We add responsibilities, friction, and solve problems by creating new problems. Rarely do we eliminate things from our lives. It shouldn’t be this way. Life tends to get better the simpler it is. We should find solutions to problems rather than replacements. So much of the stress in our lives can be solved if we just look at what causes it and think about the simplest solution. We own too many things, we have more commitments than we have hours in a day, and we spend the finite time we do have on things that don’t matter. You don’t need a bigger closet; you need fewer clothes.

For a simple exercise, think about something that annoys you, and think of the most obvious, dumbest solution. For me, my apartment in NYC does not have a dishwasher, and I cannot stand doing dishes. I would spend 10-15 minutes per day washing dishes. In order to solve this, I bought disposable cups, forks, spoons, bowls, and plates. Is it the best solution? No. However, it was the simplest and immediately made my life better. So much of life is like this, but we refuse to accept it. We struggle to accept the reality that someone dumber than us could solve the problems we have in our lives. We think too much.

Throw more things away, cancel more plans, say no to things you don’t care about. Make your life simple.

The most interesting experience from this show was my interaction with an individual who worked with an unnamed band (who most of you would probably know). From the get-go, this guy did not want to be my friend. He spoke very vaguely, and when I asked for clarification, he treated me like an idiot. At the conclusion of the show, he came by to grab the unsold merch from the band and launched into perhaps the most insane screaming fit I have ever seen. It felt surreal. It was just him and me standing in the middle of an empty field at 2 in the morning. He was upset that the items were in boxes and not laid out. He didn’t trust my team’s counts of the remaining items and wanted to do them himself. He proceeded to call me an idiot, an amateur, and a number of other things that I will not write. It was odd. I don’t think I’ve ever been screamed at (at least in this way). In situations like this, I believe the best response is no response. I let him do his screaming and yelling, looked at him, and then just walked away. He continued yelling, but without my response, he eventually quit. People like this interest me. There are scenarios in life where I want to scream at people, but I don’t, because I am an adult. Did this guy have the right to be upset? Yes. But the yelling was insane. It blows my mind that people like this exist.

Screaming man’s statement about me being an amateur was interesting for a few reasons, but mostly because it was right. I am in most ways an amateur. I don’t have formal training in most of the things that I do. Nearly everything in my life has been figured out the hard way or from reading. My life (and most people’s lives) has been figured out as things happen. We are building the parachute as we jump out of the plane. Richard Feynman has a quote where he compares discovering the laws of science to watching Gods playing chess. Where you understand the rules as new things happen. This past weekend changed the rules of the game for me. It exposed me to things I had never witnessed, and it was probably one of the best experiences for me to have at this point in my life. In a way, I am thankful for the screaming man.

Theres a saying I heard a few months back that has really stuck with me. “There is never only one cockroach in the kitchen.” If you see one cockroach, there is most likely a lot more somewhere else, and even though you cannot see them, they are there. Strangely enough, this is applicable in everyday life more than you would think. We tend to downplay the negative character flaws in the people we surround ourselves with. We try to isolate their bad qualities and convince ourselves that “there is only one cockroach in the kitchen.” Be wary of the people in your life you describe as “they are a good person, but…”. They most likely are not as good as you think, and probably have many more cockroaches than you imagine.

Innocuous Things

The things in life that appear the most innocuous are in fact the most dangerous. The habits you think are harmless can cause more harm than the obvious ones. What you don’t know or realize will hurt you the most. No matter how confident you are, nothing is guaranteed. The things you believe you can count on the most are, at times, not as “structurally sound” as you may think.

Over the last few years, I’ve been courting a certain number of high-value clients, working on building a relationship with them and a book of business that gives them the confidence to give us a shot. After more than 18 months I finally got a meeting with a decision maker for one of my dream clients. It went swimmingly. They were not too happy with their current supplier and were willing to pursue discussions with us further. A week passes, and we have the final meeting with their team. To make a long story short, they opted to stick with their current supplier for this year due to some timeline issues, and make the switch to us in 2027. Naturally, this sucked. After 18 months of working towards a goal, we got to the threshold and had the door slammed in our face. Over the next 24 hours, my mind went in all directions. I hate losing. And even though they committed to working with us in 2027 and working with us on additional projects in 2026, I felt like we had not won. Plus, with this project being spearheaded by me, it really got into my head.

