Friends, I haven’t written in a while. There’s always been a part of me that wants to write weekly.
I’ve been documenting a lot, whether it’s work, life, or learned lessons. But I’ve shown almost no output.
Greedy, honestly. Today, that changes. Here’s to sharing.
The following is a collection of lessons that shaped my year. They’re bucketed across different parts of my life. I hope this sparks something in you — and if it doesn’t, tell me that too. I genuinely want to know what resonated.
Let’s start with parenting, since this has dominated much of my life and is my primary focus :) :
The notes started small. A voice memo in the car after a rough day. A line written at 2 AM after a disagreement that refused to end. By the time I counted, there were hundreds. Now, distilled down to 36 receipts.
For the past 3 years, I’ve been reading Daily Dad by Ryan Holiday, and I do try to make sure I connect some of my life experiences to what I'm reading.
Your kid only sees what’s in front of them. Be present
My daughter only registers the human directly in her line of sight. At the zoo when she yanked my sleeve to point at the giraffe, she didn’t care about the Slack thread buzzing in my pocket. Her life is eye-level. Mine has to be too. When I’m distracted, she feels abandoned, even if I’m sitting ten inches away.
Unconditional love is the job, not babysitting
We were at a farm one morning. I learned that loving my kid isn’t a side quest. She melted down over mud on her boots, and instead of gripping patience, I treated it like a chore. Real love is a posture, not a shift I clock into. My job is to love her without relapse.
Non-negotiable time, not leftovers
“After this call / study session” became weaponized procrastination. So I blocked most evenings of the week for her time, even when something pinged “urgent.” If the time isn’t scheduled, I will cannibalize it. She deserves hours that aren’t dependent on the state of my “inbox”.
Model values. They’re watching
When I apologized for breaking the plant and then cleaned it up without drama, she mimicked me with her dolls. That was the proof. She learns more from my repairs than from my lectures. Integrity is every mundane action, not the TED Talk in my head.
Her world doesn’t end where the two of us do.
Love the person who gave birth to them, even when it’s hard
Co-parenting hasn’t been soft-focus. But when I celebrated her mom’s win in front of our kid, I watched trust brighten in those little eyes. Loving her mother, even in the middle of old arguments, is part of loving her. They’re intertwined whether I like it or not.
A proud parent already loves their child for who they are
In any moment — happy, sad, frustrated, all of it — Anna is who she is. Emotions can get triggered, but breathing always helps. Taking a second, understanding, and not trying to yell over it all. Just loving her for who she is at each moment is all she’s asking for at this stage.
She gives me pride daily. Every parent is likely prideful for what their child does, but it doesn’t need contingencies like “Go out there and make me proud.” She is already my pride and joy.
She’s been through a lot and is her happy self. She has her wants and needs, she gets her frustrations, but that’s just an expression of immediate needs. It passes. Regardless of all the so-called “negative” stuff, she still makes me proud for being her own unique self.
It’s a feeling I never thought I could have over someone.
Morality is set in the daily moments
Saying “we don’t hit” isn’t enough. How I talk to strangers at a grocery store when she’s holding the cart sets a louder precedent. The moral standard is built in mundane Mondays, not big speeches about right and wrong.
Modeling behavior is what they see and mimic. And when they grow old enough to question it — “Do I do that? Where did you learn it?” — that’s the moment I either get credit or get caught. If I hear “you,” I’m caught in the act. So if I want to hold morals, I best be holding them true to myself, and let our little ones look at that model and decide for themselves whether it works.
Prepare them for life, then let them find purpose
I can’t design her calling. I can only give her reps. Teaching her how to brush fear off after she tripped at the playground is a bigger lesson than any speech about “potential.” Preparation is shared. Purpose is hers alone.
At least, that’s my working theory. I’ve built a wide range of skills for myself, and it’s taught me to see things in different ways. I’d let her develop that same range, then go deep in whatever captures her. Steering might help, but she’ll figure out what she likes, and that discovery is hers to make. Exposure is what we can provide. The best preparation will come from the tough conversations, the disagreements, the moments she’s genuinely uncomfortable. That chapter is still being written, and I want to be steady enough to be in it with her.
Timing of offers matters as much as the offer
Offering help after my partner already solved the problem isn’t help. It’s belated posturing. I’ve learned to ask “Do you want me to jump in now or later?” because a mistimed assist feels like noise.
