbulent grey ocean 
was now a perfectly calm blue lake. 
I could see straight through that scared little boy 
to the heart of the issue 
and the right path forward.

Reflection

I don’t know what you are currently stuck on, or how lost you feel.

Maybe you have woken up in a deep, dark forest. You’ve grown tired of your current situation. You’ve started to question if you have been chasing the wrong things.

Hang in there.

Time has a way of revealing the answers you need. You wish it could be faster, but that’s not how the world works. We all process things on our own timeline.

Comparing to someone else doesn’t help. You don’t have the full context.

Be patient.

Have faith in your ability to find your way.

Cause you may learn just like I have from my trusty journal:

What you may now feel is of the utmost importance may be irrelevant one year from now.

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The season is starting to turn here. Longer, warmer days. Tonight was the first evening walk in a while walk without a winter jacket.

There are people who do the thing.

There are people who talk about doing the thing.
But they don’t actually do the thing.

There are people who are forever “learning” how to do the thing.
But they don’t really do the thing either.

Which one are you?

Reflection

There is something deeply meaningful to you.

You would love to be doing it, but you’re not.

You go to bed thinking about it and wake up pondering it. You talk about how you want to do it. Or you keep it to yourself and stew on it throughout the day. You soak up content like a sponge, learning all you can so that one day, you will be ready.

…

You are ready.

Get real with yourself.

Time to start walking the talk.

How can you start “doing the thing” today?

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I wanted to take a photo of the Super Moon this week. But then I forgot to do it as it appeared over the horizon, looking its largest. Later, I remembered and raced outside. This was the best I could capture:

Today, I hurt my back.
It’s true; 
the sick person only wants 
one thing…

Reflection

We are brutally reminded of our fragility and mortality in times like these.

We realise we have limits and can’t always push ourselves too hard without some form of consequence.

We now recognise that health is the most important thing, not false idols like money, power, or fame. Without health, it can be hard to enjoy the simplest of things.

And if that wasn’t enough, we punish ourselves internally as we sink into shame for neglecting all the ways we knew we could have prevented our pitfall.

How can I better protect my health?

Or how can I make myself strong?

Pair with an insight from Stephen R. Covey that always stuck with me:

Protect the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The goose is you, my friend!

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A beautiful winter night sky from a recent walk:

How does it feel knowing your best years are behind you?
How does it feel realising now that you didn’t even know at the time they were passing you by?
Did you enjoy them?
Did you have fun?

One day, you will probably come to see these current days as part of the “best years”.
Are you enjoying them?
Are you having fun?

Reflection

Do you ever catch yourself reflecting on your version of the “glory days”? And then you are stuck by some form of sadness, knowing they are long gone.

Here’s something I have noticed…

As time passes and we evolve through new experiences, those glory days expand or reappear in different forms.

You might feel like your best days are behind you now as you struggle to let go of a past self who was known for a particular thing or hung out with certain people you no longer align with.

But what you cannot see now is that you are on the cusp of a new horizon, a new chapter, and part of you hasn’t caught up yet to the change that is happening.

And that “new self” you are about to become may value slightly different things or appreciate new people and experiences.

What you think of as “best years” changes as you grow.

Eventually, you ripen like fruit on the tree and willingly enter this new chapter. Or the caterpillar turning into a butterfly is another metaphor for transformation. We may live one way for a long time and then seamlessly transition into what feels like a new life.

Suddenly, you are overflowing with possibility as you realise your best years are not behind you; you are making them now.

I help you live with more purpose, depth, and possibility — at a slower pace. I send two emails weekly. Join The Meaning Path:

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Possibility on the horizon:

Words alone 
can’t heal 
this 
great tragedy.
What we would give 
to bring you 
back.
Great doesn’t feel like the right word, 
it’s just f*cking tragic.
Life can be so unfair.
Cruel even. 
But I don’t know what else to say.
We never think these things 
will happen to us.
They shouldn’t happen to anyone. 
But once in a blue moon, 
they do.

Reflection

❤️

We’re all drowning.

We haven’t yet evolved for the modern digital age of swimming in endless notifications and emails while simultaneously juggling 26 different projects. And maybe we won’t ever fully evolve for this.

Maybe humans are built for something else, like focusing on bringing the few meaningful things in their minds into existence.

We thrive in simplicity.

But we love to overcomplicate things.

Something I have come to learn is trusting that you will find what you need to find when you need to find it rather than worrying about being on top of everything. A metaphor could be stepping into a river to catch a fish. You don’t try to catch the whole river; you just get the fish you need.

It’s all about seeking the right goal.

For example, maintaining inbox zero is not your life’s work. You never win. The next day, it’s piled back up again. If you’re not careful, this constant clearing of the decks can crowd out your most important work, the stuff you would be proud to have achieved one day.

And if you get really good at responding to everyone, guess what?

You’re rewarded with being known as the responsive person, which leads to even more responses to answer.

Have you ever had one of those frustrating bosses at work who never seem to answer your questions? They are secretly hoping you will rise up and answer your own questions.

I remember once speaking to a friend, saying that I wasn’t coping with DMs on social media as I juggled work, writing, parenting two baby boys, and trying to live a fulfilling life. I came to see social media as a trap which was sucking up my free time. He shared something I needed to hear:

“As for behind on messaging, don't worry too much about it. If we force ourselves to keep all convos going, we'll suffocate. I often think the important convos will make their way in front of us.”

What resonated for me?

The idea of having faith that who we need to converse with will rise out of the sea of noise.

Rather than getting hung up on trying to respond to everyone in the moment, I could trust that I will get back to who I need to, in time. And that’s ok. I shouldn’t be losing sleep over it.

Especially since having kids, I’ve found my bandwidth for chatting to random strangers on the internet has dried up as all my free time is now occupied with family responsibilities.  

I’m not sure what it is about me, the introvert inside or my years of shyness, but the thousands of shallow “connections” on social media don’t do it for me. I prefer diving deep with a few people. I know some people love it, but the endless requests are draining!

However, one good thing about the internet is that you can find a small tribe of like-minded peers where you can connect, support each other, and grow together. This is truly wondrous!

You’ll find what you need

I have found this idea of trusting you’ll find what you need to be solid.

Tonight, this was proven.

I sighed as I opened my inbox to see 2,303 unread emails staring back at me like I had inadvertently stumbled onto the stage of a packed crowd at Madison Square Garden. I had a quick scroll, then randomly clicked on an email from a newsletter I subscribe to but haven’t opened their weekly posts for months.

You like plenty of things, and you would love to support them more, but you don’t have the time, so you tune in when you can.

I dove into the email, and its contents struck me as exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.

Call it coincidence or divine power, but the magic of the situation really struck me. Things arrive just when you need them. And it’s ok if you ignore the noise in between.

Then again, a friend reached out during the week, sharing some good news in their life. He accompanied the news with this:

“Sometimes, and I feel especially in times when we feel lost or don’t make progress – these things come just when the time is right.”

Too right.

Reflection

How can you pull back from the brink of overwhelm and start to trust that things will work out fine without stressing over every single minute detail?

And that what you need will arrive when you need it?

Curious what it was that hit me at the right time?…

Read more