On the other hand, it is pretty cool that these deals are even a possibility. There was a point in time where working with tier-1 clients like this was just a pie in the sky dream; now it is a reality. It is not reality by mistake or accident. It is a reality because we were willing to put ourselves out there, willing to go above and beyond, willing to do what most wouldn’t, and despite the setbacks, we persisted. Although the pain here really stung, it only makes it more obvious that we are still on the long journey to the mountain top.

On a closing and unrelated note, I recently read a quote that “the good times aren’t coming back, but new times are coming.” It felt fitting.

I took a different route, knowing that this event was coming, I parked my truck on the corner of Marina Boulevard a week in advance, with the goal of having a mini tailgate. With my apartment being less than 200ft away, my friends and I also rolled my couch down the street and set it up on top of the bed of the truck. This gave us a perfect view, and what felt like our own VIP viewing deck only rivaled by the $5,000,000+ houses that I was parked next to. It was really cool to see how a little thinking in advance transformed this event for my friends and I from something that would’ve been annoying to attend, into one of the most memorable experiences we’ve had in San Francisco. In a way, I think there is a lesson in this that the gap between mediocre and memorable isn’t as wide as you may think. Taking something from boring to fun can require less than 5 minutes of thinking, and many times be totally free. The world has the capacity to be more fun if you make it more fun; you just have to care.

Kurt Cobain is famously known for being a rock and roll icon who claimed he didn’t understand music. He seemed to roll out of bed, pick up a guitar, and write some of the best music to come out of the generation. His persona reflected this attitude of nothing matters, “I don’t care about this”, and everything comes easy to me. None of this was true. Kurt Cobain was incredibly driven and motivated, with a well-known, out-of-this-world work ethic. Was he naturally gifted? Yes. But he also outworked everyone.

This is something you see basically every single time you hear about someone being great (except with Bo Jackson, who didn’t need to work hard because he was so gifted), where they are born with some degree of innate talent, but have a level of intensity and dedication that makes them truly exceptional. The idea that some people come out of the box perfect is a fallacy that stops people from trying to be great. They think that in order to be great at something, you have to be born great at something, which is just not true.

In a sense, phenoms are the result of a natural gift and a high degree of focus. More people could be great if they wanted to be great, but more often than not, they convince themselves they cannot be great. Whether you think you can or cannot, you are correct.

Leaving The Oasis

If you haven’t read “The Alchemist” by Paolo Coelho, you should. The book follows a young man on his journey to find his personal legend (his meaning in life), and in the process of wandering through the desert and all his trials and tribulations, he stumbles upon a city in an oasis. In this oasis, he finds comfort, a job, a wife, and eventually becomes content with the life he is living there. It is not what he wanted, but he settles for it. Over time, he realizes he has given up on his dreams and is living a life he doesn’t want to live. He decides he must leave the oasis and head back into the desert, where he will continue on his journey. So, he makes the difficult decision to leave his comfortable life and venture into the unknown. I won’t spoil the rest. But the key point is that he leaves the oasis despite his life being good.

The choice to leave “the oasis” is often the most difficult decision a person can make, but without it, you will never be able to chase what you are after. This looks different for everyone; it could be leaving a job, city, relationship, or any number of things. For example, my 90-year-old neighbor across the hall has been going back and forth about moving into a senior living center after living in her current apartment for 55 years, but decided to do it. To leave what is known for the unknown is not easy. The important part here is to be cognizant of the decision you are making by not making a decision; each day you don’t act is a decision not to follow your dreams, more often than not guided by fear. It is easy to get caught up in the malaise and kick the can down the line, but time will pass whether you like it or not, and you can never get it back.

P.S. On a personal note, I am leaving my oasis of SF to go to NYC. If you are in New York, say hello.

Over the last 7 days, I have been wandering around Tokyo. No plan, agenda, or really anywhere to be. It’s been an experience to say the least. Culturally, the US and Japan are quite different, but in many ways, we are similar. Throughout Japan, one of the things commonly seen at many temples is Omikuji, which is essentially Japanese fortune-telling. You donate 100 Yen and then randomly choose a box with a strip of paper in it that tells your fortune, and if you don’t like it, you can tie it onto a wire near the fortune boxes. The world’s obsession with fortune-telling is interesting. Astrology, fortune cookies, numerology, tarot, tea leaf reading, and probably a million others. Humans seem wired to want to know the future's outcome now. Frankly, I think it’s a waste of time. Now, you might say, “oh wow, you’re no fun”, and to some extent, you may be right, but I think that dismissing fortune-telling as a whole is warranted.

There are 2 main reasons.

