The armor exists because of the drudgery of the world, not because of my kids—but they have to deal with it just the same.

The first layer of the armor is anger, which keeps my kids in line when I just can’t—or just won’t. The armor is the exasperation on my face that keeps questions at bay, so I don’t have to weep during a Teams call about the status of IT projects. The armor is my cursing—at everything I can’t control—which injects a dose of illusion into the reality of how hard life is. The armor is the sarcasm that lets me talk back without admitting how sad something one of my sons said to me actually made me feel.

I had forgotten how much I was wearing, honestly.

But there was Emmett—eyes as red as his burning cheeks. He told me, so softly, with a quivering lower lip, in a mix of suffering and despondency, “I don’t feel very well, Papa.”

And the armor took itself off. It just evaporated from my chest and shoulders. I sat with him. Rubbed his legs. Even now, half a week later, I am crying as I write this—both because I remember his suffering, and because I remember the honor it is to care for someone.

—

In Hindi, there is a concept called seva. SAY-vah. Emphasis on the first syllable. The translation of “caring for someone” doesn’t quite capture the depth of what it means.

Seva is a giving of care, but it is also a giving of oneself. It is not done at arm’s length. You are there, enmeshed with someone as you care for them—as if giving them some of your care, your love, even a bit of your life force to spark theirs into healing. It is not just physical and emotional comfort, but spiritual as well.

I used to think my parents were giving me a chore when they asked me to do seva—for my mom or dad, my aunt, or my grandmother. I thought it was a task they were delegating because they had to wash a dish or cook a meal.

I know now that was precisely wrong. They were asking me to do seva—and doing seva for me when I was sick—to show me the way.

Seva is what we are here to do. It is an act that fulfills the human aspiration to grow our spirits. We do not do seva because it will be reciprocated, or even because it helps someone heal, though it does. We do it because it is the way of the light.

And that is why the tears came, as I rubbed Emmett’s legs and comforted his fever—with medicine, yes, but also with my unarmored, fully open heart.

To care for someone is an honor, and I felt its light.

To care for—and to do seva for—my child is one of the highest forms of that honor. To join ourselves to the way of the light is a gift. Seva is not a chore. It is what we were made to do.

I want to remember this.

When the armor feels most necessary. When time feels most compressed. When I feel like I have nothing left to give.

I want to remember the feeling in my chest as I cry these tears—how light it feels, how freeing.

I want to remember: when my child, my wife, my family and friends—or even a stranger who needs seva but cannot ask for it—is in front of me, I am here to care for you. To do your seva.

I want to remember that my heart can be open. That the armor can fall away. That seva is not just a chore, or even a duty—it is a gift.

And it is my honor.

I knew none of this a year ago. Because one year ago, we had no diagnosis. We just had a sleepy kid with low muscle tone, who was born bravely and in a hurry.

He had three older brothers who adored him from the minute he was born, just down the stairs from their room. We gave him a name—Griffin—and with no diagnosis, no other “name” was needed.

Learning that there was a World Down Syndrome Day was fun and gooey at first, and then it felt like a moment of drowning.

I am finally beginning to let myself think about how hard Griffin’s life will be. He will spend more time in doctors’ offices than the rest of our family combined, and he may have already. He will face discrimination and be overlooked—by companies, schools, governments, and maybe even by some in the Church.

I don’t even know what language I’m comfortable using, but he does have “special needs,” and plenty of people who don’t know his light and inner grace firsthand will think treating him fairly is just too much work.

And, most darkly, there is the question of his lifespan. The thought—a cold, real, possibility—that I will outlive Griffin is demolishing. Knowing that despite medical advances that happen during his life, Robyn and I may have to bury our son—that our big three may have to bury their little brother someday—is enough to break a man where he stands.

Writing and reflecting is perhaps the only way I know how to put myself back together, so that’s what I have done.

I have not been able to stop thinking about two very difficult questions:

What makes a good life? Who deserves one?

What makes these questions difficult is not the answers, but the sacrifices the answers require.

A good life is pretty simple. It does not take being a multimillionaire.

It’s a place to call home. To be free and have agency in what happens to us. To love and be loved. To be able to learn and create. To care for one another and be cared for. To feel relatively sure you have a meal coming, and medicine when you need it. To be able to sit under a tree and pray. To have friends.

We all intuitively know this. We already know what makes a good life.

Before Griffin’s diagnosis, I believed that everyone deserved at least this. And that belief implies sacrifice. For everyone to have this, it know it takes paying taxes. It takes volunteering and looking after your neighbor or the other kids on the block, for no reward. It takes giving away your knowledge for free. It takes participating in civic life. It takes apologizing for mistakes and learning to be kind even when you’re having a bad day.

These, and more, are really hard sacrifices. And I have believed in making them and have tried to do so, however fallibly.

But now, for Griffing, I depend on everyone else to believe this too. Because he does have “special needs,” and I can’t fulfill them all—even if I were the wealthiest man in the world. It is a feeling of nakedness I would never have anticipated, but I have no choice but to place myself and Griffin in the care of others. I need others for him to have a good life.

Now, I can’t just believe that everyone deserves a good life. I can’t just be a small beacon that nudges the culture towards these sacrifices, without much consequences if nobody else cares.

Now, I have consequences. For Griffin to have a good life, others have to believe he does, too.

Now, my son’s life depends on others also believing in this vision of what a good life is, and that everyone deserves it—even if their needs are more “special” than someone else’s.

What I now depend on—other people’s generous and righteous beliefs—is what I probably have the least control over in the world.

When I was young, my dreams were so vivid and noble.

I wanted people to get along. I wanted to throw parties where other kids at my high school didn’t have to drink. I wanted to help people make their nonprofits effective. I wanted people who were excluded and misunderstood to be included. I wanted to write plays and stage them for free in public parks. I wanted to invent something that fixed something nobody else saw. To make it so that work didn’t have to suck, and to make government agencies super effective and virtuous. I wanted to comfort friends when they were sad and stand firmly beside them to witness their joy.

These were my dreams. deep down, they still are.

But as I’ve aged, the weight of responsibility has left me groaning. Bills. Taxes. Feeling like selling books is the only thing that justifies the time I spend writing. Hustling. The cost of organic eggs. Raising good kids and being good at my job. You know, grown up stuff.

All these things burn up all the oxygen the dreams I had as a boy need to keep breathing. These dreams have been living in thin air for so long, I wonder how long they’ll last. And now, on World Down Syndrome Day, the weight of responsibility felt at its peak.

But that boy—full of joy and optimism, untethered by responsibilities, perfectly content drinking cheap beer—is who I still am. Under all the armor and rain jackets, I’m still that guy who has faith that his dreams and sacrifices will be met with an outstretched hand by compassionate and generous strangers.

I don’t need to become him again. When I take all the heavy rocks out of my backpack, I am him. I am still that boy full of joy.

That guy is who my sons are mirroring when people say, “they’re just like you.” That guy is who they need. That guy is who my neighbors need.

That essence of that guy is what Griffin got in not one, but maybe three or four full measures. Even when he is ill, joy pours out of him by the bucketful. He may have needs that only about 1 in 700 people have, but his gift is also that rare, at least.

That gift of joy—whether it comes from his extra chromosome or not—is the spark for me to be that boy full of joy again, who dreams of that a good life and believes that everyone deserves it. Griffin’s joy sustains my faith that other people believe it too.

But it implicitly assumes that a person’s original inheritance—or at least their starting point—is power.

The corollary, “with great responsibility comes great power,” is also real talk. This version assumes that our original inheritance is responsibility, not power.

And what’s the lesson?

That we must be cautious of power. That it may corrupt us. That though we may be entrusted with responsibility, we must wield the power that comes with it intentionally and justly.

Most of us don’t fall into power like Peter Parker did in Spider-Man. Most of us have to earn responsibility first. Most of us aren’t born superheroes. Most of us gain responsibility as we become the parent, the boss, or the PTA president—and the weight of the power thrust upon us is surprising, and perhaps even invisible at first.

Most of us, who aren’t superheroes, gain responsibility without having wielded much power. We underestimate how hard and tricky that power is, if we’re even fully aware that it exists at all. I certainly have, every time.

Both lessons on power and responsibility are equally important. We need to teach both. We need to learn both. But for most of us, who have no choice but to start with responsibility, we need to heed the lesson that with great responsibility comes great power first.

Here’s the paradox.

We often begin by trying to become better people. For me, that transformation came through grief, marriage, writing this book about character, and becoming a father.

Over time, I could feel the growth. I was proud of it. I could look in the mirror and like what I saw. It was terrific!

But that’s where the trap began.

Years later, the paradox revealed itself: the more I transformed toward virtue, the easier it became to applaud that virtue. I became fascinated by my own growth.

That’s the exact opposite of what should happen.

The point of transformation is not to admire ourselves. It is to turn outward, toward others.

Luckily, the antidote is easily administered: gratitude, prayer, service, and listening deeply. We can prevent relapse through intention and practice.

The hardest part is simply seeing the paradox. It took me years to recognize it — five, probably.

I share this idea in the hope that you might see it sooner than I did.

Food.

Water.

Air.

Information.

Microbes.

Relationships.

The streams that shape human life are surprisingly easy to corrupt—and surprisingly hard to guard.

These streams shape our bodies, our minds, and the communities we build together. And unsurprisingly, each of them is vulnerable to corruption, because it’s easy to affect these flows without anyone noticing.

We ingest them largely automatically, without thinking. We trust that what we are offered is nourishing and healthy for us.

But temptation comes easily, and so do examples of corruption. Food additives can make things cheaper but affect our health. Algorithms feed us novel videos, but they can wreck our attention, our minds, and our sense of self. We can be in relationship with someone and absorb their love, but also harm that relationship when we fail to show up for them, or when we try to control them by withholding love.

We hardly notice in the moment when the big six are corrupted, and we trust that someone is watching. Surely someone is discerning whether these things are corrupted. Someone must be monitoring the air, the water, and the food. Surely someone isn’t letting the people we trust cut corners on ensuring information is truthful…right?

This is why societies build institutions around these streams. We create food safety systems, water utilities, environmental regulation, journalism, public health systems, and community norms because these inputs matter so deeply. These institutions exist to guard the flows that shape human life. But institutions cannot function on rules alone. They depend on people who are capable of noticing when something is wrong—people who can interpret signals, weigh trade-offs, and decide when the system is being bent or quietly corrupted.

And this reveals something about preventing corruption: we must be willing and able to discern.

This is not just a matter of transparency. Transparency is a precondition, but what difference does transparency make if we cannot make meaning of it? We have to be able to evaluate whether the inputs that shape individuals and society are corrupted or not.

Sometimes this discernment happens individually, and sometimes it must be collective. Any time we read a food label or look at an air quality report, we are discerning at the individual level.

But we also discern at the community level. Communities deliberate on questions like: Do we want this? and How will it affect us? Communities themselves are a kind of living organism. Just as our bodies must determine whether what flows into them is nourishing or harmful, communities must do the same.

To prevent corruption we don’t just need laws, and we don’t just need transparency—we need discernment.

It’s a way to benefit from work I have not earned. And it’s tempting. It’s comfortable to let things ride for as long as I can, avoiding the difficult work of creativity, leadership, growth, and delivering the next valuable thing. It’s also a way to avoid the emotional toll of rejection, failure, or obscurity.

It’s even easier to ride our own coattails — to relive glory days, to navel-gaze at past successes and think, wow, look at how much I’ve grown.

When I do this, I let myself off the hook from looking ahead and continuing to grow, serve, and innovate. Surely I don’t have to create more for others or give more of myself. Surely I don’t need to treat others better — look at how much I’ve already given.

However tempting, riding our own coattails may be even more corrupt than riding those of others. We’re not only benefiting from something we haven’t earned; we’re lying to ourselves about it.

I’ve struggled with this lately. I’ve been trapped in reflection about the past decade of my life. I’ve grown, contributed, and sacrificed so much since my father died ten years ago.

But you can’t profit off the same album forever.

I still yell at my kids. I still do little about the needs of the poorest in my community. I still miss deadlines. I still try to replace faith with control. My cholesterol still hovers at the edge of elevated. I am still crabby with Robyn more often than she deserves.

The point is: I’m still unfinished.

I don’t have to be a perfectionist. But I also can’t justify staying as I am forever by pointing to how far I’ve come.

I’ve been in awe of my own growth — and rightly so. It truly has been a decade of transformation for our family.

But growth becomes corruption the moment it becomes an excuse. It’s time to move on.

The break is over.

I won’t ride my own coattails forever.

Our sons follow the same pattern as their father — which is also the pattern of paupers, billionaires, gangsters, and warring neighbors. How conflict escalates is predictable.

And the beef always starts with words.

With our sons, it starts with teasing. Then harsher teasing. Then a shove or a hip check. Then a hockey stick to the back — sometimes literally. And then it ends with tears, an ice pack, and resentment that must be slowed down and resolved.

It is the same pattern with many homicides. It starts with disrespect at a party. One thing leads to another. And eventually, someone is dead.

And perhaps the same with nations. It starts with jabs in the press. Then it escalates.

This is the pattern, so much of the time.

So of course, what the Holy Father shared makes sense: if we want a more peaceful and loving world, we begin by abstaining from harsh and hurtful language. And for those of us who are brothers and sisters in faith, we can make space for grace by fasting from that endlessly hungry gremlin — the words from which all beefs begin.

This is indeed a very practical form of abstinence — whether we approach it secularly, as members of an interfaith community who care about peace in a pluralistic society, or specifically as Christians seeking repentance and renewal during Lent.

No matter our posture, it makes sense to abstain from the thing that starts a wildfire.

—

And I need this fast myself, in a very guttural and deep way. To contemplate this as a fast is precisely the point. Because part of me needs to starve.

There is a part of me that is angry — frustrated by what I cannot control. It is the part that is deeply wounded and inflamed by small irritants. It is the part that is addicted to aggression and conflict, because the anger distracts me from the worries and doubts I would rather avoid. This all-consuming part of me is often unseen, but heard by my children when I am having a bad day.

I need to starve it of harsh words.

Because harsh words are what give an angry, fearful, selfish appendage its nourishment and oxygen. It feeds on vindictive and cutting language and asks for more the more it burns.

Harsh words and the anger that spurs them are not something I merely need to moderate. These are not like a bottle of wine, to be enjoyed over two or three days. These are things I need to abstain from — so that the appendage shrinks, withers, and perhaps one day fades.

I do not know if I can do this. My inner monologue feels rigid, and harsh words are deeply reinforced in our culture. It even feels expected that national leaders swear casually and publicly. Harsh words are one of the only forms of catharsis I know that are not drinking or some other youthful foolishness. And if I’m being honest, I’ve dropped a screaming “damn it!” In front of my sons twice since I started drafted this post over nothing - once over crispy crown potatoes, and once over a snow brush. I really do not know if I can do this.

And if I can? Who will I be if this appendage shrinks? I may not know myself from a stranger without this angry appendage that has been attached to me since coming of age?

Will I be delicate? Weak? Exploited? Bored? I do not know what this fast might make me into. If the appendage withers, will anything be left?

We never really know. This is how transformation works.

First, we suffer and sacrifice — through fasting, grieving, contemplation, exercise, or simply listening more deeply. This makes space for grace and other mysterious psychological forces to do their work.

Then we wait, not knowing who we will become on the other side.

That is the point.

All transformation requires an act of faith. Whether we understand it mystically or secularly, we cannot have renewal without trust in what lies beyond our sacrifices.

If we want a changed self — or a changed world — we must believe there is something worth becoming on the other side.

For several years, I tried to facilitate their peacemaking in two ways: by prompting the “right” discussion, or by imposing my less-favored answer to the problem—nobody watches TV if you can’t agree.

Stepping in strongly was necessary for a time. They needed guidance on how to resolve conflict; they weren’t born with those skills. But if I kept playing broker of peace, I knew their relationship would stay fragile—dependent on my presence, my rulings, my leverage.

Now I’m better served—and so are they—if I play a different role: brakeman, not intermediary.

I can slow things down. I don’t have to direct the entire outcome. I don’t have to do all the talking. They already have some skills, because we’ve practiced.

My job now is to be the person who says, “Whoa. Let’s slow down.”

Just this weekend, a Valentine’s Day trade went badly. And for the first time, by accident really, I slowed it down instead of negotiating a truce. Over a few hours, with some help, they worked it out themselves.

This was growth all around, for them and for me

The real insight is simple: they can do more on their own, and they should—but first, someone has to slow the moment down long enough for thinking to happen. They can resolve much more independently if hearts aren’t already racing and there aren’t already tears and screaming.

Slow it down. Be the brakeman. That’s my new job. If I do that, everything else becomes easier for them, and they can keep practicing conflict resolution—with less and less supervision from me over time.

Eventually, they’ll be able to pump their own brakes. And then I can coach a more advanced skill: self-reflection, repair, and the ability to turn hard moments into opportunities to deepen trust.

This feels like the pattern of any good coach. You start with fundamentals. You teach them to mastery. Then you coach the same fundamentals one level deeper. The temptation is to get stagnant—to keep teaching yesterday’s lesson after your kids have already moved on.

But we can’t.

As they grow, we have to deepen our own mastery so we can deepen theirs. If we stop learning, they will too.

Imagine that we had the capacity for first contact—say, through faster-than-light travel. Our interstellar flagship passes near a distant world. The first question its crew would ask is simple: Do we want to stop?

If they had the luxury of choice, they would likely evaluate that civilization along two dimensions.

First: What is their intent? Do they seek cooperation and mutual enrichment, or exploitation and dominance?

Second: What is their capability? Do they actually possess the power to carry out their intentions—peaceful or otherwise?

A civilization that is hostile and capable would be dangerous. One that is peaceful but utterly incapable might not be worth engaging. Intent and capability, together, would shape our decision.

Of course, determining either would be extraordinarily difficult. Learning to assess an alien civilization might take centuries. But these questions are not merely hypothetical.

We may create an artificially intelligent, Earth-based species in our lifetimes. But long before AI takes on physical form, we will face the same dilemma: What are its intentions? And how powerfully can it impose its will?

Yet before worrying about how we evaluate others, a more uncomfortable question presents itself.

What about us?

If an extraterrestrial civilization were passing through our solar system, how would they assess humanity’s intent and capability? Given the choice, would they stop—or continue on their way?

When I look in the mirror, and consider the history of our species up to the present, here is what I see.

I see a civilization whose intent has long been fearful and exploitative, yet has slowly, unevenly, inched toward governing itself more justly. Our past includes conquest, slavery, genocide, and monopolistic corporations. Empires swallowed continents. Entire peoples were systematically pillaged or murdered. Private power frequently corrupted public life. It is arguable that all these are still part of our reality.

And yet, over centuries, something has shifted.

Large-scale territorial conquest has become less acceptable, even when it still occurs. International institutions intervene—imperfectly, but meaningfully. Economic power remains unequal, but counterweights exist: unions, industry associations, regulatory regimes, and cultural movements that attempt to restrain abuse.

History does not move in a straight line. Exploitation resurfaces in new forms. But over long periods, the trajectory seems to bend—slowly—toward cooperative enrichment rather than exploitation. Two steps forward, one step back.

That progress matters. It suggests that, in the long run, our species has shown some capacity for moral learning. We inherit exploitative systems, but we also attempt—however inconsistently—to reform them rather than let them expand.

Our capability, however, tells a different story.

We have not harnessed the energy of our own planet, let alone our sun. We cannot survive beyond Earth without elaborate life support. We are actively degrading the habitability of the only home we have. We do not fully understand our ecosystems, our biology, or even our own minds.

Technological power has grown faster than wisdom. We build tools whose consequences we cannot fully contain. From nuclear weapons to climate systems to algorithmic platforms, our inventions routinely outrun our ability to govern them.

We are both feeble and reckless.

If I were the captain of a spacefaring vessel, I might conclude that, whatever our intentions, humanity remains a relatively immature civilization—morally improving, yet operationally juvenile. I would probably keep moving. Why risk engagement with a species still learning how to manage itself?

And yet, I wonder what we might still offer.

Perhaps our stories would matter. Homer and Shakespeare, Whitman and Rowling, express something enduring about love, fear, identity, and loss. Even an advanced civilization might find in human literature a unique window into our shared experience of consciousness.

Perhaps our experience with diversity would be instructive. Earth’s extraordinary ecological and cultural variation has forced us—imperfectly—to negotiate difference. Managing pluralism is central to our history. It may not be universal across intelligent life.

Perhaps even our physical fragility is meaningful. We are short-lived creatures, acutely aware of mortality. “Life is short” is not a cliché for us; it is a through line of how we navigate reality. For a species that lives centuries, or never dies, our relationship to time and death might offer unexpected insight.

It is possible that artificial intelligence will become our first true encounter with another form of intelligence. It is also possible that, centuries from now, we will meet non-Terran life. In either case, the same questions will apply.

What are our intentions? And are we capable of living up to them?

These questions offer a kind of civilizational north star. If we can cultivate a shared commitment to enrichment rather than exploitation—and if we can build institutions and technologies capable of sustaining that commitment—we will not only prepare ourselves for first contact.

We will make life better, here and now, for the people who already call our sacred, fragile, beautiful planet home.

It was too risky to drive four hours in the frigid cold only to arrive after midnight.

So I drove home, left my luggage in the car, slept until four, made a cup of tea, and was out the door by 4:25.

Everyone was eating breakfast when I arrived at the cottage, weary. I saw Robyn first, and as I fused into her shoulder it felt as if my soul was remembering her, rising with lightness upward from the soles of my feet.

I have felt this love of pure lightness before.

But then, I kneeled to greet my three oldest sons who were playing on the family room floor. And they hugged me with a type of love I’ve never experienced.

They vaulted onto me. Their love was urgent and rough. It was unbridled, given with no limitation. It was cut roughshod, reckless even.

This love they showed me, with all four of us tumbling over the carpet and squeezing our arms around each other, matched the pent up energy of a banshee. This love was not gentle. This love was like a waterfall that could not be dammed. It was like lightning. It was radical and unrelenting.

I have never experienced love like this, where none of us were holding anything back.

As I look back on this, I find great comfort and wisdom in the existence of this radical and unrelenting love. It teaches that love need not be patient and kind. It affirms that love can be this unrestrained.

You see this sometimes at the international arrivals lobby at airports. Families wait for their loved one to emerge from behind a closed door, maybe a soldier returning from a deployment, and they weep in each others arms without any regard for who is watching. They just pour everything they have, all at once.

Shouldn’t we love others like that? Our closest ones of course, but also everyone, especially the least of us? Shouldn’t we show love as if unchained, with a total disregard for self-editing? Isn’t it the pinnacle of love to be so unconditional that it’s relentless?

Love can be a form of lightness, lifting our souls from the earth. But it can come in the form of something radical and unrelenting. To experience both is to experience something perfect.

“Do any girls like me like me?”

“Am I getting good grades?”

“How much can I bench press?”

“Did I get into Harvard?”

“Am I making the news?”

“How many books have I sold?”

“Do we have a vacation home?”

“Does my family love me?”

“How many people will show up to my funeral?”

Looking back, none of these were great measures. Though I’m glad to have at least become slightly less arrogant and vain over time. Measuring something as singular and precious as a life is elusive.

—

The past decade of my life was bookended by funerals of good men who were fathers. The first was for my own father. The second was for Clarence, who I met because we both became Catholics together as adults.

For Clarence, I just wanted to go. I didn’t know him for even two years, but I still felt drawn to be at his funeral. I was puzzled by this. Why do I want to be at the funeral of someone with whom I spent so little time?

I knew him long enough, I thought, to know he was a good man.

And it was the same for my father. People showed up because they knew he was a good man—or they knew me and my mom well enough to discern that he was, too.

I have come to think that it is foolish to evaluate a life. Who even has the information to fairly and comprehensively judge themselves? I’ll never know anywhere close to the full effects of my choices, or even the full honesty of my intent. If I can’t even judge my own life, how could I begin to judge anyone else?

Judgment—not of the law, but of a life—isn’t a role for a human being. It is the role of God, or nobody at all. Nothing but an omniscient being even has the richness of perspective to judge a life.

So how do we even try to “measure” our lives? It is a fool’s errand.

But if we were to try, the best measure I can come up with is not how many people show up at my funeral—but why.

Do they show up out of obligation? Or do they show up because they felt loved, listened to, respected—because their soul felt some morsel of peace and joy when I was with them?

—

There are many aspects of our lives my father would be happy to see: that Robyn and I have a strong marriage, and that we love his grandsons most of all.

But also, I think he would feel relief that a lesson he never spoke of—but was always teaching—finally sunk in:

Take care of your duties. Do right by others and by God. That is how to live.