Phone = phone. The perception gap is real
I can tell myself I’m “researching” or “reading briefs,” but to the person across the table, I’m just scrolling. I stopped arguing the nuance. If it looks like Instagram, it might as well be Instagram. The perception gap kills trust faster than the actual usage. I used to be better about this. Deliberate, consistent. Lately I’ve drifted back, pulled in by something new and shiny every time. Breaking the habit the first time was hard. Letting it creep back was easy and quiet. It needs to stay away.
Misunderstanding is my default pattern
I routinely misinterpret neutral texts as shade. I escalate things that were never threats. Owning that tendency keeps me from torching relationships. I now re-read before reacting, especially when the stakes are emotional.
Emotional support is my weakest link
I can debug a product plan faster than I can just sit beside someone crying. Naming that weakness was brutal, but it keeps me from overpromising presence I don’t know how to deliver yet. I’m learning to hold space without offering fixes.
That gap between knowing what someone needs and being able to give it — that’s where trust either deepens or slowly drains. Especially when people count on you. When they’ve come to expect that support, and you’re still trying to figure out how to show up for it, the absence is felt louder than you realize.
One of the clearest signs of this was how often I reached for clarification or solutions when someone I loved was already hurting. I thought I was helping by understanding the problem, but what they needed was presence, not analysis. That was a brutal lesson: I could solve logistics faster than I could sit still beside pain.
Multipliers require mutual trust
Being an amplifier in someone’s life only works if the foundation is mutual respect. Otherwise you’re just a loudspeaker for chaos. I learned that the hard way when my excitement for a project outpaced the trust underneath it.
When someone calls you “useless”
I let that word burrow way too deep. I started measuring myself through someone else’s trigger-happy language. Walking away from that tether reminded me that my worth can’t be outsourced to a person having a bad week or misunderstanding.
Choices and consequences are chained
Every decision I make sets off something. Spending money on a distraction meant the budget for something I actually cared about evaporated. Pretending those chains don’t exist is how I keep repeating avoidable lessons.
Things left unsaid corrode faster than arguments
The silence after that midnight disagreement felt heavier than shouting ever would. I’m learning to say the awkward truth before resentment calcifies. Words withheld become shrapnel later.
Two songs by Ed Sheeran on his new album Play always remind me of this. I think his lyrics just speak to the regular days that really connect relationships:
Three hours a day for ten years
Mastery is allergic to shortcuts.
The language, the writing, the code — none of them care about my excuses. Three focused hours daily is the tax. No discount codes available. Some disciplines need more focus than others. Some get an hour, some less. Then, when you add learning to the mix, those hours get eaten by courses or certificate preparation.
Apprenticeship means humility
Aaron Rodgers sat behind Favre for years. I need that reminder every time I feel entitled to skip the apprentice phase. Standing on the sideline isn’t wasted time.
That patience of earning the reps before demanding the result is what separates people who build real skill from people who perform it.
When I took an IT position at a school district, I had to learn the ropes from scratch. The systems, the organization, the unspoken rhythms.
There’s always an apprenticeship phase in new roads and ventures.
One thought that has stayed with me came from my academic advisor, when I was learning to build a new optical measurement setup. She said something like: “I may have a PhD, but that doesn’t mean I know everything. I know generally how this system should work, but it’s up to you to technically make it work. Refer to your colleagues; they’ve built something similar.” She not only showed me humility, she was modeling it.
A reminder that expertise in one domain doesn’t eliminate the need to be a student in another.
Concentrated practice is the only producer of results
Diffused effort keeps me mediocre. When I lock a single problem in my sights for a week, it moves. When I dabble, everything stagnates. Concentrated practice is what consistently budges outcomes.
We all know how this goes. Spread yourself thin across projects, interests, and “priorities.” Burn out. Get nothing done but dropped balls, procrastination, and quiet disappointment in yourself.
Concentration isn’t a talent, it’s a choice you have to keep making.
A craftsman’s work is a byproduct of obsession
The final product is just residue from the hours of care. Writing Spark Notes in every down/random time was invisible, but it’s the part that matters. The finished product is the parts put together.
Work against your tendencies
My default is to lean on strengths and sidestep weaknesses. But the only reason my writing voice and systems understanding skilled up was spending time on the parts I struggled with: cadence, patience, editing, tools, services. Tension is the teacher.
Faith in learning and the process
I want to skip steps. There’s a tendency to do so. I always consider it. But when I trust the process. Making drafts, revisions, peer review, showing up, following a plan, committing to the plan, encountering blockers, etc. The work saves me from myself.
Faith isn’t mystical, don’t rush the sequence.
Vibe coding without execution is empty
I can vibe a system architecture overnight, but if I hand everything off, I lose the muscle. Touching the code keeps me honest. Without that, I’m just cosplaying a builder.