1. You are the creator of your own fortune. A piece of paper or a chart does not determine your life; you do. You get to decide what happens. By acknowledging fortune-telling, you are surrendering your autonomy.

2. Life should be a surprise. Let’s say that these fortune-telling tools work, and they tell you all that you want to know about your life. Why would you want to know? That is like skipping to the end of the movie or googling the outcome. Where is the honor in that? What makes life interesting is the surprise in it all. I don’t want to know the cards dealt to me before they are shown.

Dogs With Jobs

Do you ever have dreams that stick with you? Dreams that you wake up from and can’t get out of your head for weeks or years. A few years back, I had a dream that my dog at the time had to get a job. For whatever reason, he got a job as an accountant. He is a dog, so he was a pretty bad accountant. He couldn’t type, understand math, communicate, or sit in a chair. He tried really hard and gave it his all, but time and again he kept coming up short. His coworkers laughed and made fun of him, and eventually, he was fired. From that point on, he thought he was dumb. He truly believed that he was flawed and was really let down by himself.

Dogs are great at being dogs, but they make terrible accountants. No matter how hard they try, they will never be great accountants. There are a lot of people who live in this type of world where they are trying to be something they are not. They are in cities, jobs, or environments where they don’t belong and will never thrive. They are damned to eternal mediocrity because they are scared to choose another path.

Meaning

One of the more interesting things that not enough people know is how the language we use affects the way that we see the world. The way we interpret the world is bounded and influenced by the language we use. This concept is called Linguistic Determinism, and has some very interesting findings on how different languages and cultures interpret situations differently due to the way their language is designed. The most notable example is how Spanish speakers are less likely to blame someone for breaking something compared to an English speaker, because in Spanish the phrase translates to “the item broke” vs in English we say “he broke the item.” This is a very long-winded way to say, the language we use influences the way we experience the world.

Now, on with the message.

It’s generally safe to say most people would like to live a meaningful life. When people talk about having a meaningful life, the conversation tends to involve the word find, and that you should find meaning in your life. I think that emphasis on find is bad. You don’t find meaning in life; you create meaning in life. There is a stark difference between finding and creating. Finding is passive, creating is active. Now, you may say that this is a battle of semantics, but it isn’t. You don’t find the world you want to live in; you create it. Creating is what separates man from animals. Our ability to create is what makes us human. Creating is powerful. The conversations and internal monologues we have impact our perception of the world, and our perceptions of the world impacts the outcome of our lives. Reframe the way you see the world, and your world will change.

There was a point in time when I feared failure. Where the thought of losing all I had terrified me. However, over the last year, the fear has dissipated. I think theres a few reasons why.

1. I know that no matter what happens, I will be okay. Take my company, take my money, take my car, even take my shoes; no matter what, I will survive. I’ve lived off rice and beans (for a couple of years, lol), and I can do it again.

2. The skillsets that we have developed over the last 7 years of building our companies are valuable and can never be taken away. You can repo my car, you can’t repo my brain. I can say with near certainty that if I had to start over today, I would be exactly where I am today, significantly faster than it took me to get here.

3. Most of the time, fear is a stupid emotion. The fear of failure will hold you back from taking risks, which may have a positive outcome. People’s lives could look totally different if they weren’t so afraid of failing. How many people stand on the diving board of opportunity, too scared to jump? What’s the worst that could happen?

Show Up In Person

One of the things we’ve been very intentional about over the last few years is taking every opportunity to attend the events when we produce the merch for it (for context, I run a custom apparel manufacturer: QuokkaPrints.com). We do this for a few reasons.

1. It’s an amazing excuse to go to a concert, marathon, or festival.

2. It builds stronger relationships with clients by being able to spend time with them.

3. Meet potential clients who come to these events and be able to show them exactly what you do.

Let me use an example. This past November, we worked with a medium sized Marathon. Their order was decent, not huge, but not small. We helped them sell the merch we produced by going to the race and working at the merch tent. Through this, we were able to meet the operator of one of the largest marathons in the United States, who is now a client, and another individual who is the operator of 50 races across the US and is also now a client. By going to the event, it changed this from a 5 figure opportunity into a 6/7 figure opportunity. All it took was us going the extra mile. I think people really undervalue this. Do good work, know your business, put your face behind it, and find ways to show up in person.

