Author Archives: John

Beaches are colder and windier than you expect.

It’s often better to park near the beach, open the trunk, put the backseats down, and picnic in your car facing the water.

When you stand at the ocean, waves crash uniformly, one after another. But look at the ocean from a distance and at elevation, and you’ll see waves of all shapes and sizes, crashing in all directions.

Such are the thoughts of our minds. The thoughts we express as words or actions align to a consistent and uniform narrative. But the choppy haze of thoughts chattering in the background are what drive it all. You cannot tame them. But observe them, and you may plan for destructive waves before it’s too late.

Our tasks are air, and our time is a container. What we do expands to fit the time we allot it. 

Give yourself thirty minutes to draft an email, and you will expand the task until the half hour is over.

Imposing constraints on yourself isn’t constrictive. Constraints fill our time balloons so that they neither drop nor pop.

The only possession you have in life is the time that you are alive.

Everything else, even the most prized item, will be taken from you eventually and wasn’t yours to begin with. Nothing else belongs to you because all else is temporary.

But the time that you are alive is and will always be yours.

So cherish it deeply.

A gift on Christmas is expected.

A gift on a random Thursday is appreciated.

When you feel reactive, wearing earplugs is a great way to re-center.

Reactivity is sensitivity to stimuli, whether sounds: the ping of an email message, sights: the push notification from a text message, or distractions: reading the news before starting your work.

Reducing some stimuli isn’t a panacea, but it sure does help.

At some point, tomorrow needs to be today.

There’s never a reason to go into a store blind. If you don’t have a plan, you’re at the mercy of the shopkeepers who know you and your preferences better than you do.

If you go to a grocery store and don’t know what you’re going to buy, you’ll buy too much.

If you go to a clothing store without a budget, you’ll spend more than you would have thought beforehand.

If you online shop for nothing in particular, you’ll end up buying something completely unexpected.

None of these things are inherently bad or mistaken. It’s just a question of whether you would do it again if you could go back in time.