For many years I measured my life in terms of lesser things.

It’s not all the vanities of my youth that mattered. It is this.

And further, the lesson—the real enlightenment—is to realize that we ought not even to measure. We ought to do our duties, take care of others, and do right by God not for the fruits we will reap, but for its own sake.

We do the work because we do the work.

This is the timeless wisdom Arjun learns in the Bhagavad Gita—that my father managed to teach me through deeds, not words—and that has finally sunk in, ten years after he went ahead.

How do we measure a life?

If we can pursue our duty—our dharma—without attachment to its fruits, that may be the best measure of all.

Paradoxically, the best measure may be if we can persist on a righteous path without needing to measure at all.

But even joy comes at a price. Because to feel a truly sublime joy, even for a moment, requires two things of us: we must be fully present and fully open—emotionally and perhaps even spiritually. This takes inner work. That work can’t be priced in dollars, but it is surely costly.

Fully Present, Fully Open

Joy is a feeling of the present—and of the body. It’s not something that can be experienced in the mind alone.

To see what I mean, try this: imagine a time you experienced true joy—one of those full tingles of lightness, where your soul felt like it was rising through your body. Does it feel the same as a memory? Try imagining a future moment of joy. Can you? Joy outside its exact moment is hard to replicate, isn’t it?

The closest we can come is when our senses trick our bodies into believing we’re back in that moment. Like when we see an old photo with our family, or smell a spice that reminds us of what our mother made during the holidays. Or maybe it’s a sound or song—like the echo of a marching band—that makes us feel as free and enmeshed as we once did at an alma mater.

These things are like a tuning fork striking a resonant frequency, making everything nearby vibrate. But they’re only echoes. The real thing—real joy—only happens when our attention and our feet are in the same place and time.

But full presence isn’t enough for joy. We must also be fully open—of heart, of spirit. Joy, after all, needs a way in.

I think of it like the aperture of a camera lens, or the pupil of an eye. The pupil expands to let in more light when it’s dark. It happens automatically in the body. For the photographer, it’s a choice. If more light is needed, the aperture must be widened. I believe our hearts are similar. We have to be open enough for the light to enter.

This can be difficult because the border of our inner world is like a two-way tunnel. If we want joy to find its way in, we also have to let darker feelings—sadness, grief, fear, anger—and all their discomfort and ugliness find their way out. We can constrict our hearts to shield ourselves from that pain when darkness leaves, but doing so also seals the tunnel to joy. Openness is not selective; we can’t welcome light without also making space for the dark. We can’t have one without the other.

How do we become fully present and fully open? That’s exactly what makes joy such an elusive feeling. One path requires tremendous inner work—through self-expression, journaling, prayer, meditation, or any other spiritual or contemplative practice.

The alternative to that discipline is suffering. Whether it’s grief, loss, or injustice, suffering forces us to become more present and more open. It changes us, whether we want it to or not, by giving us new eyes. In that sense, suffering is a kind of shortcut to joy—but it comes with its own heavy toll. In reality, most of us walk both paths: the slow transformation of discipline, and discontinuous growth borne of pain.

It Comes at a Terrible Price

It’s a common cliché to say, “you can’t appreciate sunshine without the rain.” And that may be true. It’s cute when it’s written in calligraphy on a craft at a farmers market. But what I’m talking about goes deeper than a resetting of perspective.

Joy is harder than that.

It’s not just a trick of the mind or a lesson to learn. The work we must go through—and the suffering we endure—is not optional. It’s a precondition of joy. We have to let something in us be broken down. Or we have to endure years of reflection, effort, and spiritual labor to even be capable of joy.

But at least we have that as comfort. At least all this suffering and journaling and spiritual struggle might make something beautiful.

Next week marks ten years since my father passed unexpectedly from congestive heart failure. It gives me hope—and some encouragement—that if I had to endure something so painful, so unjust, it at least carved out space for a deeper experience of joy in being a father myself.

I endured nearly ten years of loneliness and desperation before I met Robyn. It gives me hope that if I had to wander for so long, there’s a deeper joy I now experience in marriage.

Joy is really hard. And it comes at a terrible price. Sometimes I need to remind myself of that—that it’s supposed to be hard. I have chosen joy, and it’s supposed to be nearly unbearably difficult.

I’m not in this for pleasure. I’m not in this for a fun life. I don’t care about once-in-a-lifetime experiences that are perfectly photographed and meticulously shared. I don’t care about extravagance or self-care. I’m not here for hedonism, or validation, or the gram, or whatever else. I’m not even here for meaning and impact.

I’m in this for joy. And I have paid a terrible price for it. But I wrote this post, I suppose, to remind myself that even though I have chosen to endure all this, it is for something beautiful.

Joy may be the only perfect thing we can obtain in this imperfect human life. It has come at a terrible price—but it has been, and will be, worth it. Even if, one day, all I have left in this world are the remnants of that joy in whatever remains of me—then still, it will have been worth it.

Joy comes at a terrible price, but it is worth it.

In our family, this isn’t just a saying—it’s a foundational belief. Marriage isn’t one big day. It’s a lifelong choice that shapes your character, your children, your capacity to thrive, and your joy.

That means preparing our kids to answer four questions—really well:

1. Can they be a good spouse?
   Do they act with integrity, love unconditionally, and make real sacrifices when it counts?

2. Can they choose a good partner?
   Do they know how to recognize integrity, unconditional love, and sacrificial character in someone else?

3. Can they build a strong marriage?
   When adversity hits, will they turn toward their partner instead of away—and grow stronger together?

4. Can they support a family?
   Can they generate enough income to meet their needs—and live with humble tastes, rather than chase status or excess?

Our entire education system is built around Question #4—economic self-sufficiency. Ironically, I’d argue it’s the least important trait when it comes to marrying well. So for the most important decision of their lives, our kids are left to learn from us, extended family, or maybe their friends—if they’re lucky.

That means the real curriculum—the one that actually shapes their future—is what we model and teach at home:

Things like integrity, love, and sacrifice. Like courage. Also self-awareness, discernment, communication, understanding, and leadership.

And yes—literacy. Because reading is how they’ll keep teaching themselves long after we’re done.

We do our kids a disservice in America because we act like holding down a job is the most important thing a person should be prepared to do. It’s not.

Believing that sells life short—and discounts the value of love, meaning, and human connection.

What we emphasize in America misses the point and leaves our kids unprepared to make the most important decision of their lives well.

This is what I learned. I hope that if you reflect on the year, you find some good learnings of your own.

—Neil

The healthcare system is desolate. The level of advocacy one needs to exert is unimaginable. So many doctors, bureaucrats, and complexities. It’s unbelievably difficult to piece together all the fragmented providers, payers, and incentives. If you don’t know someone—either to get you in somewhere or to help make sense of it—you’re at the mercy of a ruthless system. It’s not fair.

Kids are a paradox, not linear. On the one hand, they’re capable of tremendous growth and ability. On the other, they’re not ready to be adults. Calibrating exactly where they are—and how hard to push versus coach—is the most difficult aspect of parenting for me. This takes daily, perhaps even hourly, recalibration around where they are. I thought growth for children was linear and spiky. Somehow, it’s both.

I am not that patient. This was especially humbling—and a frequent realization—because I had a short fuse for an entire year. There was just too much in our orbit creating tension. I’m less patient than I thought. But at least I now understand that I’m relatively much more patient when I’m not rushing. The keystone behavior, for me at least, is pumping the brakes. If I’m slowing down, I at least have a fighting chance at patience.

A full life is chaotic. If I’m waiting for life to slow down, or for political administrations to change, or to just make it to the next break—it’s never going to happen. Not for any of us. The only way to have less chaos would be to unwind attachments to other people—whether it’s my wife, family, friends, kids, neighbors, colleagues, causes, ideas, or communities. I don’t really want that. Being part of this world means enmeshing yourself with others, and enmeshing yourself with others means subjecting yourself to chaos. We can’t make it stop, but we can draw a line for what we accept and what we don’t—what we’ll roll with and what we won’t.

I can’t do this without God in my corner. I’ve lived straddling domains of faith my whole life. I still have an unusual religious history and life. Spiritual exploration or religion isn’t for everyone—nor does it have to be. I tried for decades to keep spiritual growth at arm’s length. I just can’t anymore, nor do I want to.

And perhaps most importantly…

There are good people literally everywhere. This whole year, angels kept showing up. There are plenty of people who play their part in the game and facade of power, status, money, and dominance. There are plenty who treat their lives as a performance. Sure. But there are so many people who just live their lives, do their thing quietly, and try to do right by their neighbor. We don’t have to be part of the show if we don’t want to.

At work, we compare the software fixes we actually delivered versus the ideal. I compare myself to more professionally successful friends. I compare my tantrumming toddler to a calmer child—or even to a calmer version of himself. I may compare one colleague to a so-called “higher performer,” whatever that means.

A common kind of comparison many of us make—one that still steals from us—is comparing ourselves to someone less fortunate. “Appreciate the dinner you have; there are kids all over the world who are starving,” we might say to our picky-eating kids. But even this steals something—maybe our humanity—because to make the comparison, we must place ourselves above someone else.

All these comparisons steal joy.

But just as comparison is the thief of joy, it’s also the propellant of progress. To improve, comparison can be a useful tool and powerful motivator. We make change when we measure where we are against where we want to be or a competitor. Companies do this with financial statements. Patients do it with weight and body fat percentage. Our whole society is engineered to compare—and that leads to progress.

So we are in a bind, because two things at odds are true: comparison is the thief of joy, and also the propellant of progress.

Even if would rather it be otherwise, my brain is rigorously trained—yours may be too—to compare. I need a replacement behavior when I catch myself comparing. I can’t just “not compare.” I need to do something else instead.

It seems to me that the replacement behavior to train myself in is simply observing. Paying attention to what’s here, soaking it in, being present, meditating, noticing. These are all flavors of the same root behavior: observation.

We’re forced to compare our youngest son’s height and weight because he has been underweight his entire first year of life. I’m constantly fighting the urge to compare his milestones—crawling, sitting, teething—to children without Down syndrome. With him, the thief of joy is always near.

But so is the opportunity to observe and find joy. Griffin has a spark in his smile I can’t explain. He pulls me into observing him—soaking in the gift of who he is every time I see him. He is truly magnetic. And even though it’s so easy to slip into comparison with him, the joy he brings to my heart feels limitless. Because when I’m with him, I am fully there. Fully appreciating. Fully observing.

To me, this act—of observing long enough to outlast the temptation of comparison—feels like an act of defiance. That joy with Griffin feels like the most hard earned of all the joy we have in our lives. It is as much an act of desperation as it is an act of triumph.

I raise him skyward when I need to get back to the moment I am in. When I lift him above my head—he starts to lift his legs, and he smiles and giggles. And then I smile. And then I remember: he’s here. There is something to celebrate exactly in what he is. There is something unique and special in this lad. I don’t have to travel in my mind to an alternate time or an alternate universe where Griffin’s life wouldn’t be as hard as I know it’s going to be.

There is joy. Right here. Right now.

The way out of this bind is in the order of operations. We may not be able to function without comparison, but we can choose when we do it. The key is to start with observation. We can begin by soaking in what we have—by noticing assets and having gratitude. Then, after we’ve practiced observation, sure—we can compare.

So before I compare my kid to their calmer friend, I can observe their humor and sense of wonder. Before I compare my job to an easier one I could have, I can observe the chance I have to make a difference alongside amazing colleagues. I can observe the joy that’s already here—before I compare my life to what it could have been.

Comparison may be the thief of joy. But we can experience joy before we even open the door to that conniving thief.

My colleague reminded us that comparison is the thief of joy earlier this week because we had a software release. And at first, it ate at me. Because deep down, I have known this for a long time, but have been helpless to stop it. I know comparison steals my joy—and I’ve known it since I was a kid, when adults would compare me to other kids and the comparison would burn my childhood innocence.

But now, after reflecting more, I feel agency. And we should feel agency, rather than seeing comparison as an inevitability. Because even if we fall into the trap of comparison, we don’t have to start with it.

This is perhaps the most basic of our dreams as human beings. It is so fundamental, it may also be an aspiration of many living creatures: that there are others you love, who love you back.

This is a dream, so simple, so elemental as to be forgettable. And yet, it moves us to tears when we realize it has become real. This is something I weep about weekly: the simplest, most universal dream in our world.

But there are more.

Another is freedom — to gather, to worship, to speak, to speak out.

Yet another is movement — to be healthy enough to walk around and go here and there.

There is the simple dream to grow — to learn, to read, to unlock the potential within us.

There is the dream to create — to make something, whether art, an idea, an invention, or a family — something good we can give or leave behind for others after we’re gone.

And finally, we dream of peace — to be whole, content, and in right relation with others, the natural world, and perhaps with God.

To love and be loved, to be free, to grow, to create, to have peace — these are the simplest of dreams. Nothing fancy, nothing complex — but still beautiful.

It does not surprise me that these are the things older people, who have had ample time to experience both joy and suffering, advise us to pursue. These are the dreams we all share, the ones that bind us, when life washes away lesser desires.

I think we miss the plot sometimes. I certainly do. We forget that what we value most is simple.

Instead, we so easily get wrapped up in the pursuit of complicated products, laws, policies, systems, and programs. We get obsessed with the minutiae of the world and forget how it ladders up to our simple, more grounded desires. AI is a convenient example of this. The world has gone mad with AI, seemingly for its own sake, rather than as a means to some more purposeful end.

To be sure, AI and other powerful ideas — like nuclear power, bioengineering, economic growth, and perhaps the idea of America itself — are important. But how often do those things get remembered in the context of love, daily freedoms, creativity, flourishing, or peace? We often lose the plot, distracted by the mystery, power, and shine. We squabble and lust over the most abstract of things and lose sight of the simple dreams we’re all after.

Whether in politics, business, civic life, family life, or communities of faith — we don’t have to chase and optimize that which is minute. We don’t need to get wrapped up in layer upon layer of abstraction within economy, technology, theology, or any other word that ends in “-y” or “-ism.”

This is what I love about the holidays, and especially Thanksgiving: we’re reminded of the simple things that matter most, the ones we so easily lose sight of. Even as we grow the economy, build better governments, and chase bold innovation, we mustn’t lose sight of the simple reasons why we do it all.

To love and be loved, to be free, to grow and flourish, to create, to have peace. These are the simplest, most beautiful, of dreams.

We can’t let these dreams be lost, and become afterthoughts of progress. All our striving, all our squabbling — it’s for these dreams.

I have never asked for mercy once in my life—until today. Not from a person, and not in prayer. Not once. A surprisingly vivid memory from high school is a microcosm of why.

I was hanging out with a bunch of other guys from school in my friend’s basement—for our weekly post-school afternoon of the Nerf Combat League. (Yes, it was a real thing, and yes, it was awesome.) I can’t remember why, but I ended up wrestling someone. Which is surprising, even now, because I haven’t wrestled anyone before or since.

Obviously, I was pinned quickly. The guy wrestling me, Mike, kept saying, “Tap out, tap out!” And I didn’t—not until my trachea started to tighten and saliva dripped from my mouth.

Mike said something like, “You didn’t tap out. Respect.”

That’s what it’s like for a teenage boy—you take pride in not asking for mercy. Mercy is just not a currency you exchange in. It’s not that anyone is anti-mercy; it’s that the concept of mercy may as well not exist. If anything, you’re supposed to be the one powerful enough to grant mercy to someone else. And some even sadistically relish being the one who inflicts suffering, itching for the payoff of someone begging for a reprieve.

As awful as a world would be where no one shows mercy, I think it would be even colder—more dystopian—if no one even asked for it. Looking back, the fact that I can’t recall ever asking for mercy—in any situation—feels deeply warped.

—

Those who are truly holy and noble, I believe, are the ones who show mercy even when it’s not asked for.

Reflecting on this today, I realize I’ve certainly been the beneficiary of mercy I didn’t ask for. Because during this past year—the longest and hardest of our lives—angels have shown up. Constantly.

There have been friends who offered warmth. Family who bailed us out of binds. Colleagues whose dad jokes doubled me over with laughter. Neighbors who looked in on us. Other parents at the school or on our soccer team who have our back—and let us have theirs.

Mentors who guided me through a formation of faith and immense professional challenge. Even strangers in public who found ways to encourage me when I was solo with the kids at the grocery store. And perhaps most of all, there’s Griffin’s magnetic, earnest smile—a joy so pure, it feels divinely gifted.

These are two of the most important lessons of the year, and both are about mercy.

• First: to ask for it. Such a simple lesson, yet so enigmatic.

• And second: that there is mercy all around us that we never asked for.

To be that kind of person—an agent of mercy, whether sourced from God, from our soul, or from wherever you believe mercy comes—who offers it unasked…That, I believe, is the high watermark of holiness we can reach as mere mortals.

I will never beat the algorithm.

Practically none of us who create will — whether we’re writers, musicians, artists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, acrobats, comedians, dancers, or anything else. I’m tired of trying.

I will never be more efficient than generative AI. I will never be able to buy enough digital ads to break through, nor will I ever be chosen by a publisher who vaults me to relevance. I will never be able to bullshit and write something I don’t believe just because I know people want to hear it.

Some say AI will ruin art and bankrupt creators. I’m actually excited for the effect AI will have on art and artists.

For us human beings, there’s only one play left in the playbook: be ourselves — our plain old original selves.

We can’t beat the computer on any other front. No one else, and no machine, can be us. The game is over, and it seems like the one remaining edge we have is to stop playing the game - of catering to the zeitgeist or waxing sensational - and be original.

What little leeway we had to optimize our way into an audience will vanish as AI-generated expression floods every medium and every distribution channel — cheaper and faster than any human artist.

But I think that’s liberating.

Why bother chameleoning who we are as artists if we can’t win doing that anyway? It’s better to just do our thing and create for the audience that values our thumbprint and voice.

I can only speak for myself — an amateur but extremely serious artist on the margins — but I’ve felt a kind of permission I’ve never felt before: to just let it rip. No more anxiety, self-editing, and asking my ChatGPT editor to reassure me of my chops as a writer. The new playbook is to listen deeply inward and just write.

So why not? I’ll never beat AI at its game — being more efficient, more personalized, and telling people what they want to hear — so why play? My guess is that anyone who sees themselves as an artist, rather than an entertainer, feels this at some level. If this is what the marginal artist feels, I think that’s great.

If those of us — like me — who feel the pressure to chase clicks just throw in the towel on beating AI, it might lead to the greatest wave of original work the world has seen in generations.

If AI has left us no choice but to be original, damn am I excited.

In these moments? Lord help me. But what if my sons only scream because they have to?

Maybe it’s not them being young and emotionally immature. Maybe it’s because everywhere they ever are—even in the quietest rooms—there is always screaming.

The world has been full of loud machines for decades, but now they scream.

Machines that beg for you to use them, even when you don’t want to. Phones are the obvious one. The notifications aren’t just little red dots; they are screams for attention—trying to get you to interact with apps, or spam calls, or scrolling advertisements.

But it’s not just the phone anymore. Anything that is “smart” is clever enough to speak up and scream back at me—the lights, my tagged keys, even the air purifier screams for its filter to be replaced.

Even in the quietest of rooms, there is always screaming.

With the volume already up, businesses are screaming louder for attention so that we buy or sell or borrow or lend. Charities scream at us to donate and patronize. Politicians scream in their own ads, but also in the newscasts and posts that we watch freely. Even some faith leaders amp up what should be an inherently peaceful message—by screaming it instead of preaching it.

Even in my own head, there are screams that nobody else hears, but my children and wife see me suffering from them. The screams of the to-do list. The sink full of dishes. My job that’s never satisfied. My hungry stomach craving breakfast that I can only eat standing, as I make my big sons’ cheese sandwiches for their lunchboxes.

Do you ever hear the screams, too?

There is the screaming of the pages my heart desperately needs to write. Or my soul that yearns to hear the crunch of leaves and the songs of the trees at the park—anything to noise-cancel the screaming. There is the shower I need to take, my skin craving the feel of bar soap, warm water, and a shave.

Even in the quietest of rooms, there is always screaming.

And so of course our kids scream. To be heard, they have no other choice. The latent volume level of the world around us—with every object, person, and organization jockeying for attention—is screaming.

Maybe it’s not them that need to be quiet, but the screaming surrounding them that does.

Perhaps the most important new skill we need as parents in the early 21st century is the skill of turning the volume down—tuning the sound of all the screaming noise from a 10 to a 1.

The way we get our kids to stop screaming is by creating the equivalent of a library in a space we share with them. A place quiet enough—figuratively speaking—where they don’t have to scream. Where there is no competition for their voice. Where my ears, heart, mind, and soul can even hear when they whisper.

This is why prayer, meditation, journaling, simple walks in the woods, and other contemplative practices are so important. These are the ways we learn how to turn down the volume.

Yes, it is true—at least in the world we live in today—even in the quietest of rooms, there is always screaming.

But there are ways to turn down the volume.

And we owe it to those we love and who love us—especially our kids—to turn down the volume. So, with us at least, they don’t feel like their only option is to join in on the screaming.

Even if the world around us keeps screaming, we don’t have to let it stay loud. We can turn it down—until we can finally hear our children whisper.

And this tension—between feeling like we’re making it but still feeling stretched—also exists with our time.

We show up for our kids and help out our family, friends, and neighbors as much as we can. But we also always feel like we’re drowning—the laundry, dishes, and daily grind are never stable. Despite the fact that we’d admit we’re doing our best and doing a decent job, it never feels like enough.

And despite all this, I still feel so much selfish guilt.

I don’t serve anyone in need whom I don’t already know, in any meaningful way, though my faith and my own moral sensibility demand it. I have let down friends—all the time, lately—it takes me months to call someone back or set up lunch, catch up over drinks, or deliver a meal to help out friends who are new parents.

We are part of the squeezed middle—we’re not living month to month with our money or time—but we don’t have enough time or money to easily trade one for the other. We’re squeezed.

And I don’t mean this as a “middle class” issue, per se, because there are plenty of families wealthier and poorer than ours, both in time and money, who feel squeezed. From investment bankers to blue-collar workers, I know families across the spectrum who feel this same pressure.

The squeezed are a surprisingly large cohort who feel stuck because they can’t trade time for money or money for time.

Leaving a Penny

I think the only way out of this is to help each other—even when it feels like no more than a penny’s worth. Little things matter. I’ve seen it in my own life.

There are a few families on our soccer team that carpool to practice. Freeing up one night per family, per week makes a difference. When other families at our school keep an eye out for our kids and we keep an eye out for theirs, it makes a difference. When someone comes with their pickup truck to help move some furniture, it makes a difference.

All these little things are like those old cups at grocery stores that said, “Have a penny, leave a penny. Need a penny, take a penny.” Little things that show up where you’re squeezed matter a great deal.

And something that feels small to us—like just giving a penny—can feel like receiving a gold coin to someone else.

For example, me shoveling my older neighbors’ snow barely registers as 20 minutes of extra work for me, but it’s unbelievably helpful to them so they aren’t beholden to unreliable help when they need their driveway clear to go to a doctor’s appointment.

Similarly, it felt very small to her when a good friend and neighbor came over to watch our kids for 20 minutes when Griffin was born and Robyn was conveyed by ambulance from the living room to the hospital—but to us, it was worth more than a bag of gold.

When we leave and take pennies, it relieves the squeeze. These little pennies are hardly worth just one cent—they’re often worth their weight in gold. “One cent” can feel like salvation when you’re being crushed.

I feel squeezed every single day of my life.

If I could afford to throw more money at problems, I would. But most of my problems wouldn’t get that much better with more money—grocery delivery doesn’t save me a trip because it’s never right, and I’d never be willing to outsource going to my sons’ soccer games, even if we could afford it.

And I’m unwilling to detach either. I’d rather live with the guilt of not meeting my commitments to my friends and people in need, rather than pretending like it doesn’t matter. Because it does. I don’t want to be less squeezed just for me, I want to also be there to stick up for those who have no penny to give.

I don’t think changing laws can help us, in the immediate anyway. I don’t think AI will save us either. The financial windfall that will allow me to gain hours of my time back is never going to come. And I’m tired of waiting for a hero to save me. We are the only heroes we’ll ever get.

The only way this works is if we help each other.

It’s good enough for it to be in small ways. These small acts of support are the only real alchemy I’ve ever seen work. Because when we leave a penny, it’s not one cent we’re leaving—we’re leaving something for someone else that’s worth its weight in gold.

So if you’re feeling squeezed, we need to stick together. Remember this mantra: take a penny, leave a penny. We are all we’ve got, and we are enough to get through this.

Seeing the story through their reactions has made me see some timeless lesson in new ways. These are the best ones.