Long Shots and Cheap Bets

There is a concept in “Great By Choice” called shooting bullets before cannonballs. Essentially, it is about taking small calculated risks before taking large risks. We’ve employed this pretty consistently, and it’s been great for us. Recently, we’ve shot two bullets. The first is related to government contracting. Over the Christmas holiday, I was perusing sam.gov (the US governments website for posting bids and contracts), and realized that there were a number of contracts we had the means of fulfilling. So, we spent a few hours going through them and eventually submitted some bids. This was a long shot, due to the fact that it was our first time, and it is quite a confusing process, so it wasn’t something we felt confident in dedicating a ton of resources to right off the bat. Flash forward to today, and we officially won a contract. With this proof of success, we hired someone whose core focus will be submitting these types of bids. The flow was: small test → proof of success → further investment.

Risk is a part of life. How you go about whether or not to take a risk should come down to a few main factors.

1. Reversibility. If you take this risk, will it irreversibly impact your life?

2. Upside. If the risk pans out, what are the low, medium, and best-case scenarios?

3. Downside. If the risk does not pan out, what are the low, medium, and worst-case scenarios?

4. Unique Advantage. What about your skill set makes you more likely to have a positive outcome?

When you put this all together, the best risks are where they are largely reversible (low cost or time commitment), huge upside, low downside (asymmetrical odds), and where your unique skill set makes you more likely than the average person to win. As you can probably guess, this type of risk isn’t found in casinos. If you are looking for opportunities in life, you should keep your eyes peeled for opportunities that fit this criteria. This formula is quite literally the blueprint.

As an overall, you should always bet on yourself.

P.S. I only lost $150 in Vegas, so thankfully my life isn’t ruined.

At its core, values can be described as the things you deem to be non-negotiable in life. The things that you believe are central to your experience that compromising on would be betraying yourself. You hear people talk all day about their “values”, but most are lying to themselves. It is important to realize that most people’s values are conditional. They adhere to their values when it’s convenient, when it suits them, or when it makes them feel better than others. Most people will compromise on what they claim are their values. Offer them money or power, and you’ll see people transform into what they claimed they would never be.

When the rubber meets the road, rarely do you find anyone with true values. Your values aren’t your values if you drop them at the slightest inconvenience or opportunity to get ahead; you are just lying to yourself. Having values is designed to be hard. It is designed for it to be irrational, but in a sense that is what makes it valuable.

When you find values that you are willing to commit to, it simplifies much of your life.

Over the last 10 years, there has been a somewhat stark shift in the general media apparatus (news channels, social media, etc), where, due to the competition for views, only the extremes get noticed. This has led to every news story seeming like the sky is falling. Simultaneously, we’ve been fed this idea that we have to be informed, that it is our civic duty. We have to care about global politics, we have to know about the civil war going on in XYZ distant country, we have to know about the newest political controversy, and so on. It’s exhausting.

Now, I am not saying that these things are not important; what I am saying is that it doesn’t seem rational to have so much of your life spent on something that doesn’t do anything positive for you. News is meant to elicit a reaction, and more often than not, the reaction is designed to be negative. I think it’s important to fully understand the word “designed.” The media apparatus is designed to steal your attention. It is designed to keep you glued to the screen or TV so they can serve you ads and make billions of dollars. It is not meant to make you happy or informed, it’s meant to make them money.

Now, let’s be clear, I am not saying that you should go be a hermit who lives in some distant mountain cabin cut off from the rest of the world. What I am trying to say is that your life is being stolen from you under the guise of civic duty.

Not everyone needs an opinion on everything. It is okay to be uninformed. Focus on things that make you happy or positively add to your life. Spend time with people you care about and maximize the time you have in your life.

I think most people comprehend this concept, but haven’t truly internalized it. They know that the rope that holds them to the hitching post is an illusion, but never pull on it. They allow social pressure, fear of failure, insecurity, or any number of things to hold them back from change.

It is easy to do things because that is the way it’s always been. It is easy not to question the choices and the trajectory you are on. However, you are a missile (adjustable trajectory), not a rocket (fixed trajectory). You can change your mind and start living differently.

But, you may ask, “Why should I just start doing things and make changes?”

That is a perfectly reasonable question. I mean, you’ve gotten this far living life the way you have, so evidently, it is fine the way it is. In scenarios where you are content with everything in your life, don’t make changes for the sake of making changes. But, if you want to improve your life, get more out of it, or just make it more exciting, don’t let the mindset of “that’s the way it’s always been” get in the way of doing so.

Life is great if you make it great.

It is hard to get off the treadmill, but in the sense of Abe Lincoln’s quote that you have to take the time to sharpen your axe rather than chopping with a dull axe, you have to get off the treadmill to fix your problems.