Range through depth, not breadth
I’m done collecting hobbies I don’t respect with my time. I go deep into a few obsessions and let them bleed into each other. Philosophy refines systems thinking. Writing tightens my tech specs.
Range comes from depth stacking, not surface sampling.
Adding dimension unlocks creativity
I combined data engineering, software architecture, design, and consulting experience into something none of those disciplines could have built alone. The goal: a pipeline that moved us from reactive to proactive on projector issues. Tracking lamp hours and usage over time, lean enough to prove the concept but extensible enough to scale to other IoT devices. Even a data analyst intern could learn from it without ever touching confidential data. I wouldn’t have built it without the range I’d accumulated. That was exactly the proof.
The creative process can’t be rushed
I tried to crank this Year Wrapper in a single week. It was trash. Creativity needs marination. Sometimes walking through the zoo, smelling churros and sunscreen, is part of writing. A whole two months went into this.
Diffuse vs focused mode
Drafting is meandering, sloppy, full of tangents. Editing is scalpel work. Expecting myself to do both simultaneously is self-sabotage. I now let diffuse mode sprawl before focused mode sharpens.
Look wider, embrace what disrupts comfort
When my systems faltered, I forced myself to widen the aperture: who else benefits from this? Thinking beyond my immediate team unlocked a path I couldn’t see when I was nose-down. The same instinct applies to new ideas, even the ones that upend the routine.
Embrace new ideas that disrupt comfort
Taking my kid to that sensory art room wrecked our Saturday plan, and we found something better. Discomfort is evidence I’m stretching.
Discomfort showed up in new tools too: Cisco Call Manager, Unity, Kace SDA and SMA, Azure Defender, Mobile Device Management.
Tools I’d never touched before but suddenly had to own. That’s what any new role does to you. You arrive with your existing toolkit and the job hands you a new one. The discomfort is the signal that you’re actually stretching.
Fluidity of mind beats resentment
When I cling to old grievances, my mind calcifies. Forgiving myself for old miscommunications, releasing the need to relitigate them, loosened everything. Fluid thinking lets me adapt to everyday life instead of reenacting stale scripts and beating myself up over them.
I’m used to being alone AND it’s armor
I default to solitude. It’s safer there. But hiding in the garage or office under the “I’m working” excuse can quietly numb connection. There’s a difference between intentional solitude and avoidance wearing productivity as a costume. I’m learning to lower the armor without losing myself in the process.
Do the thing you don’t feel ready for
Lately I’ve been sitting with this: hesitating on the thing we feel unready for is just procrastination with better branding. We stay busy so we don’t have to start. But slate time for it, and you’ll keep it front of mind. You’ll actually start doing. Just do it. Whether it’s writing and publishing, earning that certificate, or applying yourself to something you’ve been circling for months.
Procrastination disguised as preparation
This one resurfaces for me regularly. I spent days telling myself I was “getting organized” or “needed this tool to be efficient” while the actual work sat untouched. Preparation that never ships is just procrastination in a tailored suite. Nothing gets us ready like doing the thing.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” — Seneca the Younger.
That’s about luck, sure, but the underlying truth holds: work gets done when you actually do it.
“Your time” isn’t always noble
I labeled late-night YouTube rabbit holes as “me time.” Half of it was avoidance. Pleasure can look like passion. I need to get honest about when rest is rest and when it’s just hiding. If it isn’t planned, it probably isn’t rest.
The cost of unused potential
The Spanish language haunts me. My Spanish has sat dormant for seven years. Lots of input, almost no output. There’s the same quiet invoice there, unused potential compounding into regret. The cost of not using it becomes apparent over time. It’s a sort of heritage language for me, and the language my in-laws speak every day. To communicate in it, freely and confidently, is something I’ve wanted for years. But lately, I’ve started. I’m tired of the regret, so I’ve shifted: more production than input. Using the language instead of just absorbing it.
Build systems, not willpower
Willpower is a depletable resource. I’ve burned through it by lunch. The systems I built, morning routine, dedicated work blocks, auto-investments, run whether I feel motivated or not. Willpower starts the car and systems keep it in the lane.
Something I read stuck with me: if you have a task that takes only a few minutes but you have no system for it, those minutes compound every time you repeat it.
The same is true in any job. If something can be automated, whether through a script, a workflow, a tool, you free yourself from the mediocre tasks and redirect your attention toward higher-value work.
Systems create efficiency, but the bigger benefit is protecting your focus for meaningful work.
Year 36 was a lot. Year 37 starts now.
What landed for you? I’d genuinely love to know. Reply or reach out.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.