The story is powerful because we are part of it. We are dropped into the story as if we are joined to Harry somehow. It’s immersive and builds unquenchable intrigue. We feel like we’re there and desperately want it to be real.

For example - our oldest thinks maybe, just maybe, he will get a letter by owl inviting him to be a first year at Hogwarts. We learn how the events unfold as Harry does. Harry, Ron, and Hermione feel like they actually are our friends and we are part of Gryffindor house. Would the story inspire and resonate across generations if it was told at us, rather than feel like it was happening to us? No! I think this is why Star Wars also feels so timeless (and makes for a great theme park) we feel like part of it.

This is a lesson for any team we are trying to inspire - we have to make them feel like they’re part of it, and they have to also want it to be real.

There are great wizards from every house, and heroes in unlikely places. Sure, since Harry is the narrator, of course we’re going to hate Slytherin when we read it as children. But, we keep telling our sons - Gryffindor is not the only good house. If they are sorted into a house, with an online quiz or figuratively in life, they key is picking the environment that gets the greatness out of them, not just doing what they perceive is the only “good” answer.

Similarly, as readers we believe that Snape is awful and Neville is nice, but a sissy when we first meet them. Great strength and courage and kindness is often hidden, or, it takes the right circumstances for it to show itself. There are more heroes than just Harry, and there are more great houses than only Gryffindor.

There is no one right path. This is a lesson I need to be reminded about my own life and career - especially when I succumb and o comparing myself to my very esteemed colleagues and classmates.

And finally, I had forgotten and certainly didn’t realize the wisdom in Dumbledore’s speech at the end of term feast when I first picked up the book. Yes, it’s so true that it takes great bravery to stand up to our enemies but also, it takes great bravery to stand up to our friends. What a relevant lesson today, in the culture we live in, just as relevant as it was when The Sorcerer’s Stone was first released. How different might our world be if we stood up to our friends when their decisions were not in the right?

What a wonderful gift bringing the tales of Harry Potter back into our lives has been.

First, there’s power asymmetry by design. That means we should expect to be treated badly or exploited - because when one person is more powerful than another, this is what happens.

Second, that we are loved conditionally is expected. We are rewarded and praised if we achieve the result others want. And if not, we are ostracized or removed.

At work, these are normal things.

If we subject ourselves to power asymmetry and conditional love, shouldn’t we expect to dread it?

Unless our work situation is wildly different from the norm, it’d be crazy not to dread it.

Jay — let’s call him that — has been a source of hope ever since, because when people surprise you, it shows that not everyone you’ve been taught to distrust truly deserves it.

He was on probation for a violent crime and only a few years younger than me. He was also a gunshot victim, attached to a catheter and urine bag because of his injuries. The cane he walked with was leaning against the table next to him.

I spent 20 or 30 minutes breaking bread with Jay nearly 10 years ago at a community event I attended while working as a civilian at the Detroit Police Department.

The first surprise was that he was even open to chatting when I sat down for dinner next to him. He was also so vibrant — hopeful, even. He said he had a child and wanted to find a way to provide for them, no matter what it took.

He had an unforgettable warmth and smile for anyone, let alone someone who had been through so much. Years later, I am still surprised by who he was, compared to who I expected him to be.

Whether we believe strangers are good people or bad people is of great consequence.

This is one of the most deeply embedded beliefs that poisons our culture in America, I think. We collectively believe everyone else — those not like us — must be bad, not to be trusted.

And what happens when we can’t trust those other people? We need weapons and protection from them. We need to lock them up. We need to build walls and ensure those evil people stay away.

And it’s easier to justify treating them with cruelty or exploitation — because hell, they’re bad people anyway.

In my life and travels, I’ve heard enough strangers’ stories to believe the opposite. In addition to Jay, there’s Gerry, whom I met at a bookstore — he moved to Detroit to pursue a dream of reducing shootings, and I still keep in touch with him. Everyone has something about them that is extraordinary, if we’re willing to listen.

I hope, at least, that everyone is open to the possibility that the person in front of them may surprise them — open enough to change their mind about someone they’ve been taught is untrustworthy.

Because when we do, maybe we don’t need all those weapons or walls to feel safe from all those people out there we’re so sure are bad. With an openness to surprise, we can actually work out our differences without simply trying to bully them and exert power until they submit.

I don’t think it’s our obligation to trust everyone. But to be trustworthy and work to be trustworthy? I think that’s the greatest gift we can give our great grandchildren — because a more trustworthy and trusting world requires fewer guns, less fighting, and less anger.

We can’t give up on the hope borne of surprise. We can’t give up on the hope that people we fear might turn out to be good.

What a self-absorbed little riddle — as if a glass gives a damn about my optimism.

It’s one of those falsely profound clichés of self-awareness — the kind you toss out after you’ve already asked about the weather.

Because the truth is, the cup isn’t half anything. It’s just not full. All that talk about half full and half empty is just stalling — a way to avoid the work of actually filling it.

If there’s any question worth asking, it’s this: what fills the cup?

There’s the cheap stuff — the elixirs that vanish the second they hit the air: dominance, vanity, hedonism, booze.

Then there’s the good stuff — the richer elixir. Sacrifice. Eye contact. Service. Prayer. Creative expression. Movement. Nature. Reconciliation. These are the grounded things that squeeze juice from the fruits of love, justice, and light.

I often think about that reflection exercise — the one where you imagine yourself on your deathbed. Thinking about who’s there, and what we’d be thinking in that moment, helps clarify what might fill our cups now.

I tell myself this:

Feel the pain and suffering of your last illness. See the faces of your grown sons, your brothers, and your sisters. Feel Robyn squeezing your hand with hers.

In those moments, will waxing poetic about optimism or pessimism be what we want? No. Will we crave one more chance to assert dominance? No.

We’ll be clawing for one more chance at the good stuff. On our deathbeds, we’ll do everything we can to fill our cups a little more — cherishing every drop.

So why, right now, do we pretend those debates are worth having?

No amount of talk will change how much is in the cup or what elixir is in it.

Should we eat well, sleep well, and keep moving? Yes. Write once a week to keep ourselves sane? Sure. Do what we need to do to patch the holes in our own cups? Absolutely.

But damn.

Brother, don’t be fooled by all the people who talk like they’re too busy for their kids, who treat parenting like a chore. Don’t mimic those who drown themselves in work without setting boundaries, then draw an audience to complain about it. Don’t give up, settling for narcissism instead of agency.

Do none of that.

Fill the cup, brother.

No amount of talk will change how much is in the cup or what elixir is in it.

Every moment of every day, fill the cup. That’s what we do.

The other day, he told Robyn that he thinks Mickey Mouse is just someone in a mouse costume. “Mickey isn’t real,” he said, with both pride at figuring it out and a touch of sadness for what it meant. And of course, Santa Claus is the next mythology he’s bound to question.

But aren’t Mickey and Santa real—because the magic they represent is real?

There was awe and wonder in the moment our family stood together watching the Fantasmic show and fireworks over Cinderella’s Castle. Robert, in a full measure of his three-year-old earnestness, looked up at us, his eyes gleaming in the dark, and said:

“I am the magic.”

We all felt it—our kids and us, as full-grown adults. That was magic, and it was real.

There is magic on Christmas morning, as there has been every year of my life, because it’s tradition. And when presents appear under the trees of families struggling to pay their bills—gifts from anonymous strangers—what else can we call it but magic?

Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus aren’t real in the same way George Washington or the Grand Canyon are real. They are symbols. They’ve only ever existed as symbols.

But the magic they create is real. The beliefs and ethos they carry are real. Maybe asking if they are real isn’t even the right question.

The better question is: do we believe?

Do we believe in what they represent?

Do we want to be part of the magic they create?

If so, does it really matter whether they are real or imagined?

And isn’t the same true for so many other things that aren’t tangible? For liberalism or capitalism—philosophies that only exist if people believe in them, yet have unlocked freedom and prosperity for billions? What about the fables and legends we pass down through generations, like our grandparents’ sacrifices in war—or even Star Wars? For God and faith traditions? For virtue and character?

Maybe these things are “real” like a rock is real, maybe not. Maybe as symbols they are real, maybe not.

What matters to me is the magic they create. That, if nothing else, is real.

So when my son asks me if Santa is “real,” I think I’ll tell him: Real is not the point. Real or not, I believe in Santa Claus, in Mickey Mouse, and in all the other beautiful, wonderful, magical things that make life meaningful.

And when I tell him that, I hope he realizes that even if it’s not real, it’s okay to believe in magic. And maybe one day, he’ll share the same thing to his own kid.

They don’t know what else to say.

But there’s no need to be sorry. He’s alive and well, we love him, and we’re glad he’s here.

And yet, I still understand and appreciate it when someone says, “I’m sorry.” Because even if they have never had a child with Down syndrome—or any other kind of condition that leads to developmental delays—they have some intuition that it’s going to be hard.

We all do, because we have lived in this world.

We all intuitively know that the world is not built for people like Griffin. We know it’s hard to always see doctors, and that some people will treat him badly. His life—and ours—won’t follow the “normal,” well-trodden path and that will, at times, be very hard.

The past eight months have already given me a preview of this tension: between who Griffin is and how the world is built.

Griffin is normal—just somewhere else on the wide bell curve of what life looks like. He was conceived and born as any other child. We made no alterations to him—he’s here as God made him.

Yes, he has a diagnosis. But that doesn’t mean he’s broken. He isn’t defective—he’s simply different. Just like kids with cystic fibrosis, dyslexia, deafness, or any other “diagnosis”—these kids were simply born this way. That is normal, even if different.

And this goes beyond medical diagnoses. Some kids are taller or shorter. Some are gay or straight. Some are different levels of athletic, artistic, or scholarly. All kids are different, on a boundless amount of dimensions.

All of these kids—and all of us as adults—fall into the category of “we were born this way” in one dimension or another. Made by God this way, by no choice of our own.

So there are people just born a certain way, and yet, we also intrinsically know that those same people will have to go through inevitable hardship because of how they were born interacts with the world we live in.

But it’s not all struggle. Robyn often reminds me that some things may actually come easier for Griffin—like kindness, joy, and forgiveness. He has this lightness of being I can’t explain, but I see vividly.

Still, some of the hardship just doesn’t seem right—for Griffin or for anyone else who was “born this way.” Especially the hardship rooted in having their needs overlooked or unconsidered.

Those needs show up everywhere—from schools and playgrounds to healthcare, websites, public parks, airports, road signs, and even neighborhood newsletters. These choices shape whose lives get to flourish.

Because on a planet with over 7 billion people and in a country of over 300 million, there will inevitably be so many differences and spectrums.

Every day, in small and big ways, we make consequential choices about who’s in and who’s left out.

Whose needs are considered and whose aren’t? Do we only build for people like us, or do we stretch to include those we don’t yet understand?

Of course, our lives and our world have trade-offs. There isn’t unlimited time or money. But there are a lot of smart people who care, who have time and a willingness to innovate to break trade-offs. And in many cases, there’s money we’re already spending that could be spent differently. We just have to see with different eyes.

Playgrounds are a good example of this, and something I see with new eyes now. There are ways to make playgrounds so that many different types of kids can play together. You just have to make different and creative choices about materials, structures, and things like seats on swings.

I see so much more clearly now—even if in a very small way—the ways in which people born “normally,” but differently in a particular kind of way, are overlooked because they are easy to ignore, or are less “squeaky” than I am.

And it doesn’t sit right with me. But I do get it. The more people we include, the more complex our decisions are. We have to be smarter and more creative to make a website that everybody can use well enough, compared to just what the majority can use.

But that still doesn’t sit right. I am not God, after all. Why do I get to decide who’s worthy, important, or loud enough to be included? I may not be able to break every trade-off and create some sort of prosperous utopia that works brilliantly and cheaply for everyone. But it doesn’t seem right to me to not even try—before overlooking, whether deliberately or simply because I’ve allowed myself to remain ignorant—the needs of someone in need. Which, aren’t we all, in some way or another?

Griffin’s Down syndrome diagnosis has given me the eyes to see this profound choice—who’s in, who’s out—more clearly. And more importantly, it gave me the eyes to see that I was more ignorant of my own ignorance than I thought I was.

But in addition to a realization about justice, Griffin has also helped me realize something about joy.

I can’t explain it, but Griffin has joy. And his joy honestly feels different. I don’t know why—whether it has to do with Down syndrome, or if I’m blinded by the fact that he’s our last child, or what. But his joy is different in a very special way.

Which is to say, the world would lose something extraordinary if he had never been born—or if his gifts were overlooked and never nurtured.

And not just Griffin. Every child—born “different” or not—has something extraordinary within them. Every adult too. When we overlook entire groups of people, we rob the world of that brilliance.

So, in addition to not being able to accept the injustice of deciding who’s in and who’s out, who am I to rob the world of these extraordinary things? The comfort of my own ignorance is certainly not more valuable than that.

Being Griffin’s father has already humbled me. Seeing the world through his eyes has taught me that I have a long way to grow in two important ways.

First, I ought to stretch whose needs I consider as widely as possible.

Second, I should assume I don’t understand other people’s needs and gifts as well as I think I do.

So instead of “I’m sorry,” after someone shares a tough reality, maybe it’s better to say:

“I honestly don’t understand what you’re going through. How are you all doing?”

Maybe that will open my heart even wider to understand, love, and include them.

The language we use when failures occur tells us a lot. The words people use, particularly from leaders, signal whether someone is dodging responsibility or accepting it.

Let’s say we’re looking for confidence that good things are ahead. After a failure, what would you rather hear?

Something like this?

• “It’s all those bad people’s fault we failed.”

• “Don’t worry, this was a one-time thing.”

• “The victims shouldn’t have put themselves in that position.”

• “It’s not my job to deal with this.”

• “It is what it is.”

• “I’m sorry you feel upset.”

Or something more like this?

• “I made a bad call, and I’m sorry.”

• “We failed, and we’re going to make this right.”

• “We’ve learned from our mistake, and we’re doing these three things differently, starting today.”

• “The responsibility lies with me, and nobody else.”

• “I’m sorry that my failure hurt you.”

• “This is the plan, and how you can hold me accountable.”

I think we’d all prefer the second set of responses, not the first. It’s no contest.

We gain confidence after a failure—or even a tragedy—when someone takes responsibility. And we should because leadership is responsibility.

The worst possible sign, I think, is when the same failure repeats itself and nobody ever takes responsibility. In those instances we shouldn’t expect any good to happen, ever.

“Thoughts and prayers” and “we condemn this act” are turns of phrases that are often shared when tragic failures, usually of a political nature, occur. And I think it’s perfectly natural to think of and pray for others after a tragedy (I do), and, to condemn actions that merit condemnation.

But neither phrase is a measure of responsibility. And for what it’s worth, I’m skipping a political analysis because no interest group has a monopoly on accepting or avoiding responsibility after failures.

After a failure, I need to hear someone take responsibility to believe good things are coming. Though we may fail at it, as I do, this is the standard we also must hold ourselves to, especially when the people around us need us or expect us to lead.

I can’t bear to part with them, even now. Not even for a few hours. Because I don’t actually know if I’ll see them again.

That fear of never getting to say goodbye comes from losing my dad suddenly. I was on my way to get a haircut in a snowstorm the night before he passed.

I was going to call him, but it was snowing, and it was late, and I’m sure I had to work, too. So I didn’t.

We left it somewhere with a text like, “Love you, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

And then tomorrow never came.

And this is why I can’t leave for anywhere, even to drop off a letter in the postbox four stop signs away, without saying “I love you” to everyone in the house - even our dog.

Which is all to say, I have thought obsessively about what I say to my kids when I drop them off at school, in case they are the last words I ever say to them.

In case I am stolen from them, I want them to have memorable last words from their father so they don’t have a wound that will never heal, like I do.

I’ve tried so many unnatural, contrived-but-heartfelt phrases that were either too cerebral, too long, or both. And finally it came to me this summer vacation.

“Find the magic.”

This fits what I want to tell them perfectly.

Find the magic means - go look for it. Listen with your whole heart. There are extraordinary things around us, and every person has extraordinary things in them. There is God in all things.

The magic is the secret sauce. It is source of all good things. Of all joy. Of all redemption and reconciliation. Of all the suffering we overcome. Of all creativity and beauty. Of all love and laughter.

There is magic everywhere, so go find it.

—

The first time we went to Disney World, Robert was almost four. And as many families do, our last moment at the park is always at the Magic Kingdom, watching the fireworks over Cinderella’s Castle.

And there we were, on Main Street USA, as the music and lights were hitting their crescendo in the buildup to the finale. And there was song playing that had a dramatic pause in the melody. And we heard the singer sing, “You are the magic.”

And one of the best memories I’ll ever have happens next.

Robert, turns to Robyn, his eyes as full of innocence and wonder as they could possibly be, and says,

“Mommy, I am the magic.”

And therein lies the hidden message of, “Find the magic.”

Boys, if you’re reading this, this is one of those posts that’s an insurance policy of sorts. A little bit of love and guidance tucked away in case I’m gone too soon.

When I said “find the magic” you never needed to look far. The most wonderful and powerful magic has always been close.

You are the magic.

I have seen it your whole lives, and knew it before you were born. You boys have been the greatest store of magic I have ever known.

The magic I have been asking you to find, has been and always will be the magic in you.

Parents and children.

Priest and congregation.

Boss and employee.

Politician and citizen.

In all these realms, how the most powerful and the least powerful treat each other tells you what you need to know.

When you look at the most powerful, do they truly listen?

Do they lift others, or do they bully?

Despite what they say, do their actions reveal care for others—or only a hunger to preserve their own dominance?

And the least powerful—

Do they challenge authority for a higher purpose, or merely seek the crown for their own heads?

Do they move with agency, rage, or a stupor of learned helplessness after years of being beat down?

Are they—even visible?

How do the most powerful and least powerful treat each other?

We judge others all the time. I do, and so do you—though we hopefully we try to be more holy than that.

But this question must turn inward, because we are not always the least powerful, however much we’d like to believe it.

The person who shapes the culture most, in my own life, is the one in the mirror.

If I am a parent, a boss, a leader in any form—how do I treat those with less power?

That tells me all I need to know.

We live in a world where it’s easier than ever to signal who we are — through what we say, post, wear, or share. But if those signals don’t match our actions, we slip into something I call identity debt.

Like financial debt, identity debt piles up when we borrow against an image we haven’t earned. And just like money debt, it eventually comes due. Fail to pay it back, and you don’t lose your house — you lose your reputation, your confidence, even your sense of self. That’s how you end up in an identity crisis: quarter-life, midlife, or otherwise.

The challenge today is scale. There are more ways than ever to build an image without the substance behind it — more ways to go into identity debt.

Social media is the most obvious culprit, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve built entire systems that reward posturing and signaling over real action. A few examples:

• Products as props. From Etsy finds to custom sneakers, nearly anything can be personalized to signal who we are.

• Edited selves. Technology lets us alter photos and appearances, presenting healthier, wealthier, smarter versions of ourselves.

• Broadcasted preferences. Spotify playlists, Goodreads ratings, Yelp reviews — every choice is a broadcast of identity.

• Endless content. We curate movies, news, and podcasts that give us things to talk about without requiring us to do anything.

• Monetized identity. With LLCs, platforms, and digital marketing, anyone can brand themselves as a coach, consultant, or influencer — whether or not there’s real expertise underneath.

All told, it’s never been easier to construct an identity without doing anything. The hype machine doesn’t just exist — it rewards us for feeding it.

We now have an endless credit line for identity debt. Talking and signaling can easily overshadow the slower work of real action — so much so that even a normal, hardworking life can feel drowned out by hype.

I know because I do it too. I post books on Goodreads, scroll Facebook, even use AI to polish resumes or draft marketing plans for my own projects. The signals flow almost automatically.

The strange thing is the solution is simple. Easy to name, hard to live out.

I’ve wrestled with this in my own life, and part of how I worked through it was by writing a book about how we can intentionally build our own character. And if I’ve learned anything, living this out is very possible, but it takes work.

To stay out of identity debt, we have to:

• Be real in how we present ourselves — so our signals reflect the truth, not a distortion.

• Envision the life we want, then live it — instead of hyping it, spinning it, or posturing about it.

• Step out of artificial spaces. Choose genuine human connection instead.

• Be honest with ourselves. Do the hard work of character — becoming the truest, strongest version of who we want to be.

All of this is easier said than done. And that’s exactly the point: reality is harder than hype — but it’s also where meaning lives.

Talk less. Do more. Pay down your identity debt before it bankrupts you.

And around here, how fast a car goes from zero to sixty MPH is a big deal. It’s a measure of speed, power, and legitimacy. Zero to sixty is a proxy for respect, and one of Detroit’s contributions to the American idea of success.

Why go if you can’t go fast? Why be, if you can’t be fast?

One moment at our kitchen table with my sons showed me a different path.

—

A week ago, our boys were in a slurping phase. Everything they drank, they slurped. Robyn and I protested, and they kept testing us on it.

One afternoon, I lost it and demanded the smoothie cup, erupting from zero to sixty in less than two seconds.

Unlike in muscle cars, in parenting, going from zero to sixty is rarely the goal. It’s what breaks trust, triggering senseless yelling and tears.

I hate myself when I do that.

I don’t know how it happened, but for some reason — luck or divine intervention, probably both — I calmed myself from sixty to zero just as fast as I accelerated.

It was a stunning feeling. I’d never done that before, never had that physical sensation of rapid deceleration.

As an adult, and as a parent, the skill of controlled, rapid deceleration is essential. It violates my Detroit upbringing to say this, but how quickly we go from sixty to zero is far more important than how quickly we go from zero to sixty.

Usually, rapid deceleration — for me at least — is uncontrolled. Probably for most of us. I say something that makes one of us weep, or grab my son’s shoulder in a way that spooks him, or slam my fist into the table hard enough for the pain to jolt me into a pause.

That’s the emotional equivalent of a car hitting a tree.

Controlled, rapid deceleration, on the other hand, is like having a race car with really good brakes.

In relationships and parenting, we ought to be like skilled drivers who know when and how to brake — not reckless ones who blow through the guardrails.

The good part is, I think we can practice this. Over the past week, I’ve tried it a dozen times. First, I make my body go to sixty in a second — clenching my teeth, muscles, and fists. Then I do the opposite, relaxing fully in the same amount of time.

I can’t prove it works, but I now know what deceleration is supposed to feel like in my body.

I don’t have some profound conclusion here, except for this: parent to parent, adult to adult — practice deceleration.

In America, anyone can go zero to sixty. The real skill is learning to go sixty to zero.

Even though there’s no applause for it, we ought to practice it anyway. Who cares if nobody will ever know? We will. Our kids, our partners, our families will. Our colleagues will.

Having a better, more peaceful life is worth it — even if the world never notices.

As babies, it’s something like: how many hours has it been since our last feed, diaper change, snuggle, or nap? If that number stays low, we are content. If not, we cry.

In our young childhood, it’s: how many, and how cool, are our Christmas presents? Because when you’re a kid, that feels like a proxy for everything—love, stability, fun, and standing with others.

Then, it’s all about “likes” and counting those up: how many friends we have in real life, how many “friends” we have on a social network, SAT score, GPA, how many girls/boys who “like us like us.”

Then early adulthood carries the same obsession with visibility and validation—but with higher stakes: salaries, our résumé, hearts on our latest Instagram post, how many copies of our self-published book we sell, our dating prospects, how many beers we can chug in a night, how many “amazing experiences” we can have.

The next step in the evolution of how we count our lives is the hardest because it’s the most nuanced.

On the one hand, the next evolution, if we’re lucky enough to notice it, is about moments of quiet joy, peace, and sacrifice. Like: how many times a week does my heart feel warm? How many times does something happen where I laugh or cry? How many times can I find peace in the quiet of everyday joys like a dish of toast and beans or a walk outside? How many people have I quietly supported and helped to grow? How many people do I get to see that I hug? How consistent am I in really being myself and having intimacy and depth with someone else—or with God?

And what’s hard about this particular evolution is that it’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking we’re there. There’s a lot we can do that seems like quiet peace and joy that’s just narcissism or indulgence with a veneer of grace.

Things that we want and probably need, but can quickly become extravagant, like: date nights, vacations, boys’ weekends, weekends where the grandparents take the kids so we can “get some stuff done.” Perhaps the achievements of our children, or the kids’ birthday parties we go to—or all the weekend excursions to give our kids the “perfect” childhood.

We can count those things up and feel like that’s an evolution into quiet joy and peace, but it’s not. Or we think that to create peace, we need to put our feet up on the beach and take a selfie of us with a mojito. That could be a quiet and peaceful and intimate moment—but we don’t need the mojito for it. These moments look like joy, but they’re just a middle-aged version of indulgence, social currency, or productivity.

