This week has felt like such a blur. My son turned 15 on Sunday, and I was an absolute emotional mess. There’s something really bittersweet about watching your child get older, like you’re so proud of who they’re becoming, but also wondering how time managed to move so quickly.
Also, why does July feel like the longest month in existence?
I just learned that Mercury was in retrograde for most of the month. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it feels very much like one of those horoscope blurbs you used to read in Seventeen magazine where you’d think this is probably ridiculous, but also secretly wonder if it explained why everything was going wrong. Either way, I’m happy to report it’s officially over.
I love that a student-led activist group ended this.
This guy, Sean Johnson (@intentionally_ on IG), shared advice he got from his roommate in college. He was working at a restaurant, and at the end of every shift, employees were supposed to marry the ketchups—basically take two bottles and combine them into one. There was one employee who would skip it, and it drove him crazy. One night after work, he came home venting to his roommate, and after a few minutes of listening to him rant, his roommate looked at him and said, “Dude, you need a bigger world.”
He talks about remembering it years later when his wife was on the condo board at their old place and he saw people getting worked up over silly things. He remembered it during moments of office politics, and now when he sees people arguing online over things that feel trivial, he comes back to the reminder that if something so insignificant is consuming so much of your energy, maybe you need a bigger world.
I cannot stop thinking about this. LOVED it.
Love, love, lovvvvveeeed the episode of Keke Palmer’s podcast with Oprah on it. A few things I wrote down:
-“I’m not BY myself, I’m WITH myself.”
-When talking about people you shed when you grow, “Those are the people who couldn’t handle the oxygen. They couldn’t handle the climb. You cannot bring everybody along with you.”
-”It is a violent act against yourself to allow other people in your life to diminish you and to not lift you and exalt you.”
There so many other insightful and beautiful moments, I loved every minute of it. Highly recommend listening.
Oprah on Baby, this is Keke Palmer podcast (07/21/26): This is the podcast I mentioned above. Highly recommend.
Furious: Just started this—it's good. It's about a female serial killer who targets rich men involved in the trafficking and exploitation of underage girls.
Four Thousand Weeks: Finished this book from last week and I think everyone should read this—I know it looks like a productivity book but it’s not. Like, at all. I cannot stop thinking about it. It’s really insightful and made me rethink how I spend my time and my life. Great stories, research, and anecdotes.
I was doomscrolling earlier this week and came across a video that started with, “You don’t want new things, you want the wanting.”
And I was like, okayyyy, you have my attention.
He then pans to comedian Kanan Gill who says, “Very exciting to get stuff. But as soon as you get stuff, you just have it.” He always gets the new iPhone, but once it arrives, he realizes that he simply… just has an iPhone. “It’s got 4K 120fps,” he says, “ugh, but I’m still me.”
Which feels like the entire human experience condensed into an Apple Store receipt.
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