Over the last year, as our business has grown, it has become evident that the previous solutions we’ve used for the problems we’ve encountered will not work on the new obstacles in our path. The new obstacles require a new set of solutions. The strategy we have taken up until this point has gotten us here, which is great, but it will not take us where we want to go. In a sense, we are like a fish that has finally evolved and has legs now. We must learn to live on land. Surprisingly (or not to anyone’s surprise, depending on your thoughts about me), this took me a while to figure out.

I was running in circles, and nothing was changing, so I tried running in squares, and nothing changed, and finally I tried running in triangles, and still nothing got better. The shape wasn’t the issue; it was the fact that I was running

Okay, so we’re on the same page now, new problems = new solutions.

How do we find new solutions, and more importantly, how do we identify our problems?

Problems come in all shapes and sizes.

Small problems can be simple, like fixing your email signature.

Big problems can be overhauling your marketing strategy.

Generally speaking, they both matter, but big problems kill you, small problems make life unpleasant. A splinter hurts; getting hit by a car is a lot worse.

To find problems, ask yourself a few questions.

1. What am I doing that someone else can do?

2. What things should I spend less time doing and more time doing?

3. If I could only focus on one thing to improve my business, what would that be?

4. What am I doing poorly right now?

5. What are some things that I do really well?

The solutions to problems should lead to one of five outcomes.

1. Making more profit

2. Reducing costs

3. Improving turnaround time or customer experience

4. Improving your or your team’s experience

5. Saving time

From here, we’ve got to do a few things.

1. List out problems

2. Arrange problems in order of importance

3. Think about how you can solve the problems, if you don’t know who can you ask who might know

4. Break the steps for solving the problems into as small steps as possible

5. Start working to implement the solution.

This general framework can be applied not only to business but to most areas of your life to identify and solve problems that get in the way of you living a better, happier, healthier life. At the end of the day, life is just a very long, non-obvious, person-specific, strategy game with very few clearly defined rules. It is up to you to play your game.

Internally, you are in a constant state of war. There are three sides within this battle: who you are, who you aren’t, and who you could be. You get to decide who wins.

You are never in competition externally. The coworker you feel threatened by, the business poaching your clients, the guy at the gym picking up heavier dumbbells, and each other person you feel at war with are not your competition. They are irrelevant. Beating them will not give you true satisfaction; it just feeds the flame of external warfare.

The real battleground is inside. Whether you like it or not, it wages on.

Winning looks different for everyone, but they all follow the same theme of becoming who you could be. That could be someone who can run 20 miles every day, run a successful company, be a great mom who raises amazing children, or any number of things. They all involve being in control of yourself, being focused, and pushing for more.

People tend to be too static. They tend to linger where they are. On the mountain of attainment, they build houses rather than pushing forward.

Not to be cliché, but it is a good idea to strive to be a better version of yourself than you are now, not because you aren’t good now, but because you can be better.

When I think about who I am now, there are parts of me that I saw at 22 and parts that I did not see. As we age, we see new branches and flowers emerge from us. I’ve seen how my thoughts have changed on certain concepts, and others haven’t. Over the years, some of the people who have been around me as I’ve blown out the candles have changed, but the flavor of the cake hasn’t (always chocolate).

The person you grow into is both similar to and different from who you are now and who you have been.

27-year-old me would probably both like and be annoyed by 22-year-old me. Like how an older sibling looks at the younger sibling who is still figuring life out. I wish I could go back and tell 22-year-old me to do certain things differently. I wish I could take all the learnings and lessons from the bumps in the road, detours, and everything in between, condense it into a book, and shove it into 22-year-old me’s head. I wish I didn’t have to find out so many things the hard way, but in a sense, that may be the only way to truly learn.

Life has few shortcuts that are worthwhile.

I read a quote recently that “the road to hell feels like heaven,” and I feel like it does a very good job of succinctly articulating the concept of “easy decision: hard life, hard decisions: easy life.” To do great things, you have to do hard things. If you choose the path of least resistance, life doesn’t typically play out the way you would like.

Unfortunately, there is an economic incentive to make everything about everyday life more addictive, accessible, inexpensive, and destructive. This has led to the average person today being lazier, poorer, less focused, and fatter. This undeniably impacts the long-term quality of life for most individuals. To avoid these potential missteps, we must be aware that the powers that be want you to be a docile cow, which they can milk for every last dollar (and then some with BNPL). They won’t be happy until you are in debt, brain-rotted, and so far out of bounds that you have no hope of saving yourself. And the second you snap out of it and realize the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, you’ll be conveniently reminded that it’s Saturday night, which means you can order some weed and pizza to get delivered, and bet money (that you don’t have) on the Football game all without leaving your couch. The genie is out of the bottle, and he ain’t gettin back in (it is only going to get worse).