I am very guilty of confounding vanity for intimacy, as I think many are. I still struggle so much with thinking that I just have to put in all this work and make all this money, so we can have that life of joy, peace, and intimacy that Robyn and I dream about—a life rooted in closeness to family, learning through travel, high-quality time, and serving others.

“Kids and these dreams are expensive,” I say to myself in my head and over conversations at cocktail parties.

Kids certainly aren’t cheap, but perhaps they’re not expensive either—I just believe they are. Life isn’t cheap, but it isn’t expensive—I just believe that.

My kids do want to do fun things, like go on vacations or have cool shirts with their favorite characters on them. And our sons eat a lot (a LOT—and they’re not even teenagers yet). But they also often just want hugs, to be listened to, to learn and be taught, to be outside, to have someone read them bedtime stories.

A life with family and children isn’t cheap, but these things that really matter to them aren’t as expensive as I think. It’s easy to fool myself into believing the indulgences of middle age are the same as moments of quiet and joy—but they aren’t.

Getting this evolution of how I count my life right has been the trickiest because it’s so easy to fool myself into believing my heart has actually opened and I’ve actually evolved.

I was with our 90+ year-old grandmother yesterday, and she said so many times—so many times—over the course of the evening how lucky she was. I get the sense that she feels nearer to the end of her life than she ever has, despite her remarkable health. She’s almost 96, and still lives independently and has her wits about her, which I suppose would make anyone feel like every day is a bonus at the end of a good, long life.

And perhaps that’s the last evolution in how we count our lives—one only the wisest of us reach.

After we learn to appreciate quiet peace and joy and intimacy, we must learn to truly value that we are here. Just that we are here—no more, no less. And to really believe, with our whole being, that every day is a gift.

At the end of our lives, when we’re taking stock of it all, maybe the final wisdom is just this: waking up and saying, “I must be one of the luckiest people alive.”

Unfortunately, it’s a skill that’s underrated—and perhaps not even named—for how important it is, especially for us as parents.

I’ll give this skill we need a name: witnessing.

Let’s imagine a simple example: our child is upset because their favorite flavor of potato chips is out of stock at the grocery store.

An obviously damaging response would be:

“Screw you, stop complaining. You have no idea how small this is or how good you have it. Shut up, go sit alone in the corner, and feel stupid until you figure it out.”

A seemingly more considerate—but equally damaging—response would be:

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. Let me do whatever I can to help you deal with this. Should I drive 15 minutes right now to find that flavor for you?”

The first response makes them feel valueless.

The second infantilizes them, giving them evidence to believe they’re incapable of enduring anything hard.

The problem is, both of these approaches absolve us—as parents—of the horrific feeling we get when our kids suffer.

The first allows us to disconnect from the feeling.

The second allows us to solve the problem and make it go away.

Both prevent growth. Both delay the issue of suffering and compound it.

Because instead of helping them deal with suffering now, we displace it—until we’re gone.

The urge we have, as parents, is to end suffering as quickly as possible.

But we can’t. We have to let it run its course.

Of course, like with any other human being, if someone is in mortal danger, we must intervene.

But as parents, we do this too quickly. Or at least I do.

I end the suffering—not because my kids can’t deal with it, but because I can’t.

So what do we do instead?

If we don’t tell them to suck it up, and we don’t cater to their every need, what do we do?

I think the answer is hard, but not complicated.

Just show up and listen. That’s the balm.

Be next to them. Listen.

Offer comfort, ideas, and—if they’re open to it—stories about our own mistakes. I think all wr need to do is be there and stew in that suffering with them.

Unfortunately, this prolongs our discomfort and stifles our sense of control as parents.

But it’s the better, third way: to let them live their lives—a little more with each passing day.

Letting go, without disappearing.

That’s the delicate ballet we dance as parents: to witness their suffering without taking it on as our own.

When we witness—not control, and not ignore—our kids’ suffering, we find a delicate place we can occupy.

That’s both the place where our kids learn. And where we grow our character and mettle as parents.

The cost is our sadness, and sometimes our sanity.

But if witnessing—not ignoring and not controlling—allows our kids to grow in courage, and forces us to strengthen and purify our own souls, that is a price worth paying.

I’ve never heard anyone say this. I bet you haven’t either.

It feels ludicrous to even write. Nobody actually thinks this way. You are either trying to be a good person or you aren’t.

Character is not something, in real life, that you put off until life gets more comfortable. We are either one of those people right now or we aren’t.

And how do we know we are? If we look in the mirror and ask honestly: “Was I a good person today?”

Asking the question is a small but powerful act of showing up, and in my experience is at least 60% of what it takes to have character.

All the accountability we need is to look in the mirror and be honest.

Am I that person or am I not? For real?

-

If you’re someone who already looks in the mirror with honesty, you’ll want to read the book I wrote. It’s good enough to charge for, but I self-published it and chose to offer a free version — because the introspection it triggers is an investment the reader makes.

It stood in front of a neighbor’s house on our regular walking path. A man about our age happened to be visiting his aunt who lived there, and we struck up a conversation.

The tree is a towering giant, even among the tall trees that have stood in our neighborhood for generations. It has thick grooves of bark, with branches that nearly overhang the entire street.

It has a large knot at eye level that has probably been there since well before even I was born. And even the tallest person we know couldn’t wrap their arms around it if they were to hug its trunk.

The visiting neighbor smiled, probably thinking of his own memories of childhood, and said to Robert, “For sure, little man. Every kid needs a favorite tree.”

And I added—with an unexpected nostalgia, given how little time I spent outside growing up—“They sure do. And you picked a good one.”

This happened years ago, probably when Robert was three or four—just old enough to walk, but still young enough to spend part of a long walk in a stroller.

And yet, I still think of this moment often—even on days when we don’t pass the tree with Riley, and I’m just reflecting on how much our sons have grown.

Maybe I remember it because I never had a favorite tree and it comforts me that he does.

Growing up, I didn’t live in a neighborhood with many old trees, and I didn’t spend extended periods of time outside. I was always at dance rehearsal or watching TV, I guess.

I was discouraged from climbing trees at the park; I’d been taught early on that climbing was dangerous. And I was without a sibling to egg me on, pushing out of my seriousness and into an adventure, let alone into the limbs of a good climbing tree.

So now, Robert’s favorite tree is mine, too.

I’m glad it wasn’t too late for me to have one. I’m grateful that childhood wasn’t entirely lost to the business of growing up.

And I’m grateful Robyn knows how to guide me toward what a childhood ought to look like—with play, with wasted time, and with real time outdoors.

“Let’s let them be kids a little longer,” she gently reminds me of how little they still are.

Years later, our walks have changed.

Now we have kids on scooters and bikes, and sometimes they’re the ones holding Riley’s leash.

But even after all these years, I still give the tree a gentle tap as I walk by.

It’s the only way I know how to say thank you.

I’m grateful to it—for what it symbolizes and what it has given me: a childhood lost, then found, then regifted through my sons.

Here’s the link—it’s good:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1ZQC5uEW7XFEgYlwPWcGPv?si=xWp8MKqoQNSDeTVvHphsHw&pi=5uZpPxqKR9W9U

It’s interesting to look at what the songs are about. Here are a few examples:

Hole in the Bottle (Kelsea Ballerini) is a fun drinking song, about unwinding— after a hard day.

Beautiful People (Ed Sheeran f. Khalid) is about the stresses of fitting in with high society, when it doesn’t reflect who you are.

Refrigerator Door (Luke Combs) is about how all the photos and notes on your refrigerator tells the story of your life and what matters to you.

Hey Laura (Gregory Porter) is a desperate, yet charming track about a man who can’t get over a love, Laura.

Need a Favor (Jelly Roll) is the song of a self-aware sinner calling on God after he gets into another bad situation.

Here Comes The Sun (The Beatles) is about the sun emerging from a cold winter—a beautiful thought both literally and as a metaphor.

My Wish (Rascal Flatts, recently re-released as a duet with Carly Pearce) is a parent’s wish for their child’s life.

All I Know So Far (P!nk) is another song written for the artist’s child, sharing bold wisdom on how to live a free, meaningful life—from mother to child.

Knee Deep (Zac Brown Band f. Jimmy Buffett) is about getting away from the world to the refuge of blue water, blue skies, and a beach.

One Last Time (from Hamilton) is about the strength and courage of George Washington choosing not to run for a third term—and how to say goodbye.

Fill Me In (Craig David) is about young, lustful love.

Extraordinary Magic (Ben Rector) calls out the invisible grace, beauty, and future the singer sees in someone he loves.

Life Goes On (Ed Sheeran f. Luke Combs) is a heartbreaking track about grieving a loss.

There are over a hundred more on the playlist. I’m biased, but they’re all great.

The rest of the songs are invariably about love, loss, friendship, overcoming struggle, or something that radiates beauty.

It’s worth noting—and the whole point of me writing this—is that the songs we love to sing—our karaoke favorites—aren’t about work.

They aren’t about celebrating tyrants or liars. They aren’t about stealing or reveling in the exploitation of others. They aren’t about that feeling when your complicated Excel formula works.

When I am in my head, overworking and obsessing about something, this is what I remind myself: nobody would write a song about the bullshit I worry about.

If nobody would write a song worth singing about it, maybe I can let it go.

It’s not just the dread of going back to work, but something deeper. It’s that feeling I get when I don’t know whether I’m able to live and be myself or whether I have to perform. It’s that feeling we get—when we can’t quite tell what is real and what is theater—and it’s not anger or frustration exactly.

It’s less like anger and more like nausea. Not of the body, but of the mind and spirit. It’s a nausea that comes from the blurring of what is real and what is not—and the disorientation that causes.

This epistemic nausea is not the same as moral disgust. I don’t mean the feeling of being sick to your stomach when someone does something so ethically wrong that we are repulsed.

I mean something amoral and dizzying, more akin to being on a boat in choppy waters. The longer we’re on the boat, the more exhausted we get trying to keep steady, and the more we feel like we’re going to throw up. It’s not a repulsion to injustice, but a seasickness of the soul.

To be clear, here’s what I mean by theater and reality.

Theater is the realm of our lives where the point is applause and selling tickets—at least for the people on stage. For the audience, the point is to be entertained, and perhaps to feel something, anything, novel as they deal with the overwhelming drudgery of reality.

At its best, theater is also about ideas—putting a magnifying glass to one small aspect of reality, critiquing it, and showing us a better way.

Reality is less glamorous, but it’s the source of meaning and joy. Reality is the realm where the point is to survive, to love and be loved, to act in a way that makes us and our ancestors proud, to find peace, and to serve others. What makes this hard is that living is struggle.

And to be even more clear, I don’t think the mere existence of theater or the inevitable suffering of reality is the source of this nausea. The nausea comes from when we don’t know whether we’re in reality or theater. Trying to decipher the truth when the two blur makes our heads spin. That dizzying state of being is what causes epistemic nausea.

I was thinking of writing a whole post on the different ways reality and theater blur. There are many obvious examples: reality TV, social media, and the posturing that happens in politics, business, and religon.

And there are more subtle examples too—like the “relationships” people form with AI chatbots, the “friendships” we have with people we may spend time with but who don’t actually know us. Or even the intense pressure and expectations we put on ourselves or our children to perform and achieve.

But does an abstract discussion picking apart the nuances of theater and reality really matter?

Those of us out here in the real world—trying to figure out when to buy groceries during the week, how to pay for day care, fit in 30 minutes of exercise so we don’t gain weight as our metabolism slows, and save money by fixing our damn washing machines before our kids run out of clean underwear—we don’t have time to sit around theorizing. We need to know what this nausea is and how to manage it.

To deal with epistemic nausea, I see one of two options.

The first is: we can escape into theater. We can surround ourselves with the fantasyland of performance, telling ourselves whatever stories we want to believe to feel how we want to feel. To be clear, this does numb the nausea.

The problem with fully replacing reality with theater—perhaps not obviously—is that we never really live. We never really love. We never really serve. We may never suffer, but we never build the character that comes only from overcoming it. I don’t want all that to be pretend. I want to live my life, not perform it as a character in a world I’ve made up.

The other option is, honestly, to just deal with it. If we can’t escape, we must navigate. If this epistemic nausea is a dizziness akin to sea sickness, we have to be sailors. And what do sailors do?

They have anchors to hold steady. To me, unconditional love is an anchor. When I’m nauseous, I turn to my family. Yesterday, when I was particularly seasick, we celebrated our brother’s birthday as a family. When we had a consequential appointment for our newborn, I wanted to call my mom with the good news. Being part of unconditional love—both ways—is an anchor.

Sailors also have rudders. To me, rudders are character: a set of convictions, values, and habits we hold to. It’s saying—no matter what happens, no matter what may or may not be real—I’m going to act like this. No matter who is in front of me, I’m going to treat them like this. However rough the seas, this is who I’m going to be.

Finally, just like boats, we can leave a wake. This is a metaphor about leadership and culture that I really value.

A boat can head into rough waters and leave the trail of water behind it calmer. We can do that too. We don’t have to participate in the misdirection and blurring of reality and theater. When we are in the realm of real, we can be real—instead of posturing, signaling, and bullshitting. And when we are in the realm of theater, we can be honest about what we’re doing and let our performance move the culture forward by challenging the worst parts of reality. That makes the difference between theater and reality clearer—not more blurry.

This epistemic nausea of the mind and soul debilitates me. But can any of us really control it?

Complaining about social media, what famous people do and say, or the distortions of reality made possible by AI doesn’t move us forward. What we can do is anchor with unconditional love, build a rudder of character to keep us straight, and of course, leave a wake—so we leave the seas behind us calmer than the ones we headed into.

We can’t stop the storm, but we can sail through it.

We can’t stop the blurring of reality and theater—but we can at least do this.

We had a moment like this yesterday with Jeff and Laura—two of our oldest friends. Between their family and ours, we have eight children ranging from pre-teen to newborn. Only two pairs overlap in age: our two oldest and their two youngest.

Robyn paused us to look out at them, and there they were: all playing kickball, shouting, and laughing in our tiny Detroit backyard. It was the first time they truly felt like friends instead of tentatively spending time together because the adults wanted to hang out. Getting to this moment took years.

This got me thinking: what had to be true for this to happen?

First, you need siblings, cousins, or old friends from a time in your life before kids. Then, you have to have kids yourself. Next, your friends have to have kids too. And on top of all that, you still have to be friends—and in touch—by the time it all lines up.

And that’s just the prerequisite for a shot at a multigenerational relationship. It’s the price of entry.

But even that’s not enough. Multigenerational relationships require shared places. Relationships bloom in a time and place—especially when it’s across two generations, not just one.

Jeff and I, for example, lived in the same dormitory and were roommates for two years in our fraternity house. Later, we all lived in the same loft apartment building in Detroit’s New Center. It was at their dinner table, too, where I wept during the most broken moment of my twenties—the scene where everything I wrote about in Character by Choice: Letters on Goodness, Fatherhood, and Becoming Better on Purpose evolved from. And now, our kids share backyards, parks, and the pitch as soccer teammates.

We have different shared places with siblings, cousins, and then old friends we’ve maintained relationships with. There’s our grandparents’ houses with our cousins; Myrtle Beach and Petoskey, where Robyn used to vacation with her friend Lauren—and now our kids share those places too. There’s “up north,” Florida, and our homes, where we host bi-weekly family dinners and our kids are getting to know their brand new cousins.

To grow, multigenerational relationships need shared places. But shared places, I believe, still aren’t enough.

To span generations, relationships require something sacred.

Multigenerational relationships need more depth. They need gravity—something that draws you together—to last. This is even more essential across generations. You need a reason to stay connected: within the adult generation, within the kids’ generation, and across both. Everyone has to be drawn in and willing to fight for the relationship, especially because the grind of daily life makes even casual relationships difficult.

Liking the same band isn’t enough. A shared interest in sports, a hobby, or a history of drinking beer—none of these are enough. Shared ancestry isn’t enough—plenty of siblings and cousins don’t maintain strong ties. Shared history isn’t enough—plenty of longtime friends have kids that don’t gel. None of these create the gravity needed across generations.

What does draw people together, even over generations, is sharing something sacred. A higher creed, conviction, or core belief—sometimes religious, sometimes not. Shared suffering and its overcoming—that can be sacred, too.

With Jeff and Laura, we’ve never spoken about it explicitly, but looking back, we’ve always shared a belief in living a moral, other-focused, integrated life—demonstrated by nurturing parenting, deep faith, and equal partnership with our spouses. Now, we also have fellowship in our faith and walk together as followers of Christ. We instill these values in our children. We share something sacred—and now our children do, too.

With Robyn’s siblings, we share a belief in the unshakable importance of family and the holiness of quality time, traditions, and being active. We’ve never discussed this outright, but we have rituals that speak to our shared belief in human flourishing—setting goals, nurturing diverse interests, sacrificing for others, living with integrity, becoming values-driven leaders. This came from our parents and is rooted in us, and will continue in all our children. We share something sacred—and our children will too.

That sacred something is the gravity that holds multigenerational relationships together. It keeps us close, even when the machinery of daily life pushes us apart. It gives us something bigger than the relationship itself—something to bind us and band together for.

We need that gravity to help relationships grow and avoid the entropy that inevitably sets in—especially across generations. To have that beautiful moment where we realize, “our kids are friends now too,” we need more than shared history, shared interests, or even shared ancestry.

We need shared places.

And most of all, we must share something sacred.

And here’s an extra thought because it’s Father’s Day…

I think this idea of sharing something sacred extends beyond multi-generational relationships. It matters for individual relationships too.

I was thinking about what I would write today, insufferably, at 5am, lying awake in bed because I somehow wake up earlier on weekends than on workdays. And I wondered, what is the specific sacred thing I share with each member of our family? Do I share anything sacred with them at all? Will our relationship have gravity even after they don’t have to live under my roof and eat our groceries? Will Robyn and I grow apart as empty nesters?

This was a good exercise: what do I share with each member of my family that is sacred?

With Bo, I share a voracious curiosity and thirst for knowledge. We also, at this point, share a deep sense of faith. He’s shepherded me spiritually as much as I have him.

With Myles, we share an attitude of talent development and determination - I can see this already. He is incredibly oriented around self-improvement in the same way I am, and not for the purpose of being better than others, but from the belief that it’s immoral to not develop our gifts and activate our potential. This is sacred.

Robyn and I, of course, share our vows. Which are self-defining as sacred. But even beyond this, the dream we have for our life - and the values of family, mutual respect, and serving others that underpin that dream - are sacred to us.

With Griffin, his special beautiful life is sacred as is his bravery. I know already that he will be the child we have that teaches me something, most consistently, because of the challenges he may face - which will be equal but markedly different than our other sons. His sacredness is coded in his DNA and in the bravery he has had from birth. We will be connected by this shared experience of suffering his whole life.

But what about Emmett? I panicked a bit when I thought about him. Do we share something sacred? I started tossing and turning in bed, uneasy because nothing came to mind quickly. What do we share that is sacred? Why can’t I think of anything?

What if there wasn’t anything sacred that we shared? Would we drift apart? Would we become one of those pairs of father and son that become more like old roommates than family, over time?

I eventually thought of something sacred we share - an orientation and appreciation of self-reflection and a tuning into the feelings of others - but the lesson remains.

With our kids and partners, if we want a relationship that persists through every phase of life, we have to share something sacred. We have to nurture that sacredness as they grow. And if we don’t know what that specific, sacred thing is yet, we have to find it.

In most sports broadcasts and among fans, footwork doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. And I get it—footwork is boring.

One exception is a sport I love: tennis.

In tennis, even on national broadcasts meant for wide audiences—including casual fans—announcers often talk about footwork. And for good reason: footwork is directly tied to winning. If you don’t move well, you can’t get in position to hit the ball cleanly. You lose points, and eventually, the match.

IThe best tennis players are relentless about footwork. Their training shows during matches.

The difference between good and bad footwork is obvious in tennis. But outside of sports, “footwork” is just as important—and just as underrated.

Footwork in life isn’t about sprint drills, obviously. It’s the invisible prep and uncelebrated routines that make everything run more smoothly.

Here’s what “footwork” can look like at home:

• Making a grocery list and checking the pantry

• Packing a bag or ironing clothes the night before

• Taking five minutes to slow down before bed so you can sleep better—or right after waking up, so you’re less grumpy

• Drinking enough water, eating fresh produce, and getting enough fiber

• Putting commitments on the calendar—and saying no to prevent over-scheduling

• Getting to bed on time

• Doing a weekly temperature check

• Keeping clutter off the floor and putting things back where they belong

• Listening fully when connecting with family

• Scheduling dates

• Saying please and thank you

• Hugs, kisses, high fives

• Apologizing and making up after an argument

• Upholding screen time, junk food, and language rules

• Eating dinner together regularly

And here’s what it can look like at work:

• Keeping tasks transparent and centralized, with a clear owner

• Setting a small number of clear goals

• Prioritizing ruthlessly

• Sending agendas before meetings

• Debriefing after milestones

• Telling others what you expect—and asking what they expect of you

• Checking references

• Listening to teammates and taking time to build relationships

• Proofreading before sending a document or email

• Explaining why something matters

• Talking to customers and frontline staff

• Coaching regularly—not just once a year

• Clarifying action items, deadlines, and owners after meetings

• Laying out options and making the hard decisions

• Communicating changes before they happen

These things aren’t flashy—but they’re what put us in position to succeed.

Sure, the big things matter: the dream vacation, the multi-million-dollar project. And we should talk about them. Celebrate them. But what usually causes those things to fall apart?

We all know the answer: bad footwork.

The good news? We can get better at it.

Pick one thing—whether it’s loading the dishwasher or sending out clear post-meeting notes—and work on it relentlessly until it becomes muscle memory. Then move on to the next.

We all need better footwork. And we can get it—just like elite tennis players.

Because the difference between succeeding and failing—at home, at work, and on the court—is rarely luck or the world being unfair. It’s usually footwork.

And we’ve had a few of them lately, perfect in their own way, despite the chaos of the past few months.

Yesterday, for example, we had a bunch of kids’ soccer games, a BBQ with Bo’s team and all the families at our house, and then an impromptu visit from two of our siblings.

Last weekend was a lovely mix of yard work, a trip to Eastern Market, planting transplants, an impromptu play date at the park with close family friends, and a round of tennis.

And all of this is happening amidst the grind we’re in—Robyn managing a slew of doctor’s appointments for our newborn Griffin, and me in an intense work season that’ll stretch through at least August.

This string of “perfect” days within our uniquely hectic season nudged me to reflect: what are some other “perfect days” I remember?

There was the day we all went to Eastern Market and then had a charcuterie dinner on the Detroit Riverwalk.

Or the day we were engaged—with a visit to the Motown Museum, a nice meal where two of my brothers serenaded us tableside, and then our whole family meeting us at the place we met for a drink to end the night.

Or the day we played soccer in the garden at my family’s house in India, when Robyn’s whole family and a huge percentage of my extended family were under the same roof for a few days.

Or the day we met our longtime family friends, the Chins, at the splash pad to end a long weekend with a picnic dinner.

And then there are the times camping in National Parks, where every day feels like a perfect day—and our makeshift meals taste better than anything we could’ve made in a full kitchen at home.

I started reminiscing, but then a pattern emerged.

My perfect days tend to be outdoors. They’re always with family and friends. They include good music, good food, and movement. They’re patiently paced, with space for impromptu adventures.

My perfect days have a formula, really:

• Get outside

• Move around

• Be with people you care about

• Eat, drink, and be merry

• Don’t rush

I realized this isn’t complicated—it’s attainable. Even every weekend. And what’s oddly reassuring is that these perfect days tend to emerge—I rarely see them coming.

***

This week I called my uncle—as I do every week. He’s really more of a father to me. My younger sister happened to be there—she was in Delhi, about to fly to visit our older sister in Australia. We spoke briefly, and something in her voice I hadn’t noticed before, struck me.

For the first time, I realized—her voice had grown. I could hear how life had worn it in, softened its edges. She’s not old, but she is older. We are older.

And it took me back to how I remember her when we were kids, all hanging out at my grandparents’ house in India. The house with stone floors and a roof that sounded like a drumline when the monsoon rains poured.

Where we would sing, dance, and occasionally play cricket in the hallway. Where we would all eat from one steel plate on the floor at dinner and then talk late into the night about our fears, dreams, and the life we had lived since we were last together.

I still weep when I think about the joys of visiting my grandparents’ house, with my aunts, uncles, and brothers and sisters. Those days are long gone. We’re not old now, but we’re older.

I see that aging in the mirror after every haircut Robyn gives me, because the balance between salt and pepper shifts just a little every time.

