There s a player in our Sunday soccer game who s generally at a level above everyone else. The kind you d watch for five minutes and call a natural. The ball sticks to his feet. His movement is slick and easy. And he always seems to have so much time on the ball, like the game runs Continue reading A natural
Yesterday I wrote about how Ed Sheeran stopped using his phone back in 2015. There s a second half to that story he told at the concert. A few years ago, Ed was sued over Thinking Out Loud. The family of Marvin Gaye s co-writer accused him of copying the feel of an old hit Let s Continue reading Old phone
Ed Sheeran hasn t used a phone since 2015. He d kept the same number since he was a teenager, and by the time he was famous, he was receiving thousands of texts a day. It got in the way of being present, so he cut it. Now he has an iPad, spends about an hour a Continue reading No phone
It never ceases to amaze me how consistently I underestimate the effect tiredness has on my demeanour and mindset. When I m running on low battery, everything tilts to the wrong end. The small annoyance becomes a grievance. The neutral comment sounds like a dig. The manageable problem feels immovable. And the whole time, I m convinced Continue reading Tiredness
With the people we play long-term games with — family, close friends, anyone we re in it with for the long haul — one thing is easy to forget: some days, our energies simply won t match. You could call these moods, but moods feel more momentary. Energy feels like a better term. For example, one of Continue reading Mismatched energies
You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength. Uncle Iroh, Avatar: The Last Airbender Our inner strength = our ability to summon hope. Beautiful.
One of the harder truths to internalize is that there s very little correlation between a problem being difficult and a problem being valuable. It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming the two travel together. If something is taking all our effort and ingenuity, surely it must matter — and we take the Continue reading Hard and valuable aren t the same thing
Before you go on a grueling ten-mile hike, try a three-miler. Before you run a marathon, it helps to have a few ten-mile runs in your legs. Before you ship a risky change, ship something smaller and safer first. And before you transfer a massive amount of money, do the ten-dollar test. It doesn t matter Continue reading Trial run
#OurWorldIsAwesome – Edition 24 Context on this series we live in a beautiful world and National Parks are akin to the crown jewels of this planet. These landscapes remind us of the fine balance and complexity woven into the fabric of the world around us. Every time I spend a while inside one of these Continue reading Yoho National Park
I wrote about hiking yesterday and mentioned switchbacks. On a steep hike, the trail almost never goes straight up. It zigzags — long diagonal legs cutting back and forth across the slope, taking you what feels like sideways when all you want is up. These are switchbacks, and there are two good reasons for them. Continue reading Why switchbacks exist