Incorrect common Knowledge

I think our default setting as humans is to believe things. We hear things and accept them as they are without any verification. I heard in passing that sipping water before bed instead of taking full gulps (or vice versa, I don’t remember) will help you fall asleep faster. I have absolutely no idea if this is true, but every time I drink water before bed, I think about it. Anytime I hear someone say something, I try to question it, not as a way to be a know-it-all but as a truth-seeking activity. I refuse to believe things without real proof. It is surprising to see how much of our everyday accepted wisdom is either completely false or not exactly true. With the Library of Alexandria at our fingertips, we might as well leverage it. Do the work and do the reading.

Random Tidbits

Money solves most problems, but not the most important ones.

No one can make your life better except you.

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded.

Everything is a conspiracy when you don’t know how anything works.

The culture you immerse yourself in is the person you become.

In a sense, becoming the Übermensch can be equated to reaching Nirvana, where you are free from external circumstances, embrace the world as it is, yet strive to make it yours.

Okay, so why does this matter? The Übermensch serves as an unattainable goal which is more of a lifelong spiritual journey than anything else. When understanding the concept of the Übermensch, you understand how the game must be played in order to win, what is hindering your progress, and the deliberate actions that must be taken to advance.

“I teach you the [Übermensch]. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?”

You become great by living in the salt mines. The salt mines are the arena for boring, Sisyphean work. Doing the simple things over and over again, day by day, night by night. The salt mines are where greatness is born. The second you poke your head out of the salt mines and realize how far you’ve gone, how much money you have in your bank account, and how “amazing” the world thinks you are, you are one step closer to losing everything you’ve worked for. The lights shine bright in the real world; it’s best to avoid them. If you hate the salt mines, they will hate you, but if you love the salt mines, they will love you back.

No matter what you accomplish, how far you go, or the places you see, you must never leave the salt mines.

The salt mines are boring, not fun, and something you’d want to give up on. Darwin spent 8 long years studying barnacles, which shaped his view on evolution more than any other animal. Do the boring things really well for a long period of time, far beyond when most normal people would give up, and great things tend to happen.

Never leave the salt mines.

What does it take to win? The short answer is that the path to winning looks different for everyone. Each person goes their own way, they make their own choices, and employ their own strategies. The path one person takes may work for them, but not for others.

However, there are a few common traits of winners. The most important being obsession. The founders that I have spent time around who are the most successful are obsessed with what they do. It is all they talk about, all they think about; it encompasses their entire existence. Very little of their life is spent on other things. Some may look at it from the outside and view it as unhealthy (because it probably is), but it is undoubtedly what leads to them winning. In a way, you must fully give into it. You must toss yourself into the crucible and be willing to live with the consequences.

When you talk about what it takes to win, I think people want to hear something different. They want to hear that you just have to read 10 business books, hire a mentor, or wake up at 5 am and cold plunge, but the truth is that all it takes is all you got. Very few people want to do it. This is why these outliers exist, because they are willing to do what others aren’t, which is why they win.

Last week at our dinner (I made Chicken noodle soup), I gave her a heads up that later in the week I was having friends over for a big dinner party, which I host frequently. She was excited because it meant two things: 1. that she would get a portion of whatever I cooked, so she wouldn't have to cook dinner for herself that day, and 2. that there would be “life around her.”

I was unsure of exactly what she meant by “life around her,” so I asked her, and what she said really stuck with me. I will do my best to paraphrase and explain what I took away from the conversation.

The great part of getting old is that you get to experience more of life; the downside is the loss that you experience. She has seen the passing of her parents, family, best friends, neighbors, co-workers, pets, and a lot of people in her life. From her close friends that she grew old with, she is the only one remaining in good health. The way she described it to me is that when she hears people across the hall in my apartment laughing and having a good time, it reminds her that she is still here. She is still alive. Rather than finding reasons to be upset, she uses them as a reminder to be grateful that she is still able to experience them. Because the show does come to an end eventually, you might as well enjoy it while you still can.

It is perspective-shifting to hear the inner thoughts of people in different seasons of life. To hear how they process loss, hardships, happiness, and everything in between. To hear what they are most proud of and regret the most. To hear what they wish could go back and redo in their lives.