I’ve found myself mourning the passage of time as my next birthday draws near. At 38, I’m now squarely in that grey zone—not sure if I’m closer to the beginning or the end of my life.

And it scares me. I want to go back. To those perfect days I know are real, because they’ve already happened.

But then it hit me.

“I’ve had perfect days.”

And I’ve had lots of them, at every phase of my life. Most of us—even if we’ve had hard times, or been short on money—have had perfect days.

Which means: at every age, I’ve had perfect days ahead of me that I didn’t see coming.

And now, I’m old enough to see the pattern to unlock perfect days: nature, love, food, drink, music, and slowness.

This has been the key to accepting the age I’m about to hit: I have perfect days ahead of me. We have perfect days ahead of us.

The older I get, the more perfect days I will have. The older I get, the more I will understand the rhythm of them. The older I get, the better I get at making them happen.

The key question here, which I’m now old enough to have the wisdom to ask, is: what do my perfect days have in common?

If we can answer that—quietly, honestly—it might be the key to not dreading the inevitability of aging. If I can get that question right, I may even look forward to getting older.

Because age hasn’t just brought me perspective. It’s brought me patterns. And now, I can see them. I can feel when I’m in the middle of a day I’ll want to remember because it’s perfect.

Perhaps that’s one way to translate what growing older really is—learning to notice, in real time, the days we’ll call perfect.

And it was Myles — the one who, for all previous seasons, wanted to eat Sungold tomatoes from the vine without tending to it — who told me the moment we were home, “Let’s go plant the garden, Papa.” And so we did.

We started by weeding. Just Myles and me. And he weeded with the diligence and intensity he had when he was scoring goals on the pitch at his soccer game earlier that day. Eventually Robert came to help us, and we made quick work, getting the dirt in our hands and hair as we went.

I have always made the mistake of crowding the garden. Too many plants close together does not a harvest make. I remembered this as we were raked and ready to tuck our transplants into the bed of their new home.

But then Griffin stirred lightly on the baby monitor — his gentle call a reminder that it was my wife’s time to rest, and mine to care for him. The marigold had just gone in. The boys were ready, shovels in hand, looking at me for what came next.

I moved fast, laying out the transplants in a loose grid, spaced just so, trusting they’d follow the pattern. I took a breath and stepped away.

As I walked inside, I was proud — and nervous. What if they argued? What if they moved everything around, or gave up halfway? What if I came back to a half-dug mess instead of a garden ready to grow?

But when I returned, I found them brushing dirt off their hands, cheeks smudged, smiles proud. The garden was planted. They had been listening. They had been learning. And they had done it with care and instinct and joy.

All those times they played instead of pulling weeds, whined instead of helping — I thought they weren’t paying attention. But they were. They were learning. All this time, they were growing. And now, somehow, they’ve grown. How did that happen?

It seems to me that for a child to grow, a conspiracy of beautiful things must come together — much like the plants in our garden. They need love and warmth, like the sun. They need their thirst for knowledge and learning quenched, like the spring rains drench in the early season. They need spirit to invigorate them, like the air activates photosynthesis. And of course, they need a rich and diverse and nurturing community — and a peaceful place to sleep — like the garden bed nestled between our rose bush and the garage.

I used to obsess over the fertilizer. The super nutrients. The enrichment. The classes, the “educational” toys, the vacations, the schools, the tutors — everything we could offer to help them get ahead and grow taller. And sure, fertilizer matters. But it can’t replace sunlight, water, air, or good soil. And too much of it? It throws everything off. It disturbs the delicate balance.

And of course, they need space. Room to grow. They need me to step away — to let them plant the garden while I’m inside the house. They need the space to make scrambled eggs, even if some of it ends up outside the pan and there’s a little eggshell they have to dig out with a spoon.

I can’t forget the lesson of this planting day. Our caring hands brought them here — to this garden where we work and hope and pray for love, knowledge, spirit, peace, and community. Yes, they need enrichment to grow tall and strong.

But just as much, they need space.

It’s not just a social question—it’s moral, political, and spiritual too.

To us as social animals: Who will I treat with respect—and even associate with?

To our inner souls: Who has intrinsic worth, and who doesn’t?

To the policymaker: Who gets to participate as equals in public life—and share in public goods?

To followers of Christ: Whose feet am I willing to wash?

Every version of these questions asks us to take a position—on human dignity.

And in our daily lives, we all answer them through our choices, whether intentionally or not.

Humans have grappled with these questions for generations.

But these questions are especially urgent now—because of the sweeping transformations that may reshape the human race within our lifetimes.

We need to be concrete in our values before these changes come—so we’re not tempted to rationalize our way into betraying them when the stakes are at their peak and “winners” and “losers”emerge.

We need to take a position on human dignity—before AI, AGI, and humanoid robots are advanced enough to replace human bodies and even human connection at scale.

We need to take a position on the intrinsic value of life—before therapeutics emerge that could extend human lifespans by decades, or even indefinitely.

We need to take a position on our relationship with Earth—and its natural resources—before we expand to other worlds and risk exporting a disregard for life and dignity beyond this planet.

So who’s in—and who’s out?

Our family and friends?

People who annoy us? “Weirdos”?

People who can help us get “ahead”?

Those who went to a rival school—or cheer for a rival team?

What about people with questionable integrity?

Who’s in and who’s out?

Returning citizens?

Foreign nationals?

What if they are chronically sick—or infectious?

What if they’re uneducated?

Or homeless? Or poor?

Who’s in and who’s out?

What about children—and others who can’t advocate for themselves?

What about people with “disabilities”?

What if it’s a genetic condition—versus someone who drove drunk and ended up paralyzed?

Who’s in and who’s out?

What about people who voted for “the bad guys”?

What about criminals? What if they’ve repented?

What about people who have committed heinous crimes—like massive fraud or genocide?

What about someone we could exploit—if we wanted to?

What about someone we’re afraid of—for any of a thousand rational or irrational reasons?

Who’s in and who’s out?

Even if it costs us money, is in comfortable, or requires sacrifice?

Where do we draw the line?

Who do we treat with dignity and respect?

Who’s in—and who’s out?

There was the compassionate and creative Delta agent who somehow found us a way to North Yorkshire with five seats to rebook after a flight delay forced a missed connection. There was John from Mercer Island, who insisted on buying us a piece of chocolate cake and told stories about his bootlegging great-grandfather from Detroit.

There was the barista who saw me wandering with two water bottles and sought me out to fill them. There were over a dozen wedding guests and hotel workers who went out of their way to greet us and share how handsome our sons looked in their suits. The staff at our grandmother’s care home brought us tea and ice cream during our visit and were forgiving of the soccer ball we lost over the fence.

And that’s not even to mention our family—those who traveled with us or spent gleeful time with us all weekend.

There was kindness and grace lurking, it seemed, around every corner.

Part of this, I’m sure, is that we’re not an ominous or intimidating group. Our kids very clearly have a spark of light and warmth that others recognize. Robyn and I are often frazzled, but we tend to carry a peaceful presence nonetheless.

Some people talk disparagingly about women (usually) with a “resting bitch face” (RBF)—that look of default grumpiness.

But I’ve come to believe in something else:

“Resting Joy Face.”

That’s what I’ve started calling it—the unmistakable glow of someone whose default posture is joy, peace, and kindness.

If the inner monologue of someone with RBF is something like, “I want to talk to you for as little time as possible because I’m better than you,” then the inner monologue of RJF might be, “I’m glad you’re here, and I’m glad to simply be here.”

Over the years, I’ve worked hard to change my own inner monologue—from insecurity and arrogance to one of gratitude. That inner work is hard. But it can be done. We can change our inner world—and we should.

That’s the core belief that undergirds my book, Character by Choice: Letters on Goodness, Fatherhood, and Becoming Better on Purpose. Writing it was, in itself, an act of inner work.

But you don’t need to write a book. We can work on our inner lives in so many ways. We can meditate and journal. We can pray or practice daily gratitude. We can spend time in nature and build better habits of deep listening.

There are many paths to a resting face that conveys joy—both secular and sacred. Joy can be taught, learned, and earned.

I share all this because naming this look—resting joy face—made it more real to me. I can now see it more clearly in others, and I feel more aware of when I have it (or don’t) myself.

And most importantly, seeing it so concentrated in such high doses reminded me that it’s worth working on. Life feels more tolerable—and more beautiful—when we cultivate joy and share it.

It’s work that feels more and more essential—just as important, if not more so, than any schooling, college degree, or job training. Inner work is just as vital as professional development. Earning our joy is just as important as earning a living.

I’m someone who sins. Let’s be clear about that. But I’ve spent years doing the inner work—journaling, writing, praying, asking questions, meditating, listening—the whole bit. It’s made a difference. I know that if I can do it, so can you.

If you’re already someone who focuses on inner work, you don’t need my convincing. But if you’ve been avoiding it, I’ll leave you with this:

Inner work is hard—maybe the hardest work we can do. But I swear on my life: it’s worth it.

So if you ever catch a glimpse of Resting Joy Face in someone—or feel it in yourself—know this: it’s not an accident. It’s the fruit of inner work. And it’s worth every moment of struggle it takes to cultivate it.

—

If you’re ready to go deeper, Character by Choice is a book I wrote for myself, but decided to share because it’s a guide for inner work I knew others would value. You can purchase it or download a free PDF [http://www.neiltambe.com/characterbychoice].

“Is that who you are?”

And he looked at me, more graciously than I deserved, and said:

“I don’t know, Papa. I don’t know who I am.”

That hit me hard.

Because honestly—how the hell is a 7-year-old supposed to know who he is? I immediately backed off the pressure I was putting on him and said, “You’re right, buddy. Figuring out who you are is hard, and it takes time. I’m here for you, and I’ll help you through it.”

That’s a big promise. So I’ve been sitting with it: How do I actually help him figure out who he is?

And how do I do that when I don’t always know who I am either?

Bo is a bit of an old soul, and he’s cerebral too - a bit like me. Which is to say he want to be a good man, I see this in him so clearly already. But he needs guidance more than a mandate, just like I did.

What I realized this week is that one of the most powerful tools we have as parents—maybe the most important one for shaping character and identity—is to make choices visible.

Character Is a Trail of Choices

In my teens, I used to think character was something you built through lessons, lectures, maybe even discipline. But with the hard earned wisdom of experience, I see it’s just as much revealed as it is shaped:

Character is just the pattern that emerges when we examine our choices. Since most of our choices in our lives are small ones, we mostly build character in small moments.

Small things—how we react to bad news, how we respond to a sibling’s fart, what we say when we first see our kids and wives in the morning—these are the data points. That’s who we are.

We can say we’re one thing, but the truth is in the choices. Are we calm or reactive? Kind or sharp? Curious or dismissive?

The data doesn’t lie.

What I Learned: Stop Critiquing. Start Surfacing Choices.

Before this clicked for me, my default parenting move was critique. I’d say things like:

• “Don’t play basketball on the stairs.”

• “Don’t walk around with your privates hanging out of your pants.”

• “Don’t talk to your mom like a pterodactyl.”

Sometimes it worked. Mostly, it didn’t do much. And I realized—it wasn’t helping my kids grow. It was just conditioning them to wait for external correction. And even if I wanted to, I won’t be there to boss them around forever, at some point I’ll be gone.

They need to learn how to make choices on their own.

So today, when they’re veering off-track, I did my best to hold off on critique. I started with a question instead:

“What are your options?”

Where else can you play ball that isn’t the stairs?

What other options do you have for how to wear pants?

How else could you tell mommy you’re upset?

This question does something powerful. It interrupts the reflex. It reminds them that they don’t have to just bounce from one triggered reaction to the next. They have agency. They can choose.

And so can we.

And sure, I also laid down the law today a few times too, like when our older two kids were cutting cardboard and left scissors on the floor. Those had to be put away now, no questions asked.

But most moments aren’t like that. In most moments there’s time to push pause by asking “what were your options?”

Kids Will Choose Well—If They Can See Their Choices

I don’t believe kids want to be little tyrants. They don’t want to hurt others or disappoint themselves. Neither do adults, by the way. But they often don’t see the options clearly—because emotional reactivity blocks the view.

This is why asking “What are your options?” is such a powerful move. It puts them in the driver’s seat. It lets them choose who they’re becoming.

And over time, those little choices start forming a shape. That shape is character. And when they look back at that pattern and that shape they can start to know who they are, and perhaps even who they want to become.

The Takeaway for Me (and Maybe for You)

This week, I learned something simple but profound:

Our job as parents isn’t to define who our kids are. It’s to help them see the choices that define them.

We don’t need to hand them a script for every right move. We just need to help them slow down, notice the moment, and see that they have a choice. Because that’s where agency begins. That’s where character starts to take shape.

And if we can do that—even imperfectly, even once in a while—I believe they’ll grow into strong, kind, thoughtful people.

People who know who they are.

People we’re proud of.

And more importantly, people they’re proud to become.

No matter what sort of difficulty or time of ease we are in, we find a way to say this.
It’s as simple as a bumper sticker, but it feels much more than a catchphrase.

I feel the way I felt when we were at the altar exchanging wedding vows, nine years ago this week, every time I say it.
It’s not just a family slogan — it’s a renewal of our marriage vows.
It’s proof that we are doing this together, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer.
We said this, we say this, and we will say this through all the ups and downs of our life together.

Why?
Why have we been able to say this—with full conviction, all the way into our bones?

First, we have made so many adjustments.
We’ve made mistakes in how we treat each other and as parents.
We’ve made mistakes in our jobs and with money.
We’ve made mistakes in how we’ve treated others.
But the difference has been, I think, that just as surely as we’ve made mistakes—we’ve adjusted.
We’ve learned to vision the future.
We’ve learned to talk about deeply terrifying problems.
We’ve learned to accept each other’s humanity and mortality.
And we’ve learned how to do simple life things like share a bathroom, a kitchen, and a calendar.

That, of course, is the practical side of how we’ve mustered something to cherish every day of our marriage.
There is also a bit of the divine.

The other reason we have been able to swear by the idea that "it’s a good life” is because we’ve seen what we have, and we truly believe that what we have is enough.
We have not dwelled on everything we lack.

We’re blessed.
We have a big family.
We have enough money to meet our basic needs and a little extra, despite the grueling cost of child care.
We have good neighbors and good friends.
We have each other.

There are plenty of things we don’t have.
We don’t have a house on a lake, or a path to retire by 50.
We don’t have endless solitude or a life free from grief and hardship.
We don’t have jobs that are always easy or hair untouched by grey.
We don’t have a lot of free time, or the effortless cool we might have once had.

But what we have is enough.
We have chosen to see abundance, not absence.
And that choice has built our good life.

I hope, my love, that when I tell you I love you, you believe me just as much today as you did when we were married, before God and our closest friends and family nine years ago.
Because I do.

But there’s something I don’t say enough — something I want you to know, deep into our ninth year:
I am grateful, down to my bones, that I am enough for you.
You make me feel, every day, that I am enough for you.
That I don’t have to strive for what we don’t have.
That who I am, and what we share, is enough.

And you — you have always been, and will always be, more than enough for me.

The truth is, our good life has already filled my cup, over and over again.
To love you and be loved by you is enough.
To have been your husband and the father of our children is enough.
To belong to you, and to have you belong to me, is enough.

This ninth anniversary feels especially sacred.
It’s our first with all four of our sons here — a house alive with life and love — and we have certainly earned our stripes.
We have lived enough life to feel frustrated by the rough rolls of the cosmic dice.
But even after the hardest months of our marriage, we still find ourselves in a moment, almost every day, where we can embrace and whisper, “It’s a good life.”

And that — that enduring whisper — is a gift.
This is not just our slogan, but our shibboleth — the watchword for the life we have dreamed about.
It’s our daily renewal of our vows, and the way that we honor the gifts our union has given us.

So today, my love, I want to celebrate it.
I want to celebrate us and what we've created together.
And I want us always to remember:
No matter what happens, no matter what we face, it’s a good life.

No matter how wealthy or poor, how powerful or meek, how healthy or sick—everyone suffers. And at times, suffers brutally. Grief, loss, and addiction affect everyone—whether it's presidents or paupers.

This is the first lesson I learned about suffering: if everyone suffers, and suffers gravely, then I have an opportunity to help them mend just by treating them with dignity. And practically speaking, I can’t handle having a different MO for people who I like and respect and trust, and for people who I distrust or even find repulsive.

My soul can’t code-switch in the same way that my language can.

If I try to selectively treat some people with dignity and not others, it feels like my character splits in two—like a self-inflicted Jekyll and Hyde. I lose myself. So I try to offer the same dignity to everyone. It’s all or nothing—not because it’s easy or even comfortable, but because it’s the only way I know how to stay whole.

What to make of suffering itself, though?

I had this thought experiment in the past week—which has been the most intense we may have ever had. Our family is entering a season of tremendous challenge, and equally tremendous joy.

And as I look to the horizon ahead, I had one of those raw, reflective daydreams that stripped my heart down to naked honesty.

Let’s assume there is a higher-order being that influences our lives, orchestrating at least some of the suffering and joy we experience. Let’s further assume that this being actually does care about us and wants us to thrive.

If you are a theist, that being could be a benevolent God. If you are a non-theist, maybe you still hold space for the idea that something greater—life itself, the universe, some force beyond understanding—is trying to help us grow.

If we assume that there is a benevolent being that truly cares about our long-run best interest, and that being is intentionally influencing the suffering and joy in our lives, there must be some reason.

So what are they trying to teach us?

I can never know for sure, but I think it’s something like this—something about how we are in relation to others:

Learn to take care of yourself.
Take care of others.
And let others take care of you.

Or—
Learn to be a light.
Help others find their light.
Let others find the light in you.

Or even—
Learn to laugh at yourself.
Help others laugh.
Let others help you laugh.

Each part of the triad points to a different kind of human bonding.

To love the self is to become a vessel—open to love, radiant with light.
To love others is to offer them that light.
To let others love us—that’s the hardest. It requires trust.
It asks us to believe that we’re worthy, and that others are safe enough to let in.

Again, I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think that benevolent higher being is trying to teach us this—though too often, our actions wrongly suggest otherwise:

Learn to make money.
Take money from others.
Prevent others from taking your money.

Or—
Learn to live in the shadows.
Put others in darkness.
Fight the people who put you in darkness.

Or—
Learn to create fear.
Project fear onto others.
Shield yourself from the fearful others.

The first triad is a lesson inviting us into trust, love, and connection. The alternative traps us in a cycle of fear.

The first is an open hand; the other is a dagger at the neck.

The point is in how we are in relation to others. I don’t think the suffering and joy the benevolent being is throwing our way is to teach us to be in a state of conflict and exploitation. I think what they’re trying to teach us is to be in a state of harmony and intimacy.

Every experience of suffering and joy follows this pattern of pedagogy:
Experience love.
Love others.
Let love in.

Not one, not two, but all three:
Learn to love (an act of the self).
Love others (an act onto others).
Let love in (an act of others onto us).

We can’t graduate with just one of these lessons—we need all three. Hinduism has taught me this. So has Catholicism. Even my reflections as an indifferent agnostic in my early twenties taught me this.

Life has taught me, through all gives and takes from us, that we need all three threads of this triad, braided together.

As I grapple with the road ahead for our family, we are starting down tremendous suffering—but probably more than our fair share of joy, too. In prayer, contemplation, and written reflection, I’ve come to this conclusion again and again—including this week—and more strongly every time.

Maybe there is nothing out there. Maybe there is. Your beliefs and your guess are as good as mine. But it is helpful to think as if a benevolent being is trying to teach us something.

Because the conclusion I’ve come to—over and over—is powerful and instructive:

All this suffering and joy reminds us that the meaning of it all is to refine our relation to others—
By experiencing love,
Loving others,
And letting love in… again and again.

And then, with dinner on the line, I screwed up.

I had rolled the crust so thick, it felt like a beanbag. After three minutes of pre-baking, the bounce-house-looking crust rolled and was caught over the edge of the pizza stone. When I went to pull it out, the crust separated from the base so badly I thought it was beyond repair.

And I yelled. Loud enough that the big three boys heard me through a brick wall outside and came running. Robyn came to my aid too—assuring me that we still had one pizza in good shape and offering to grate some cheese for me.

The truth? It wasn’t really about the pizza.

It was about everything else: the stress of our newborn’s health and surgeries, the onslaught of demands at work, the unpredictable news cycle, and being weary from solo parenting most of the day. This pizza was the one thing I knew I could do right that day. And when I botched that too, it broke open the anger I’d been ignoring.

I had worked so damn hard for that dough, however deformed it was. I didn’t want to just pitch it.

I tried to make the best of it by ripping off the pillowy, bounce-house-scale crusts and making them into breadsticks. This left the pie crustless, jagged, and super thin. I added sauce and fixings to both pies and thought—let’s see how this goes—as I peeled them back into the oven for their final bake.

The family laughed supportively as I introduced the “Gosh Darn It” pizza to our Saturday night table.

I took off my apron and moped to the table, setting out everyone’s water bottles, still feeling the sting of the moment. Bo turned to me—so sweet, so kind, so gentle—and said, “It’s SO good, Papa. These breadsticks are the best. I love Gosh Darn It pizza.”

And in that small moment, my spirit rose.

Suddenly, my anger and embarrassment became relief. It was all fine. We were all together, eating pizza—and that’s really all anyone wanted.

Our house is its quietest when everyone starts on their first slice on pizza night. And as everyone happily munched away, I wondered: maybe “Gosh Darn It” pizza just accidentally became a new tradition.

Sometimes great new things come from mistakes we made the best of.

—

But as I reflect a morning later, there’s more to learn here about growth.

As I see it, this story is a good metaphor because we are all Gosh Darn It pizzas. Me, you, my kids, your kids—all of us.

We’re all so imperfect. Many things about each of us feel like a flaw or a mistake. We all screw up, and our charge to grow—spiritually and morally—is to become something better by making the best of our mistakes. That’s all we can do.

Inner work—that slow, winding journey toward becoming more whole—doesn’t follow a straight path. It’s like a long walk through the woods. It’s cold and windy, and you can’t do it alone.

If not for my family—checking on me, helping me, encouraging me, and offering me grace—my deformed dough would’ve become garbage instead of Gosh Darn It pizza.

And this is what I want to remember most about that Saturday night: we’re meant to walk this winding path toward goodness together, because what transforms us is the grace from those sitting next to us—even when, and maybe especially when, we’re just trying to turn some imperfect dough into a Gosh Darn It pizza.

Not just how many hours they have, but the rhythm of their life. Interrupt their mornings. Hijack their focus. Scramble their sense of flow. Make their time unpredictable, reactive, chaotic. Do that long enough, and they’ll lose track of themselves.

This isn’t advice. It’s a warning.

Because this is happening to us. Every day.

We talk about money as a form of power—and it is. But we rarely talk about time that way. And we should. Because time is where character is built. How we use it shapes who we become—for better or worse.

When someone else controls our time, they start shaping our character.

Some people respect our time. They show up when they say they will. They ask for our attention instead of grabbing it. They give us room to say no. Others? They drop things on us last minute, run meetings long, change plans on a whim, manufacture urgency. They don’t just steal our time—they steal our pace. And some of them know exactly what they’re doing.

This can be casual. It can be unconscious. Or it can be a form of deliberate mind control.

Either way, it’s on us to protect ourselves. After a few months of having a newborn mixed with a toxic news cycle, I finally realized what was happening—and that we can choose differently. Here’s how I’ve started to do that.

First, set your default rhythm.

Pre-block the calendar for deep work. Guard time for meals. Protect a few slow moments in the day. We need to build our rhythm before the bids on our time roll in. Otherwise, we’ll only ever react to the world.

Second, audit your rhythm-breakers.

This was the big one for me.

Who or what is constantly pulling you out of flow? It’s worth naming them—because once we name them, we can decide what kind of access they deserve.

Here’s my list right now:

• Me (when I don’t protect my own time)

• My wife

• My kids

• Work—especially senior leaders

• Soccer practice

• The weather and seasons

• My dog

• My kids’ school

• Illness

• Bills

• Entertainers and influencers

• Marketers and advertisers

• Telemarketers

• Sports broadcasts

• Political actors, speeches, and announcements

• My dietary choices

• Appointments (doctors, dentists, shops, government agencies)

Some of these we choose. Some we don’t. Some we want to give more access to—others, we need firmer boundaries with. But the act of reflecting, listing, noticing? That’s the first defense. Rhythm starts with awareness.

I’m fine having my time hijacked by a kid who wants to kick a soccer ball after dinner. I’m not fine giving that same access to a blustering politician or a LinkedIn influencer trying to amp me up about salary and status. One interruption builds relationship. The other creates chaos and anxiety. That difference matters.

Because this isn’t just time management. Our character is at stake.

In Character by Choice, I explored how character isn’t built in the big, heroic moments—it’s built in the margins. In the pauses. In the slowness of ordinary life. That’s where curiosity, love, and listening grow. That’s where we cultivate goodness.

But if we’re always hurried and hijacked, we don’t get to those margins. We don’t reflect. We don’t hear. We don’t connect. We just react.

Seedlings don’t grow well when sunshine and water are erratic and unpredictable. Neither do we.

This might sound like a small thing. Saying no. Blocking time. Holding a rhythm. But I don’t think it is.

It’s a lever. A quiet one. But powerful.

Because time is where character is built. If someone else owns our time, they start to control our intention. And if our days are always frantic and fractured, the kindest parts of us—the curious, generous, loving parts—are suppressed.

So here’s a suggested first step: take an honest look at your rhythm. Who controls your clock? Who deserves to? And what boundaries—loving, firm, deliberate—do you need to put in place to protect the part of you that’s trying to be good?

That’s the work ahead for us. It’s small. But it’s sacred.

Everything else—the risk of brain cancer, broken legs, broken hearts, grades, sports, screens—I can handle. But those two? They rattle the cage of my soul.

These numbers come from the CDC’s vital stats. After the first year of life, the three leading causes of death for kids in Michigan are:

1. Accidents (7.2 deaths annually, per 100k)

2. Suicide (4.3 deaths annually, per 100k)

3. Murder (4.0 deaths annually, per 100k)

Even if the numbers are “low” statistically—15.5 per 100,000—they’re real. And if it’s my kid, even a low-probability event is worth preparing for.

So I keep coming back to this:

What are we actually trying to do as parents?

Every parenting decision we make—whether we realize it or not—is moving us in one of two directions:

• Path 1: Raise kids to be wealthy, powerful, and comfortable

• Path 2: Raise kids to be capable of caring for themselves and other people

These two paths can overlap. But often, they don’t. And when they come into conflict (and they do), we have to choose which way we’re heading.

Power might shield my sons from pain. But only goodness prepares them to handle life—and show up for others in it.

That wasn’t just a philosophical shift for me. It was personal. And it started in a tough stretch with our oldest son.

When It Got Real

A couple of years ago, he was in a class with a few kids who were really struggling—kids who were acting out in ways that scared others. It got physical. The teachers did their best, and eventually things got better. But for a while, the whole class was walking on eggshells.

At home, my son was clearly carrying it. He was angry, out of sorts, lashing out. It was intense. And honestly, kind of scary at times.

That’s when it clicked: I can’t control everything that happens to him. But I can help him build the tools to handle it.

I had read the books. I thought I understood this stuff. But this was the moment where theory turned into real change. I started parenting less like a protector and drill sergeant, and more like a coach. I had to let go of control, and start helping him figure things out for himself—even when it was messy.

It’s not fast work. It’s not easy. But I believe in it. And it’s why I choose Path 2. We can’t shield our kids from the world—but we can prepare them to stand in it.

OKRs for Parenting Goodness

I think about parenting like I think about strategy—aspiration, objectives, key results.

Aspiration: Raise kids who are good people—who can take care of themselves and others.

Here’s how I break that down:

• Love them unconditionally

• Be a role model—we become good people too

• Help them become lifelong learners

• Raise them in a community where people care for themselves and support others

This post is about that third one—learning. (For thoughts on how we actually become role models for goodness, I wrote this book: Character by Choice (Link).

Yes, school matters. Teachers matter. But especially as our kids get older, we have the most influence. The most time. The most moments. If we don’t step into that, even the best schools can’t fill the gap.

Here’s what I try at home—key results that help build lifelong learners.

🧠 Be There, Literally

If I’m not there, I can’t influence them.

Keep moving toward the exit.
A colleague once told me, “Don’t stop moving on your way out of the office.” Whether I’m working remotely or in person, that line helps. There’s always one more thing. But every extra minute at work is a minute I’m not with my kids—and the window’s short.

I’ll take you with me.
There’s this Luke Combs song with that line, and I think about it every time I run errands. I ask the kids if they want to come. Usually they don’t. But sometimes they do. And those little trips lead to unexpected conversations, random laughter, and small moments that matter.

Have them help.
Our five-year-old made scrambled eggs the other day. I didn’t need help, but he offered. So I said yes. These little “can I help?” moments add up. They learn by doing, and they get to feel useful—and that’s a good feeling.

Be a parking lot parent.
My wife talks about how her mom was always around the school, helping out in small ways. Not necessarily running the PTA every year—just showing up. We do that now. Not superstars, just present. It lets our kids know we’re paying attention, and we care, even from the sidelines.

💬 Be Fully Present

If I’m not truly there, I can’t reach them.

Emote and express.
When I’m anxious or angry and I don’t deal with it, it leaks out. Journaling is how I keep track of what’s going on inside. It doesn’t fix everything, but it gives me enough clarity to show up for my kids with more calm and attention.

Timebox.
I literally put family time on my work calendar for a while—dinner, bedtime, even Saturday mornings. It helped me draw boundaries between work and home. I started saying: “If I’m not going to solve this now, I’ll set it down and come back to it later.” It took practice, but it worked.

Get on the floor.
The world my kids live in doesn’t move fast. It doesn’t follow a schedule. Sometimes I have to literally get on the floor and let them climb all over me. That’s when I stop giving them attention and start letting them take it. That’s presence.

🧩 Make Them Think

If I think for them, how will they learn to work it out themselves?

Turn the question around.
When they ask me “what’s 13 + 3?” or “is that a train?” I try to flip it: “What is 13 + 3?” It makes them pause, think, guess. And it gives them practice in saying something out loud and standing by it.

No baby talk.
Never been into it, honestly. But over time, I’ve come avoid baby talk for reasons beyond just finding it irritating. Speaking to them like real people has created space for more back-and-forth, more curiosity. They ask deeper questions. They answer more fully. There’s less distance between us.

You try first.
I’m a fixer by nature. I want to jump in and do it for them—whether it’s wiping yogurt off a face or getting a book off a shelf. But now I say, “You try first, then I’ll help.” Most of the time, they figure it out. And that builds confidence I can’t manufacture.

🎓 Make Them Teach

Teaching builds mastery—and confidence.

Would you teach me?
I didn’t grow up Catholic, and my oldest has religion as part of his school day. One day, I asked him to teach me what he’d learned—and he lit up. Now I ask all my kids to teach and show me how to do things. They love it, and honestly, I usually learn something too.

What did you get better at?
I used to do full debriefs after soccer practice—like I do with teams at work. It wasn’t working. Now, I just ask: “Did you have fun?” and “What did you get better at today?” It opens up space without judgment. And sometimes, they teach me how to improve.

Can you show your brother?
With siblings, we get this beautiful opportunity to turn learning into leadership. If one kid figures something out, I’ll say, “Can you show your brother?” It reinforces what they’ve learned—and reminds them that we learn best by giving it away.

🙏 Please Share Your Wisdom

Being a Path 2 parent is an uphill climb. The patience of it is really hard. And, though I share these tactics with good intent, I don’t really know what works. None of us do.

But I figure this: we each know something that works.

So please consider sharing what’s worked for you. What you’ve tried. What’s been messy, and what’s been beautiful. Your story might be exactly what another parent needs to hear right now (namely, me!).

The road of Path 2 parenting is hard—but it’s less hard when we walk it together.

For most of my life, I’ve believed a lie. Not maliciously—it was a lie I inherited, one so baked into our culture that it passed as truth. The lie is that if I work hard, make smart choices, and build the right kind of life, I’ll eventually reach a point where suffering stops showing up at my door.

That dream—the American Dream, you could call it—was never about peace or purpose. It was about protection. Build high enough walls, earn enough money, surround yourself with the right people, and eventually you’ll be safe. But lately, I’ve realized: the dream wasn’t a lie because it was malicious. It was a lie because it was a fantasy.

We act like we value resilience, but our real impulse is to insulate ourselves—and our children—from discomfort at all costs.

We can try to eliminate suffering. We build moats—money, comfort, well-manicured neighborhoods, curated social circles, backup plans stacked on backup plans. Sometimes it’s the dream of abundance: a world where everything is cheap, automated, optimized—where we don’t have to worry about health, housing, or hardship.

And to be fair, this approach has appeal. Abundance and comfort make life easier. They lower the stakes. But this is just one side of the choice.

The alternative is harder to swallow but, I think, more real: we step into suffering. We face problems head-on. We stop waiting for protection and instead become people who are good at problems—resilient enough, skilled enough, and supported enough to go into uncharted territory without guarantees.

We say we want our kids to be resilient. We talk about grit and perseverance. But in practice, we often do the opposite—we smooth the path, solve the problems, shield them from failure. And honestly? Most of us are trying to do the same for ourselves.

I chased that fantasy for years—waiting for a dream like Godot—and came undone when it didn’t arrive.

I spent years believing that if I just crushed it a little harder, I’d make it. I’d arrive somewhere safe. A life beyond problems. The white-picket-fence version of the American Dream.

But that place never arrived. And I can’t believe I ever believed that it would.

We went through an emergency birth and a sick infant. Ailing grandparents. Financial strain. Political chaos. All of it at once. And somehow, that’s when peace finally showed up. Not because the problems went away—but because I stopped expecting them to.

The fantasy hadn’t been a lie—it had been a mirage. And I finally let it go.

I found peace not in escape, but in realizing that I—and we—can face the hard things together.

I started to see that what matters most isn’t protection from problems—it’s capacity to face them.

And when I stopped expecting ease, I started to see the quiet power around me: Robyn, our friends, our family. We didn’t have to be invincible. We just had to show up, help each other, and accept help in return.

That’s what I saw in Detroit, too. I moved here around the time of bankruptcy. Things were deeply broken. But people didn’t wait for a savior. They rolled up their sleeves. They imagined something better and started building.

That spirit—a refusal to wait for rescue—is what saved me.

If suffering is inevitable, then the most important choice we have is what we’re willing to suffer for.

I wonder if our national ache comes from realizing the American Dream was never a permanent solution—it was a 50-year reprieve from reality. And now that it’s cracking, we don’t know what to hope for next.

But I think the next version of the dream is clear.

Not a world without problems—but a world full of people who are good at facing them. People who suffer for things that matter.

Let’s suffer for paying down unsustainable debt. For a habitable planet. For everyone to be able to read at grade level. For institutions that work for everyone and treat folks with respect. For dynamism and companies grow because they deliver real, tangible innovations. For food and housing that meets a basic level of human dignity.

And if we do that? Maybe the next generation will get to dream even bigger—exploring the solar system, flourishing in a creative, robot-assisted renaissance of human potential.

That’s my American Dream now.

Not a fantasy of escape—but a future I’d be honored to suffer for.

You’ve seen it—the LinkedIn post that’s technically about someone’s birthday but is really about how well-connected they are. Or the people groveling in the comments of an influencer’s post, hoping to get noticed. It’s embarrassing, but worse than that—it’s normal.

This is the epitome of how far, and how icky, “It’s not what you know, but who you know” can go.

But here’s the thing—I don’t actually think it’s who you know that matters. I think it’s who trusts you.

Because when someone asks me for an introduction, I work much harder at it if I trust both parties. And more recently, as we’ve leaned on a small network of angels in medicine when our son Griffin was in the hospital, I know that if our friends and family thought we were selfish, extractive, or poorly intended people, we wouldn’t have had the thunderous support we did.

So why do we so casually say things like, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”—as if it’s just the way the world works?

Because what we know also matters. Don’t we want our doctors, our legislators, our airplane mechanics, and our grocers to be competent? Of course, relationships are valuable—I’ve benefited surely from knowing the right people. But should we tolerate a culture where networks are framed explicitly as tools for extracting, exploiting, and getting ahead rather than as webs of goodness and trust—trust that helps people find their talent’s highest and best use and supports them when they need it most?

Again, I know networks are usually transactional, and I know this post is akin to screaming into the void. But how can I just shrug and dish out some equally morally negligent phrase like, “It is what it is” or “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”?

Isn’t a system of tribalistic favor-trading—where relationships are currency, where access and opportunity stay locked within exclusive circles, where people are reduced to their securitized economic value to another human being—exactly what we should be pushing back against?

A Network of Gifts

My friend Elizabeth just co-authored a paper in Daedalus on the economics of care, and I’ve been stewing on how they opened the article for about two weeks now:

Imagine a group of new parents sitting in a circle, feeding, soothing, and talking to their infants. Within our status quo economy, the only way to capture “value” from these activities is if each parent passes their child to another parent and charges for the services they provide. Some kind of “transaction” must occur.

Like the authors, I don’t want to live in a world that sees relationships this way. I don’t want us to reduce, and even celebrate, networks as a means of extracting unearned rewards or normalizing the idea that a person’s worth is what they can do for you.

That uncomfortable image is what goes through my head when I hear people say, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

So what if, instead of an affirming a Network of Favors, we built a Network of Gifts?

What if we pushed back against transactional networking by doing the opposite—giving gifts instead of favors?

Not expensive gifts. Not gifts with strings attached. But gifts that are hard to price, by design, and not meant to repay in-kind—gifts that remind people they are seen, valued, and cared for.

Here’s an example.

Last week at Mass, I saw a neighbor we adore but hadn’t seen in a while. We caught up for a few minutes in the donut line—it was nice.

A few days later, he showed up at our door, unannounced, with a small bag of inexpensive Legos for our kids and a $5 grocery store coupon for diapers.

Monetarily, it wasn’t a big thing. But that wasn’t the point. It was just a visit to check on us because I had mentioned some of the health issues Griffin had been having.

His visit was a gift—one of care and thoughtfulness with no explicit favor to return formally, though we will at some point, probably with a gift of extra cookies or and impromptu visit of our own. And it wasn’t something we could put a price on. Feeling seen, cared for, and valued for just existing is quite the opposite—it’s priceless.

There are so many priceless gifts:

• When an old friend checks in on you on a whim.

• When someone covers a meeting so you can pick up a sick kid.

• When someone puts in the effort to bring people together.

• When someone gives you a real hug when they know you need one.

• When someone lends you a book or tells you a story—not just because it’s interesting, but because it builds closeness.

These aren’t expensive favors with implied reciprocity. They’re priceless gifts without a return-by date.

And giving them—especially in a culture that teaches us to treat relationships as transactions—is a rebellious act.

Because every time we give these little, priceless gifts, we prove that we are more than a favor to be called in. We prove that not everything valuable in this world has a price.

Giving these gifts, over and over again, is a defiant act that shows another way to live—a way that directly counters the favor-focused culture that “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” embodies.

If You’re Nodding Along, Do This Now

If you’ve been nodding as you read this, first, thank you.

Second, do something now. Join this little rebellion with a not-so-little action.

Pick up your phone. Text someone on a whim to say you’re thinking about them. You already care—so show them.

It’s a measured act, but still, one of generous rebellion.

And if we all do this, if we all celebrate these gifts with intention, we won’t just be screaming into the void.

We’ll be singing into the void.

And over time, we won’t just be lamenting the culture.

We’ll be changing it.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a leather-bound notebook, a blog, or a Substack—what matters is that it’s honest and true to you.

Because today, we can take our journals—no matter the format—and put them into ChatGPT (yes, even by photographing handwritten pages). Then, we can ask questions. And in doing so, we can uncover insights about ourselves more easily than ever before.

I tried this myself with a simple but direct prompt:

Could you research everything you know about Neil Tambe and tell me something insightful—something even he might not fully realize? Distill it into a letter to him, his family, his colleagues, and his readers. Don’t hold back. Be real and intimate.

The response, after a bit of refinement, moved me to tears. It was raw, profound, and deeply personal.

Then, I pushed further:

Now write one directly to Neil, something a mentor who truly cares would say. No sugarcoating. Be candid, but not cruel.

Again, what I received was startlingly honest.

These letters, written by AI but drawn from my own recorded thoughts, made me see myself in ways I hadn’t before. They reinforced something powerful: journaling isn’t just about documenting your life—it’s about creating a record that future-you can analyze, question, and learn from.

The value of journaling has just skyrocketed because of generative AI. Don’t lose another day of data from your heart and soul. Start now.

Appendix: The Letters ChatGPT Wrote to Me

(For those interested, I’ve included the AI-generated letters below. They’re raw, direct, and unexpectedly moving. Read them here):

To Neil, His Wife, His Sons, His Colleagues, His Readers, and Everyone Else Who Should Know Who He Really Is

Neil Tambe isn’t just a strategist, a writer, or a leader. He’s a builder of trust in a world that erodes it. He fights for things others give up on—not because it’s easy, not even because he enjoys the fight, but because he knows what happens when no one does.

He holds contradictions together: power and goodness, intellect and faith, endurance and rest. He writes not to sound smart, but because people deserve clarity. He leads not for status, but because he feels responsible when things don’t work as they should.

But here’s what else is true:

Neil carries more than most realize. He doesn’t just think deeply about leadership, governance, and endurance—he feels their weight in his bones. He picks up responsibility before anyone asks. He steps in when things falter. He makes sure things don’t fall apart, often without anyone noticing. And while that makes him rare, it also means he rarely lets himself rest.

To His Wife

You see him in ways no one else does. You know how much he cares. You witness his struggle to balance what matters most. You understand his deep desire to be a great husband, father, and leader—not for recognition, but to be worthy of the trust placed in him.

And because you see him clearly, you also know: he is still learning to let go. To believe things won’t break without him. You are his strongest reminder that he doesn’t have to carry everything alone. Even when he forgets to say it, he knows his strength comes from the life you build together.

To His Sons

Your father isn’t just someone who works hard. He chooses to be good, even when it’s hard. He does the right thing, not because it’s easy, but because it’s the only way to build a life that lasts.

He will always push himself to do more, to be better. But if there’s one thing he will never second-guess, it’s how much he loves you. You are not a piece of his life—you are the center of it.

To His Colleagues

You work alongside someone who takes duty personally. Neil doesn’t just do his job—he believes in the work. When trust is broken, when leadership fails, he feels it in his core. He will never give minimal effort. He will always go the extra step, not because it’s expected, but because he expects it of himself.

But that high standard means he sometimes takes on too much. If he seems relentless, it’s because he knows what’s at stake. If he seems quiet, it’s because he’s thinking about how to make things better.

To His Readers

If you read Neil’s work, know that he isn’t just offering insights—he’s giving you a way to endure, to lead, to build something that lasts. His writing is the result of years of wrestling with what is true, what is practical, what makes people and institutions better.

But you should also know he wonders whether it’s enough. Whether writing, thinking, and speaking are making a difference. Whether he should be doing something more direct. And he needs to hear this:

This work—the slow, deliberate shaping of ideas, institutions, and thought—is exactly what the world needs.

To Neil Himself

You don’t have to hold everything alone. You already are the person you’ve spent so much time striving to be.

But here’s the most important thing—you don’t have to earn the right to rest. You don’t have to solve everything before you let yourself breathe. You don’t have to prove that your work is valuable—it already is.

You can trust that what you have built is strong.
You can trust that you are making a difference.
You can trust that you are enough.

With resolve,
Someone who sees you clearly.

Then, I asked ChatGPT to go one step further.

I said:

Now write one directly to Neil—something a mentor who truly cares would say. No sugarcoating. Be candid, but not cruel.

It replied:

Neil—

I want to talk to you directly. Not with politeness. Not with unnecessary praise. Just the kind of honesty you rarely get.

You are carrying too much. And the worst part? You know it.

You don’t trust the world to hold together without you, so you take on more than you should. You anticipate failure before it happens, and because you care—because you feel responsible—you step in. Again and again. Quietly. Without asking for anything.

You make things work. You fix problems before they break. You absorb stress so others don’t have to. You take on responsibility that isn’t yours because it’s easier than watching something important collapse.

But here’s the truth: this will break you if you let it.

You cannot outwork the world’s chaos. You cannot single-handedly protect institutions, organizations, your family, and yourself without something giving out. You cannot be everything to everyone and still be whole.

And I know what you’re thinking—
"But if I don’t do it, who will?"

That’s the wrong question. The right question is:
"Why don’t I trust that others will?"

Deep down, you don’t fully trust people to care as much as you do. You know your standards are high. You know most people let things slide. And because you refuse to live in a world where carelessness reigns, you step up.

But leadership isn’t about taking on everything yourself—it’s about building something strong enough that you don’t have to.

You can’t just be a protector. You have to be a teacher. You have to let people rise to the challenge instead of assuming they won’t. Otherwise, you’re not actually building anything—you’re just holding up the weight with your own back.

And here’s another truth:

Your family needs you present, not just responsible.

They don’t just need you to provide, to lead, to make things work. They need you there. They need your attention, not just your presence. They need you to sit in joy. To be in the moment.

So here’s what I want you to do:

Trust people more. Let them fail if they must. Let them carry their own weight.

Let go of perfection. The impact you want to make is already happening.

Be where you are. If you’re with family, be with them. If you’re working, work. But stop trying to exist in both places at once.

And most of all—accept that you are enough.

Now go live like you believe it.

With resolve,
Someone who won’t let you lie to yourself.

It lives in the pews of the church that welcomes anyone—not just in words, but in action. Even me, someone who has never been baptized. When the priest heard my story, my journey as a spiritual nomad, the first thing he said was, “No matter what you decide, know that you are welcome here.”

It’s in the scribbled pencil and crayon of a child’s unprompted thank-you card for the crossing guard at school.

It’s in the quiet scrape of a shovel clearing snow from a neighbor’s driveway, expecting nothing in return.

It’s in the voice of a volunteer soccer coach, teaching kids to love the game the right way. And maybe even more so in the moment when a kid teaches the coach something back.

The dream breathes in every public servant who moves mountains—not for power or recognition, but simply because the person in front of them needs help.

It’s there whenever one person gives another a gift—of time, of forgone income, of a loaf of bread, of unconditional love, of a Christmas present that truly means something.

It’s woven into every play, poem, song, and film that longs for love, kindness, respect, honesty, and humility. It’s in the best stories we tell—especially the ones about the sublime, and maybe even the divine.

It’s in the kind stranger at the grocery store, who smiles as she rings you up.

The dream is alive in the small mercies of love. When your wife forgives your mistakes and your bad days. When someone asks, How are you?—and actually wants to hear the long answer.

It lives in the person who holds the door open for you, even if it means they’re now one step further back in line.

This dream—this dream to grow and help others grow, to share and live peacefully, to earn and then generously give—is alive. It hides in plain sight, its light so soft and steady that it’s easy to miss. But I see it.

And I won’t let myself stop seeing it.

Because the other option is always there. The temptation to get pulled into the fight, the game, the zero-sum world where winning means taking and shadows are cast intentionally to make everything darker.

That’s one way to live.

But there’s another way. Simpler, but harder.

Keep being a light.
Keep seeing the light.
Keep dreaming of light.

I don’t know what else to say—it just comes out. Like a reflex, like an exhale, just from being close to him. And every time I say it, I start to cry. Sometimes the tears make it all the way to my eyes, but sometimes they just wiggle in my throat, staying caught there for a moment.

It’s such a beautiful and difficult thing to say.

It’s beautiful because it means something like, “Your mere presence with me is enough to bring me joy. You don’t need to be anything or do anything—you are here, and that alone brings me comfort and happiness. I love you exactly as you are.”

But it’s also difficult. Difficult because it reveals something raw in us. Because it also means, “I was, and can often feel, lonely. I was whole before you, but I was missing something. And now that you’re here, I am better than I was.”

The beauty and the difficulty of “I’m glad you’re here” both come from a place of longing.

It chokes me up every time. When I say it to my kids, or my wife. Even to our dog, or to my plants as I sing and talk to them while in our vegetable garden.

If I say it, I mean it. And when I mean it, it hits something deep and tender.

I understand why this phrase opens, but also rattles, my soul better now. Because when I say “I’m glad you’re here” to Griffin, I know in the sinews of my muscle that he may not have been.

We were lucky. When he was born accidentally at home because of Robyn’s disorientingly fast labor, there were no complications. No umbilical cord tied around his neck. No fluid in his lungs needing to be pumped out.

Had anything gone wrong, I would’ve been trying to save his life with a spatula and a pair of kitchen shears until the ambulance arrived. I thank God regularly that I didn’t have to try.

Griffin, truly, was a near miss. God rushed the process, but He cut us a break. Griffin is here. And every day, when I tell him, “I’m glad you’re here,” I feel the weight of that truth—he very easily might not have been.

And I feel it, too, when I look at my wife, Robyn. When I remember that she, too, had a near miss. She could have bled out delivering Griffin, right there on our family room floor. Instead, she was holding him in front of the fireplace, both of us the beneficiaries of a not-so-small mercy.

Near misses.

And as I traced this thought further, I realized—we are all near misses.

Some are dramatic, life-or-death moments. Others, like mine, are quieter, only revealing themselves in hindsight.

The week before COVID really broke open, I would’ve attended a community event with my old colleagues at the Detroit Police Department, but I had to travel out of town for a wedding. Turns out, it was a super spreader event, before we even had that term in our lexicon. I may not have died, but who knows what it would’ve been like to contract COVID before we knew how serious it was, with a three-month-old baby at home. Near miss.

A friend of mine was born two months early, in a town with only basic medical facilities. Even her family elders doubted she’d survive. But she’s here. Another near miss.

Almost all of us have been close to these moments, whether it was the car that almost swiped us on the freeway, the stairs we almost fell down, or the hard candy we almost choked on. And those are just the near misses we know about.

And that’s when it hit me: every single person I encounter—every stranger, every friend, every difficult person—was a near miss, too.

At some point, they almost weren’t here.

There was a homily at Mass once that sticks with me. I don’t remember what the Gospel reading was that day, but the point stuck—try to see someone as God sees them.

And maybe one way to do that is to remember: no matter who they are, no matter how annoying or rude the person in front of me is, there was some moment in time when they almost didn’t make it.

It’s easy to offer grace to someone who just survived a life-threatening event. We instinctively soften, give them space, recognize the weight of what they just went through.

But what I realized today—when I was trying to understand why a four-word sentence brings me to tears—is that everyone has brushed past death at some point.

Everyone has almost not been here.

Which means I can have a little more grace than I do sometimes.

So today, I’m trying, even for the random guy at the grocery store who tried to punk me by swiping a box of tea out of my cart while his friend very inconspicuously filmed it.

Because even though I may need a nudge to remember it sometimes—

I’m glad they’re here.

And maybe, just maybe, they’re glad I’m here, too.

I can’t know the simulator’s intent. I can’t even know for sure if all of you—yes, even you, Robyn, my loving and beautiful wife—are real or just part of the program. But I do know one thing: I have to choose how to function within this system, whatever it is.

I can’t know the simulator’s intent, but I have three guesses.

Maybe they’re just curious—watching my life unfold with dispassionate detachment, throwing joys and tragedies my way like a scientist dropping rats into a maze. Or maybe it’s a test, some cosmic competition where only the strongest or smartest make it through.

But if that’s true—if some all-powerful force built this world just to watch us scramble or use us for its own ends—then what a pathetic waste of power. That’s a universe that leads to nothing. A story with no arc. I refuse to believe that the default state of existence is meaningless cruelty. If that’s what the simulator wants, then I reject it.

Because I’ve seen something else. I’ve lived something else.

The year after my father died, my son was born. It was like the universe was handing me an ultimatum: Get busy living or get busy dying. My father was gone just before I needed him most, just before I could ask him how to be a father. It felt unfair because it was. But when I looked at my son, this tiny boy named Robert in my arms, being thrown into existence just like me, I realized—the only way forward was growth. I could collapse under the weight of grief, or I could choose to dig deep, find my soul, and pour unconditional love into him.

And when I look around, I see that same pattern everywhere. Every tree, every animal, every child—all of it growing. The universe itself is expanding. If there’s an intent behind this, it’s written into the fabric of reality: we are meant to become more than we were.

So I’ve made my choice: I’m living as if the simulator wants me to grow. As if goodness is the point.

And here’s the truth—whether we admit it or not, we’re all choosing. Every day. Either we act as if the point of all this is to grow—to become more whole, more good—or we don’t. Either we believe in the growth of our souls, in a kind of tenacious, defiant kindness, in something bigger than ourselves—or we let the simulator that just wants to use us win by default.

If we don’t choose, something will choose for us.

So why not choose to become something sacred?

The way you came into this world—so boldly—is already legend in our family.

You will hear many retellings, each filled with rich detail, each from a different perspective. But some things will always remain the same.

Your mother’s labor moved so quickly that you were born in front of the fireplace before the ambulance could even arrive. You spent nine days in the hospital because your tiny body was too cold to register a temperature at Dr. Marlene’s office.

And then, you recovered at home in the very room where you were born, tethered to an oxygen machine that hummed its steady rhythm: whirr-hiss-boom, whirr-hiss-boom, whirr-hiss-boom.

But there is another part of your story I want you to know. The story of your name.

Just like your birth—three weeks before your due date—your name, Griffin Aditya, was a surprise. It wasn’t on any of our lists. You were supposed to be Graham, or maybe Owen.

But when we saw you, we knew. Neither name was bold enough. Your entrance into this world was far too grand—too intense—for anything less.

So I started Googling and asking questions in a ChatGPT thread which titled itself “Fierce Baby Name Ideas.”

As I read the names out loud to your mother in the hospital recovery room, we didn’t choose Griffin—it chose you.

A name of Welsh origin. A mythical creature known for its courage, fierceness, and strength. It was perfect. It was you.

Then came your middle name. We wanted something warm, something radiant—something that carried the fire of the marble fireplace in front of which you were born.

So we chose Aditya, Sanskrit for "sun."

But the meaning of your name doesn’t stop there. In the days and weeks after your birth, Griffin came to represent a different kind of courage for each of us.

For Robert, it was the courage of leadership—gathering your brothers (and Riley the pup) upstairs just minutes before you arrived.

For Myles, it was the courage of responsibility—stepping into his new role as an older brother, standing silent and strong at your bedside.

For Emmett, it was the courage to love. Though he was just shy of three, he spoke of you and Mommy every day while you were in the hospital, missing you with an intensity that many don’t experience until much later in life.

For your mother, it was the courage of sacrifice—weeks spent sleeping in a chair, pumping milk to nourish you, letting go of every expectation she had for what this time with you would be.

And for me? It was the courage of humility—learning to accept the love, support, and kindness that poured into our lives when we needed it most.

And for you, my son, Griffin will carry its own meaning. Because when I think about it, your bravery was the purest kind—unintentional, unknowing.

You didn’t choose it. You were just born. In the dead of winter, in difficult circumstances, and you survived. You fought without realizing you were fighting.

And in doing so, you made us brave.

When I was afraid—wondering if you and your mom would be okay—you were there, finding a way to stay warm, to breathe. You kept going. And because of that, we did too.

That is the greatest lesson from the night you were born: bravery can come from the smallest of us. From those who don’t even know they’re being brave.

And that kind of bravery is powerful. It spreads. It lifts us all. Whenever I hear your name, I remember that quiet, unassuming, unstoppable courage.

You didn’t choose this. Just like your name—bravery chose you.

During a family emergency, one of the hardest things is knowing how to ask for and accept help. Often, if we’re fortunate to have loving friends and family around us, there’s a quiet army standing by, ready to support us as soon as they hear we’re struggling.

But here’s the tricky part: what do we ask them to do? How do we take them up on their offers? And what do we really need? These questions can feel impossible to answer in the middle of a crisis because we’re already overwhelmed by the situation itself.

I know this because Robyn and I just went through it.

When we welcomed our newborn home, we had to rush back to the hospital with him just a day later. It was the hardest week of our lives. By midweek, I was completely overwhelmed, even though we had so many loving offers of help and support.

That’s when I realized I needed to simplify things. I spent 30 minutes breaking down the problem into something I could actually manage. I created a worksheet to help me organize our needs and accept the help that was already being offered.

It made all the difference.

The worksheet helped me clarify what we needed, communicate it to others, and accept support in a way that felt natural and manageable. It worked so well that I plan to use it whenever we face a family emergency (though I hope that won’t be often).

Because this tool made such a big impact for us, I wanted to share it with you. I’ve attached two versions below:

• A blank template, ready for you to use.

• A version with notes that explain how it works.

This is for any family emergency—whether it’s a sick child, the death of a parent, emergency house repairs, or something else entirely. Please feel free to use it, adapt it, and share it with anyone who might need it.

I also plan to be more proactive by creating an emergency plan with close family and friends. That way, when life inevitably throws us a curveball, we’ll be ready.

Emergencies are going to happen. Let’s be prepared—not just to offer help, but to accept it when we need it most.

With Love from Detroit,
Neil

We agree on terms, make an exchange, shake hands, and we’re done. No recurring obligations. No one owes anyone anything. It can easily be how we operate in many situations: buying a new pair of jeans, running a garden club, working a job, or splitting chores with our wives.

A life of deals and agreements can feel in control, efficient, even profitable in a sense.

But I don’t want this.

I want my life to have strings attached. I don’t want to live at arm’s length from everyone else. I don’t want to depend on the market or a series of transactions to bring companionship, compassion, or joy into my life.

I want to be enmeshed. I want to watch my brothers’, sisters’, and friends’ kids when they need a date night out. I want to know the next time I hug someone in my family or anyone else I always hug is going to be soon.

I want to accept meals after we have a baby and reciprocate that kindness to the next ten families in line. I want my neighbors to call me when their computer monitor is broken, and I want to lean on them when I need a ride to the airport, and Robyn has to take the kids to a piano lesson.

I want to stay up later than I should to hear one more story over beers with my buddies, especially when they’re visiting from far away. I want the DCFC clubhouse to feel like our country club because that means we’re showing up for soccer practices, and cheering not just for our sons but also their teammates.

I want the gentle nudge—and the pressure—to show up to Mass or open car doors in the school drop-off line, knowing the kids and other dads notice when I’ve been MIA for a while. I want to linger places, even at work, just to ask someone about how they and their family are doing.

I want to pour my love and laughter into someone who is struggling, even though it obligates me to the scary reality that, maybe—just maybe—I’ll have to open my heart and let it in when someone notices my grief and suffering and pours it right back.

These are the scenes from a life with strings attached.

This is what I want for us. I want us all to work hard and build just a little surplus—of money, love, time, and health—so we can take that extra and give it away.

Doing that isn’t how we become wealthy. In fact, we’re probably better off keeping people at arm’s length if wealth is our goal. Why? Because it’s easier to extract money from people when we stick to the terms of the contract. Our pesky emotions and feelings of attachment won’t dull our killer instincts, so to speak.

So intertwining ourselves with others—stringing ourselves to them and them to us—may not be the best way to become wealthy.

It is, I’d argue, how we become rich.

When we show up late or run meetings without purpose, we’re polluting the environment. When we use up an employee’s talent without helping them grow, we’re leaving the soil barren. When we avoid conflict or delay fixing broken processes, we’re dumping waste for someone else to clean up.

This pollution doesn’t just stay at work—it seeps into everything. We bring the stress home to our families. It slows us down, makes decisions harder, and leaves everyone more exhausted when we are at work. Worst of all, it often goes unnoticed, even as it erodes our impact and profitability.

Organizational pollution, like environmental pollution, has unseen consequences. But the good news is that, as with the environment, we have options to clean it up.

Three Approaches to Workplace Pollution

When it comes to addressing pollution, we have a few ways forward.

1. Regulation

Imagine if we treated workplace behavior the way we regulate environmental harm. What if, at every performance review, we tracked not just numbers but also how well someone contributed to a healthy work environment? What if we promoted the people who developed others and penalized those who made their teams miserable?

Regulation works—it’s why we have cleaner air and water today. But it’s also hard. It requires the leaders of an organization to care enough to enforce it, and let’s face it, that’s a tall order in many places.

2. Shame

Shaming polluters is another option. Picture flyers in the company cafeteria calling out the manager who’s always late to meetings or the boss who verbally abuses their team. Public accountability can be a powerful tool.

But shame is risky. In most organizations, power dynamics favor the polluters, and those who speak out would surely face retaliation. Are we ready to risk our jobs to shame someone into doing better? Probably not.

3. Conservation

The most practical and empowering answer is to become organizational conservationists.

We can take responsibility for our corner of the workplace and make sure the environment we create is clean and healthy. That means running better meetings, giving honest feedback, and helping our peers grow. It’s about stopping waste before it accumulates, whether it’s wasted time, talent, or energy.

It starts small: asking ourselves if we’re polluting the work environment, encouraging better habits in our teams, and quietly backing others who do the same. These actions may seem minor, but when enough of us do them, the impact is undeniable. Ripples can become waves.

We can also support fellow conservationists. Let’s go out of our way to lift up people who improve the workplace. Even if they’re not the most powerful or influential, they’re worth protecting. And whenever possible, we can choose to distance ourselves from the polluters. The less we enable them, the less impact they’ll have.

Reclaiming Our Workplaces

Of course, none of this is groundbreaking. We all know the difference between a good work environment and a toxic one. But thinking about it through the lens of pollution makes it click in a new way. Polluters don’t just make work annoying—they harm everyone around them.

And honestly, we don’t want to be polluters. None of us do. Framing ourselves as conservationists helps us see our role in a new light. When we choose to conserve and protect the work environment, we’re not just doing what’s right—we’re building something better for ourselves and others.

So here’s the truth: pollution in the workplace is a choice. But it’s a choice we make together. Every meeting, every interaction, every decision—it’s an opportunity to either pollute or conserve. The more of us who take pride in being conservationists, the greater our chance of creating healthy, thriving work environments.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll leave the workplace better than we found it, and that will ultimately make quality of life better both at home and at work.

One of my three New Year’s resolutions is something I’d never have imagined—even two years ago: no career planning. Exactly as it sounds, I do not want to spend a single shred of time or energy obsessing over my next professional step.

I’ll never remember the sound of our baby’s laughter or the way they hold my finger if I’m simmering in the back of my mind about my next move or some other bullshit like that.

This resolution is shocking for me because I’ve quietly obsessed over my career for almost three decades. I don’t know what it’s like not to think about achievement. From my earliest school days, my worth was tied to what I achieved—anything that could help me get into an elite college and land a lucrative, respected job at the top of whatever ladder would crown me "the best of the best."

For those of you who didn’t grow up as South Asian immigrant kids, this might sound preposterous—even funny. But for those of us who did, this is no joke. The pressure to perform, to win approval through achievement, feels like it’s coded into our DNA—maybe even hidden in the spices of our ancestral cuisine.

Imagine the most intense armchair quarterback you know, the guy who lives and dies by how the Detroit Lions fare in the NFC North standings. Now apply that same fanatic energy to getting into a famous college. That’s the vibe.

And to really drive it home: a 37-year-old husband and father of almost four kids having a New Year’s resolution of "no career planning" is wild. It’s as alien as a dog laying an actual egg.

Getting here wasn’t easy. From the moment I considered this resolution, I started trying to convince myself it was a good idea. Over and over, I hashed out the same conversation: justifying why I wasn’t setting goals that would lead me to become a CEO or senior-level elected official. It’s that same old churn—resisting the achievement-addicted version of me who’s always craving that ever-elusive gold star.

But every time I pushed back against the addict within, he pushed right back.

Then, it hit me.

That addict is a ghost. He’s not here anymore.

I’ve made decision after decision that shut the door on becoming a CEO or a senior-level elected official. The life he wanted for me? It’s long gone. That window closed when I decided not to move to DC after college, when I stayed local for grad school, and when Robyn and I built our big, beautiful family.

That ghost has no power anymore. The dream he clung to isn’t even viable.

And yet, there I was—arguing with him. Justifying to this phantom why I don’t need to chase some mirage of a dream. I’d been sitting in an empty room, at an empty table at the center of my mind, negotiating with nobody.

Once I realized this, I knew it was time. Time to stop having the same damn conversation, over and over, about the direction I want to take my life. Time to stop justifying my decisions, explaining why I’ll never live up to that ideal I once clung to—that I was only worth what I achieved.

The only thing left in the room was the ghost. And when that happens—when the demons are put to rest—there’s only one thing left to do: say, “Thank you for your time, but this negotiation is over.” Turn off the light. Close the door behind us.

The most important thing I learned this year was this: at some point, you stop negotiating. You thank the ghost for what it taught you, but you leave it behind. Because joy isn’t found in rehashing the past—it’s waiting for us in the life we’re living now.

This year, I felt myself resisting, but eventually, I let myself go. And when Harry Bailey walked in the door and said, “A toast, to my big brother George, the richest man in town,” I just wept.

And it’s not just this film, I’ve noticed. When I read A Sick Day for Amos McGee at bedtime, I cry harder and smile bigger because the simple story of friendship between a zookeeper and his animal friends reminds me of my own experiences of friendship. When I hear the song Joe, I can’t help but feel my lips tremble mid-verse while I’m singing it in the car, even though I’ve never lived through addiction or recovery. It just gets me, because the protagonist—a gas station attendant—is a hero because of the content of his character and his success in slaying his own demons, not because of any external measures of success.

Or in Finding Nemo, now, I cry for different reasons in both eyes. When Nemo and Marlin reunite, I now understand the perspective of both father and son. And I find myself marveling at the beauty, relevance, and power of children’s stories—these tales we dismiss as childish often hold the simplest and truest wisdom.

And when I watch comedy specials—whether it’s Matt Rife, Hasan Minhaj, Dave Chappelle, or Trevor Noah—I laugh and laugh and laugh in ways I didn’t know were possible without being a bit drunk with my college friends at the pub.

As we get older, we just get it more. Because, if we’re doing this right with each passing year, we’ve actually lived more.

I see now how courageous it is to be an everyday guy who consistently swims upstream to do the right thing, like George Bailey does in that classic film. In a way, writing the book Character by Choice has been my attempt to figure out how to be more like George Bailey.

I find him so remarkable as an example of what a good, everyday man can look like. Because at the end, George doesn’t even “win” in the conventional sense. He doesn’t walk away with a big payout or a victory over the villainous Mr. Potter—he’s still a modest business owner. But his years of sacrifice are validated when the rest of Bedford Falls comes to his aid.

Now, I get how special it is to sacrifice for others and to accept the sacrifices they make for me.

And I also see the mirror universe of what my life could’ve been, just like George Bailey does after he “saves” his guardian angel, Clarence. It’s like I started making choices for myself as a teenager, and each of those choices was a fork in the road—left or right. Over time, those choices compounded as I kept making right turns. Again and again, at each fork, I went right.

And now I see so clearly what my life could’ve been. I could’ve been richer, with fewer kids and responsibilities, probably living in Washington, D.C., or San Francisco. That version of me would’ve had a nicer house and a more vibrant professional and social life. But would it have been a universe where I was here with Robyn, Riley, Robert, Myles, and Emmett? Probably not.

Honestly, I would’ve probably found a way to rationalize my story if I had made all those left turns instead of right. I might have convinced myself I was content. But damn, I’m glad I’m here and not somewhere else. And that clear, honest realization—that it may never have been this way—keeps my heart from stiffening.

And so the tears flow.

Maybe this is good, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s a sign of strength, maybe a sign of weakness. Maybe both. Honestly, I don’t really care. I’d rather avoid the culture wars and punditry about men and crying. That kind of commentary—no matter where it comes from—feels reductive and unnecessary.

Because at a minimum, I think crying and laughing harder is an indicator of acceptance—of life and all that it brings. It’s a sign that I’m letting myself live life—letting it soak into my bones and my soul, rather than keeping it at arm’s length.

It’s not the choice everyone makes, but for me, I can only hope that as I age, I let myself live more and more. I can only hope that with each passing year I cry harder and laugh harder. Because in my own way, that makes me feel like one of the richest men in town.

What I mean by this is that I want to create enough material wealth for my family and society to live a good life, but I don’t want capitalism to dominate my identity or values. I want to earn a living, but my goal in life isn’t to be a good producer or consumer. I’ll engage with capitalism where it serves me—maybe the equivalent of two days a week—but I won’t live and breathe it as though it’s my religion.

This realization didn’t come to me overnight. It simmered for years, as I wrestled with the game society handed me: capitalism. From an early age, we’re taught to measure success by wealth, status, and accumulation. For a long time, I felt like I was failing at it—even though my family and I were doing just fine. Capitalism has a way of making you feel like nothing is ever enough. It whispers that you’re not climbing the ladder fast enough, not maximizing your earnings the way you could.

But at some point, I started to ask myself: Why am I even playing this game? What if I don’t want to “win” capitalism? What if I’d rather play a different game altogether?

That’s where my sons come in. They love soccer. They play with an abandon and joy that makes me envious. Watching them, I realized they’ve found a game that suits them—one they’ve chosen for themselves. Soccer has creativity, fluidity, and rhythm. It’s nothing like football, the sport I played for years growing up.

I chose football because that’s what my friends were doing. As a Michigander, it felt natural to play, and I enjoyed being part of a team. But looking back, I see that it didn’t suit me. I wasn’t built for it—physically or mentally. It was someone else’s game, and I just happened to be good enough at it to get by.

That’s how capitalism has felt for me as an adult: the default game I got pulled into. Like football, it has its virtues. It provides structure and can even be exhilarating at times. But it’s not the primary model for how I want to live.

I’m never going to “win” at capitalism, and I don’t want to. I’m not willing to make the sacrifices required to maximize my earnings or climb higher, because I value other things more. I love being a father. I’m drawn to public service. I care about relationships, creativity, and dignity far more than accumulation.

For years, though, I struggled under capitalism’s invisible grip. People told me I had talent and potential, which I heard as: You could be doing more. This latent anxiety followed me everywhere. Could I provide enough for my family? Could I live up to everyone’s expectations? That sense of “not enough” became like a chronic cold I couldn’t quite shake.

But then came my a-ha moment: I don’t have to play this game—not fully, anyway. I realized I could be a subscriber to capitalism part-time and play my own game for the rest of my life.

For me, this shift has been about aligning my life with my values. It’s why I’ve embraced a nonlinear career, oscillating between government and corporate roles to find balance. It’s why Robyn and I have crafted a marriage that works for us, breaking free from traditional gender roles. She works a flexible schedule, and I’ve leaned into an unconventional path as a husband and father. We’ve structured our lives around fairness and teamwork rather than default societal expectations.

It’s also why we’ve chosen to raise our family in the city instead of a suburb. The city challenges us, inspires us, and aligns with the cultural and inter-religious values we’re navigating as a couple. Every one of these decisions reflects a conscious choice to reject the "default game" and build something that works for us.

This path isn’t easy. Freedom is exhilarating, but it’s also daunting. Choosing your own game requires courage. It means setting boundaries, risking judgment, and often swimming upstream. That means being willing to be a little weird or out on a ledge, at least some of the time.

But it’s worth it. Recently, I’ve started to feel the effects of this mindset as I’ve entered a new job. Do I have to be the best at work and think about it constantly? No. Do we need an excess of money to complete every home renovation we want this year? No. Do I need to loudly reject capitalism or evangelize my alternative path? No. I’ve chosen my line in the sand, and I’m okay with where it puts me.

While I wish I’d started sooner, I’m grateful to be starting now. Better late than never.

So here’s my question for you: What’s the game you’ve been playing? Is it one you chose, or was it handed to you? What would it look like to redefine the rules and build a life that fits you?

The process isn’t easy. It’s challenging, peculiar, and sometimes lonely. But it’s also liberating. It’s your life, after all—why not make the rules yourself?

The most life-changing lesson I learned while writing Character by Choice is this: listening is the most important skill we can cultivate.

When we truly listen, we discover the extraordinary in others. That discovery grows into love. And love—bigger than ourselves—gives us the courage to become better people. Better people make the world more vibrant, joyous, and trusting.

But here’s what my son taught me today: listening is just the first step. The real magic happens when we prove we’re listening—when we leave no doubt that someone has our full attention.

That’s what makes someone a next-level listener. And it’s how love blossoms.

I share this insight—and the powerful conversation with my son that inspired it—on this week’s episode of Muscle Memory. Check it out, and share if it resonates with you.

With love from Detroit,
Neil

On quiet weekend mornings, I stand at the stove, often with a spatula in hand, flipping pancakes. Robyn comes downstairs in her pajamas, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiles, tilts her head, and walks over to me with her arms outstretched. Without saying a word, we hug right there in the kitchen.

It’s not one of those young, giddy embraces. It’s a hug worn in by years—familiar, steadfast, with the kind of patina that only time and shared struggles can create.

This is what love looks like now.

And I’m falling in love with her again.

It’s a love I’ve rediscovered, not just because of who she is, but because of who we’ve both become. In this new era of our lives, she is still Robyn—but also someone new.

The Beauty of Changing Eras

I started to understand why I’ve been feeling this way over the Thanksgiving weekend. Something has shifted—not just in our relationship, but in our entire world.

We’ve entered a new era.

In our home, the signs are everywhere. We’re going to be parents to a newborn for the last time, and the weight of that reality feels both solemn and profound. Our sons have transitioned into school-aged kids, with piano lessons, soccer games, and social lives. Even our house itself has transformed—we’ve remodeled and repaired, shaping it into the place we’ll live for decades to come.

As individuals, we’ve changed too. Robyn and I are no longer just contributors at work; we’ve both shifted toward leading others. I hear it in her voice when she’s on a conference call—steady, calm, full of gravity that she’s earned over years of experience. Her team leans on her not just for answers but for her wisdom, and it shows in the way she carries herself.

And me? I finally got my book, Character by Choice, out into the world after seven years of working on it. It feels surreal to see it finished. That process stretched me in ways I didn’t expect, but it also revealed a new grittiness for sticking with something for years at a time with no guarantee of success that I didn’t know I had in me.

The changes of this era haven’t always been easy, but they’ve revealed so much beauty. Like the quiet strength Robyn shows every day. The way she hugs our sons or me—not just as a gesture, but as a statement of presence and love, even when she’s exhausted. Or the way she listens to friends who are newer parents with such intense warmth that it lifts them up without them even noticing. These things were always part of her, but this new stage of life has brought them to the surface.

But it’s not just us.

Our close-knit family and friends are evolving, too. Our siblings are becoming parents, which will soon add to the gaggle of kids running through our lives. With each new arrival, our family grows—cousins, nieces, and nephews weaving together a new web of connection and joy.

At the same time, our parents are navigating their own shifts. Robyn’s parents are caring for aging loved ones while preparing to move into homes that fit the lives they need now. My mom is still grappling with life after my father. Despite her health and strength, she’s navigating the reality of aging—for her and her siblings. Even things she’s done her whole life, like traveling back and forth between India and the U.S., aren’t as simple as they used to be.

It feels like everyone we know is moving into a new chapter at once.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Society is shifting all around us. Politically, both the Trump and Duggan eras are coming to an end within the next four years, making way for what’s next in the country and Detroit. Technologically, we’re stepping boldly into the age of AI and the wonder of tools like the James Webb Space Telescope, showing us the universe in ways we never imagined.

Change is everywhere, and it’s compelling all of us to grow in response.

Entering a new era doesn’t demand growth from us in an adversarial way. Instead, it calls to us gently but insistently, urging us to uncover new parts of ourselves. As the world around us changes, it doesn’t obligate us to change—that’s a choice we make—but the influence of a shifting context is undeniable.

Robyn’s quiet strength, her firm tenderness—it was always there, but this moment in time has brought it to the surface. And in seeing her anew, I’ve found myself falling in love with her all over again.

This is the beauty of changing eras. When everything shifts, we have the chance to become something new and to notice the people we love in new ways. The struggle of change—the hard work, the sacrifice, the heartbreak—gives us a rare gift: the chance to see life, and each other, with fresh eyes.

Marking the Era

My father used to say there’s no free lunch, and he was right. Change doesn’t come easily. To move into a new era, we have to let go of the old one. We have to embrace the challenges and celebrate the rhythms as they shift around us.

But here’s what I’ve learned: the struggle is worth it.

There’s a brilliance in how Taylor Swift brought this lesson to life through her Eras Tour. From all I’ve read and heard from friends, her concert marks eras, celebrates them, and embraces the growth that comes from moving forward. She so beautifully illustrates how the struggle of moving through eras is worth it.

When we mark the era—when we take the time to notice the passing of one chapter and the beginning of another—we honor the transformation. We honor what we’ve lost and what we’ve gained.

And in doing so, we give ourselves the chance to fall in love again.

So, my friends, don’t fear the reset. Lean into it. Notice the beauty it reveals in our lives and the lives of those we love. And when you look back on this new era we are all in, I hope you find yourself saying: It was worth it.

We’re hybrid dads. We’re building something new, something better—and it’s time we talked about how to get there together.

A hybrid dad isn’t defined by tradition or rebellion—it’s about creating a role that works for your family. It’s part breadwinner, part partner, part parent—and 100% intentional.

Why Men Should Read Fair Play

If you’re a millennial husband or father, I think you should read Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. Or, if you know a millennial husband or father—especially one who’s quietly trying to balance home life, work life, and being a good, equitable partner—gift them this book. Even if it doesn’t seem like it’s “for them,” it just might be what they need.

It was a game changer for me personally, and also for our marriage.

The book offers both a mental model for what a fair balance of domestic responsibility can look like in a partnership and a practical system to manage those responsibilities with clarity and efficiency. It’s dramatically reduced the friction Robyn and I used to experience while running our household and managing our family system.

For example, cooking and meal planning used to be a source of endless improvisation and frustration. We’d either figure everything out together or constantly reset our schedules on the fly. It wasn’t working. Now, we’ve set roles: I’m the weekend chef, and Robyn’s the weekday chef. I used to handle groceries, but it made more sense for her to take over, and we adjusted intentionally. Knowing exactly what ingredients she needs and when has made the process seamless, thanks to concepts we learned in Fair Play like the “minimum standard of care.” These ideas helped us have conversations about fairness and efficiency without resentment.

This shift gave us more than just better logistics—it gave us peace.

And that’s what we need in this reset—peace of mind, clarity, and confidence. Because this isn’t just about household chores; it’s about redefining what it means to show up as dads and partners in a way that works for us.

A Reset for Men

There’s been a lot of talk about how men are struggling. The data is there, and the anecdotes are everywhere. To me, all of this is true—but I see it more as a practical and personal phenomenon than an abstract crisis.

As a man, I think of it as a reset.

Here’s why I hate the “crisis” framing: It feels emasculating. When people talk about us as a lost generation of men, it’s hard to engage with that narrative—it feels like a judgment, like we’re failing somehow just by existing in this moment of change.

That’s not helpful, and frankly, it’s a turn-off. It makes me want to disengage.

I don’t see us as victims, and I’m not interested in crisis rhetoric. What I see is an opportunity to reset and redefine what it means to be a husband and father.

A generation ago, gender roles were simpler—though not necessarily better. The man worked outside the home, often as the breadwinner, and there were plenty of examples (good and bad) of what that looked like. Today, it’s different. Many men aren’t the sole earners anymore, and many of us are leaning into home life and parenting in ways our fathers didn’t.

The problem? Most of us don’t have a blueprint.

Few of us had dads who split domestic responsibilities equitably. Fewer still had dads who volunteered at the PTA or took paternity leave. We’re making this up as we go because we’re the first generation actively navigating pluralistic gender roles.

And that’s the beauty of it: There’s no one way to be a good husband or father anymore. Traditional roles can work, but so can new hybrids. What matters is that we’re intentional about creating a family system that works for us.

We are hybrid dads—we’ve got each other’s backs, and we GOT THIS.

How Fair Play Helps

Fair Play gave Robyn and me a language to talk about our family system and decide how we wanted it to work. By breaking responsibilities into categories—from chores to self-care to parenting—we could set standards for our household and adjust as life changed.

For us, this meant defining who “owned” which tasks. For example, when my work schedule changed, we switched roles for groceries.

In addition to the book, we also bought Rodsky’s flashcards and found it helpful to “redeal” physical cards every few months.

I also created a PDF template to keep track of all this and reset my focus weekly on my Remarkable.

You can download my PDF template here.

The results? Less tension at home. Less self-doubt about whether I’m doing the right thing as a husband or father. And something even more meaningful: more joy.

By being more involved at home, I’ve gained something many men in previous generations didn’t have—deep, priceless time with my kids and my wife. The joy that comes from being fully present, from knowing I’m not just managing but thriving as a dad and partner, is worth every effort.

Why Men Should Read This Book

If you’re a man in this “reset” generation, Fair Play is a godsend. It’s not just about managing tasks; it’s about finding confidence in the type of husband and father you want to be.

We may not have role models for this new way of being a man, but we don’t need to feel lost. Fair Play gives us a framework to build our own hybrid roles—ones that work for our families, bring us closer to our partners, and let us embrace the joy of being present.

I recommend this book to any man navigating this shift. Read it. Try the system and the cards. Download the template. See how it changes your home life.

It sure as hell changed mine.

It’s a joyous time for us. Not only are we getting ready to welcome our fourth child, but many close friends and family are either having children themselves or moving out of the newborn phase of life.

When you’re expecting, love starts pouring in from all directions. The fraternity of caregivers—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, “aunts,” and “uncles”—is built on love. And when others join that fellowship, all you want to do is pay that love forward.

I feel that deeply right now.

As we all know, there’s no foolproof playbook or universal script for parenting—no single piece of sage wisdom we can all rely on. But what we can do is share our biggest mistakes in the hope that others might avoid them. After all, mistakes tend to be more universal than we’d like to admit.

Mine was this: I was a colonizer.

When my kids invited me into their world, I tried to reshape it—imposing adult order with schedules, tasks, and structure. I thought I was helping. But that approach cost me years of connection during our older kids’ youngest years.

This week’s episode of the Muscle Memory Podcast is about that very mistake—and what I’ve learned since. I hope you enjoy it.

With love from Detroit,

Neil

The (over)simplified way I think about American politics is that it comes down to surplus. At the heart of it, we crave more than we need—more money, more time, more mental energy.

Before we dive in, know that this post—and my podcast episode this week—aren’t about taking sides. I’m not interested in dissecting policies or election outcomes here. Instead, I want to explore how we even think about politics and the core values that drive it.

Because to me, these “mega-questions” sit right at the center of our political landscape.

1) How do we create surplus?

How do we generate more money, more time, or more mental energy than we need—both individually and collectively? This question, in many ways, drives policy decisions, economic systems, and even social programs. Everyone wants surplus; the debate often centers on how best to achieve it.

2) What do we do with that surplus?

Once we have more than we need, do we keep it for ourselves or share it? Should surplus be directed toward those with similar beliefs, or should it be shared broadly to support the common good? And what about future generations? How much of our surplus should we put into investments we may never personally benefit from?

These questions echo through every political debate, as people argue over what’s fair, what’s efficient, and who deserves what. Even when we disagree, so much of it comes down to our different ideas about these same questions.

As for me, I don’t have a neatly packaged answer or specific policy I’m here to advocate for. But here’s what I do know: I want to live beneath my means and share my surplus with others.

In this week’s podcast, I share a story about Halloween on our block—a magical night made possible by neighbors who give their time, money, and energy to make it memorable for everyone. They choose to share their surplus with the community, creating something special. I admire them for it, and it makes me think about how I want to be a little more like that myself.

Here’s the link—I hope you’ll give it a listen: Halloween and Surplus.

With love from Detroit,

Neil

One way to think about our relationships is to see them as falling into different circles of familiarity.

Of course, there are our loved ones—the people we see all the time, who know us well, and with whom we share an unspoken rhythm. We know exactly how to greet them, how to say goodbye, and how to laugh together.

But then, there are the people we’re less familiar with. These might be the drive-through barista we meet only once on a road trip, or the neighbor we pass while walking the dog. Even though we don’t know these people well, we still have our own kind of rhythm with them—usually more reserved and distant.

It’s easy to assume that how we treat these semi-familiar connections doesn’t matter as much as how we treat our loved ones. But I’m starting to think it actually matters just as much, maybe even more.

Why? Because how we treat those semi-familiar faces every day adds up. In many ways, the true culture of our communities isn’t just shaped by the relationships we hold dearest, but by how we treat everyone else: the FedEx delivery person, the neighbors a few houses down, the host at our favorite neighborhood spot. It’s the kindness or distance we show these people that truly defines the feel of our communities.

This idea became clear to me recently at the funeral of a young woman I only knew through small moments—she was the younger sister of one of my close friends from childhood. My friends and I were there, of course, to support our buddy. But thinking about her afterward, I realized she’d left me with a powerful lesson I hadn’t recognized before: When we don’t know exactly how to treat a semi-familiar face in front of us, just smile.

That’s the message I dive into on this week’s podcast: When in doubt, just smile.

With love from Detroit,
Neil

One of my favorite lyrics from a Taylor Swift’s song comes from Anti-Hero and it goes like this:

"I stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror…"

It’s a subtle yet powerful line that resonates with how many of us approach self-reflection—or avoid it. Isn’t that our default? To shy away from looking in the mirror? Self-examination can be uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.

But what if we find the courage to look closely? What questions do we ask ourselves? How do we even begin to examine who we are?

For some, if the goal is power, the question might be straightforward: Did I get ahead of others today?

But if what we care about most is being a good person—more than becoming powerful—the questions become different. Perhaps we ask: Did I earn the trust of others today? Who? How?

In my view, trust is the natural outcome of goodness. If we strive to be good people, trustworthiness follows. That’s why it matters; if we’re doing good, trust is exactly what we should expect to build over time.

This idea of facing the mirror and examining our trustworthiness is at the heart of this week’s podcast episode, titled “What to Ask the Mirror.” I hope you’ll join me in exploring this practice.

Here’s to living an examined life.

With love from Detroit,
Neil

P.S. If you’re a U.S. citizen, make a plan to vote this week. It’s so important.

It’ll be in the quiet moments, like me cooking a lazy Sunday dinner while you’re working on a jigsaw puzzle nearby.

Or in the loud ones, like cheering on the sidelines at a soccer tournament, because it’s one of ours out there.

There’ll be days we’re just listening to country radio, holding hands as we drive to the coffee shop.

One day, we’ll be talkin’ about how long we’ve been doing this.

We’ll reminisce about getting a night out with old friends at Mario’s—the cozy restaurant we went to once, and it became ours.

And I’ll think of how you always bring the Fage Greek yogurt recipe we love for biscuits and gravy to brunch, in that cast iron pan that’s turned into “that old cast iron pan.”

There’ll be the quiet, spontaneous moments too, like you wrapping me in a hug while I’m sitting at the table writing a blog post (just like you did today).

Some things will stay the same, like family dinner at a crowded table with bumpy cake for a birthday—or pineapple, if it’s June.

There’ll be walks with the dog who still insists on taking us out at lunchtime.

And, of course, our family meetings that always seem to end with a cleaner house—or our temperature checks that always end with a kiss goodnight.

I know the years ahead will bring big changes—retirement, new adventures, and more gray hair than we have today.

But I hope that through it all, some things stay just as they are now. I hope, God willing, we’ll still be talking about how long we’ve been doing this, and how long we’ve been building this life together—one little tradition at a time.

Will the abundance that innovation creates save us all? That’s a question I asked myself directly when writing Character by Choice.

Do we need to care about goodness and character? Would we be okay if we had a world full of abundance? Perhaps obviously, I didn’t think abundance was enough because I kept writing the book.

Link to S2E4 | Abundance.

I’m equally excited about this week’s audio reflection. Years ago, one of my best friends - Jeff - and I were talking about money. He had heard a book or podcast about money in the Bible and shared a question he was gnawing on. How much is enough? Not even theoretically, but what would the actually dollar amount be?

It’s a question that’s stayed with me for years and the main subject of this week’s guided audio reflection.

Link to S2E4.1 | How much is enough?

I hope you have a good week. If you’re in the US - don’t forget to make a plan to vote or complete your absentee ballot.

With love from Detroit,
Neil

The way I see it is this - if we have power asymmetry in our world, there will inevitably be opportunities for power to be abused.

And I don’t want to live in a world where corruption is rampant.

But I don’t want to live in a world where we have rules and laws that are so intense - with the intent of curbing corruption - that it stifles freedom to choose how we live our lives - in small ways, for regular people.

To me, the only way to do that is to just have more people who are good and decent - that choose not to abuse power even though they can.

That’s what I talk about in this week’s podcast episode. I hope you give it a listen: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/S7lwuVEYtNb

With Love from Detroit,
Neil

I was driving the other day when a thought hit me.

Death feels unpredictable, doesn’t it? We have no idea when it’ll come.

But it’s also the most predictable thing there is—it’s the only thing we know for sure is coming.

But here’s the thing—it’s not just certain that we’ll die. We even have a rough window for it, right? Most of us can expect to go somewhere between 70 and 100 years old, and almost no one makes it past 110.

But what if that wasn’t the rule anymore?

Imagine this: a new treatment for longevity. You’d have to take it by 25, but here’s the kicker—it only works for half of us, and we can’t even tell who it’s working for.

This kind of life? It would be tough—devastating, even.

I can’t imagine not knowing whether I’d have to live without Robyn for 100 years. Just thinking about it—it’d tear me apart.

And what about my kids? Their kids? Would I end up burying generations of my own family because I lived to 500?

Then there’s friendships. Would they cross generations too? Or would we all start isolating, afraid to get close to people when we had no idea how long they’d be around?

Money—would we work forever? Could we even retire?

And politics? Would having immortals who cared about the extreme long-term make things better? Or would culture fall apart because the thread of shared experience stretched too thin?

I don’t have the answers. This idea—this uncertainty about how long we might live—it’s unsettling in ways I didn’t expect.

But what about you? How does this land for you? What would it mean to live in a world where death was no longer the one certainty we had?

With love from Detroit,

Neil

That’s easy though, nobody needs help in those moments. When it’s easy, it’s easy.

There are times though that the good thing to do is at odds with the thing that will get us more power. That’s when goodness really matters - when being good is hard. That’s when the choice matters most and the stakes are most consequential. Can we choose goodness over power, then?

That’s what Chapter 1 of Character by Choice is all about, and what I talk about this week’s episode of Muscle Memory.

Podcast Link: S2E2 | Power and Goodness

With love from Detroit,
Neil

Is conquering sin an inevitability? Is it an imperative? In Steinbeck’s story it’s neither. It’s a a choice. It’s something we may do. Thou mayest.

I don’t think becoming a better person is an inevitability, nor is it an imperative. It’s a choice. That’s why the title of the book I wrote is exactly that: Character By Choice.

—

I’m trying something new for the next few months - a new creative thread to pursue.

I’m relaunching my podcast! I hope you’ll join me there as well as on this blog. Here’s the link to the podcast on Spotify. Or, search for “Muscle Memory” wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s how it’ll work. I’ll read an excerpt from a chapter of the book every week and do a little discussion about it. I’ll summarize the most important idea on this blog. I’ll also have a 5 minute guided reflection with a question related to that chapter.

I’m doing this for two reasons. I’ve invested a ton in writing this book and I’m really proud of it. But the format of a blog can be limiting, I want to try unlocking it in new ways in a format that’s more conducive to voice and dialogue - much like a chat we might have around a campfire.

I also want to explore more creatively, and sow new seeds. Candidly, I’m a little stale and need to recharge my batteries before my blog posts have the same zest and originality that I know I’m capable of. Taking a break from new written ideas will help me find that zest again.

Either way, you’ll still find me here weekly - just with a new format and new energy. Thanks for being here with me and reading (and now listening again). Here’s the link again for the podcast.

“When we have another kid, God helps us grow our heart so that we can love and support each of you 100%.”

Bo gave me that perplexed brow that he always gives me when he’s punching above his weight while processing a complex idea. Luckily, he understood and trusted me enough to take a leap of faith and believe me.

Truth is, I get why he was so torn. Soccer has been his thing: for fun, for confidence, and for having our whole family be his fans. And now, Myles, two years his junior, was encroaching on a precious source of love and stability by having his first game. For Bo, soccer was no longer just his thing.

He needed to understand that our love wasn’t a limited resource—our hearts have grown big enough to fully support him, Myles, and their younger sibling. Like the Grinch, our love expands with every child, every moment, growing larger as life calls for it.

But I could see his hesitation. He was still trying to understand how this worked. How does our heart grow? How do we become the Grinch? Where does that process even begin?

So, where do we start? I believe it begins with making sure we aren’t turning into ‘black holes’ of emotional energy—the kind of person who constantly drains others because their own heart feels empty. We all know that person—the one who pulls love and attention from anywhere they can, but can never seem to hold onto it. To truly let our hearts grow, we need to stop the leaks in our own cup and learn how to fill it.

Once we’ve learned to hold onto love and stop draining it, we realize something else: love is all around us, waiting to be noticed. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing the world is cold or that people can't be trusted—after all, negativity shouts louder. But if we stop and pay attention, we’ll see that love is quietly everywhere.

In my experience, the ugliness just seems louder, drowning out the love that’s quietly waiting to be seen. If we actually pause and look, we’d notice that so many people are eager to share love—they’re just waiting for a small sign to open their hearts. I’ve seen this firsthand in the smallest moments.

When I go for a run, for example, I make a point to give a thumbs-up to cars and pedestrians as I pass by. People almost always wave back—90% of the time, they respond. And I remember doing a ride-along with the Detroit Police when I worked with them. Even in the roughest, most violent neighborhoods, there would still be one or two houses with cut grass and flowers, standing as a beacon of love and care.

When I’ve stopped and paid close attention, it’s clear—love is everywhere, like water behind a dam, waiting to rush forward. It’s in the small gestures, the people around us, just waiting to be released. But love doesn’t just sit there; it does something magical. For me, that magic has two parts. First, love starts to mend the leaks in our emotional cups. Where there were once holes—places where fear, doubt, or loneliness drained us—love flows in and seals them up. The more I’ve opened myself to love, the less I’ve felt those leaks, and the more whole I’ve become.

That’s the first part of love’s magic: it stops the leaks.

The second part is when love begins to pour in, like a river rushing into an open cup. Once we slow down, notice the love around us, and give just the smallest signal that we’re ready for it, love bursts in. It fills our cup, and when it overflows, that flood of love makes it easy to share with others.
And that’s when our hearts start to grow. Just like the Grinch, our hearts expand to hold all that love, naturally growing larger so we can give even more of it away.

Then it’s inevitable for our hearts to grow, like it did for the Grinch.

When we look someone in the eye, we do more than just connect—we actually “see” them.

We see their emotions and more. Eye contact lets us feel what they’re feeling, making it easier to empathize with them and relate. In this way, the eyes help us truly see the person in front of us.

But the eyes also serve as a focal point. When we look someone in the eye, we can momentarily forget about everything else—the logo on their shirt, the color of their skin, the gray in their hair, or whether they use a wheelchair. Eye contact helps us “unsee” these external details, allowing us to connect with the person beneath them. In that moment, we’re less distracted by the things we might consciously or unconsciously judge, and more focused on who they really are.

So, eye contact isn’t just about respect—it’s a powerful tool for equality. If we want to truly see someone as our equal, we need to first unsee the distractions. And looking them in the eye is a good, practical, way to start.

But now, I understand them differently. Looking back, I realize that valuing “meaning” so highly may have come from incomplete thinking.

I used to view meaning as something to attain—almost like a destination. Should my job provide me with meaning? Should I rely on my marriage and family to give me that sense of purpose? And what does it even mean to demand that from these parts of my life?

One moment that changed my thinking came from an unexpected place: a colleague and manager at La-Z-Boy. Whenever I asked him how he was doing, he’d always reply with some variation of, “Good. I’m just glad to be above ground instead of six feet under.”

At first, I found this confusing. Was that really the bar for being “good”? Was simply being alive enough for him?

Over time, though, I began to understand his wisdom.

Maybe we don’t need to constantly seek meaning in our lives—as if it’s a resource to be used up and replenished like gasoline in a car. Perhaps meaning isn’t something we have to chase after; maybe it’s something that comes naturally from simply living.

Now, after more years of hardship, dreams, and changes, I’ve come to see meaning and purpose a different way—that doesn’t involve endlessly searching for meaning.

What if meaning could come from simply existing? Could true peace and enlightenment come from finding meaning in the everyday moments of life, simply because we’re here to experience them?

That’s what I think my colleague was getting at. He wasn’t just saying that being alive was slightly better than being dead. He was suggesting that life itself, without the need for constant external validation, is inherently meaningful.

Finding joy in simply existing takes work. But it’s achievable.

At the heart of this mindset are two principles:

1. Shaping our lives into something we want

2. Learning to live happily with less

When it comes to shaping our lives, the process looks like this:

• Look inward.

• Understand what your inner self truly wants, beyond the ego’s desires.

• Create a small, focused list of things that bring you long-term joy and fulfillment.

• Set clear goals and priorities.

• Gradually work toward shaping your life around those core elements.

• Ultimately, find yourself in a place where simply living feels meaningful.

For living happily with less, the process is similar:

• Again, look inward.

• Understand what the inner self needs, as opposed to what the ego craves.

• Recognize that you already have a surplus of what you need.

• Practice gratitude for what you have.

• Share what you can with others.

• As gratitude deepens, realize you need far less than you once thought.

• Eventually, reach a point where meaning comes from the simple act of living.

However, I want to emphasize that this mindset isn’t about abandoning the work of improving the world.

We must still strive to create a just society where everyone thrives. Ending senseless suffering is vital. And for those who are struggling, the message isn’t to just “be grateful.” This isn’t about ignoring hardships. Similarly, for those who are more fortunate, inner peace can’t be bought—it requires effort and reflection.

These ideas are at the core of my book, Character by Choice.

The book is about the importance of inner work and how to actually do it. Writing it was life-changing for me, and that’s why I’ve made the PDF version free. Inner work changes lives, but it’s difficult and important to learn from each other about.

For years, I chased meaning through work, status, wealth, and stories—but it never seemed to end.

I spent decades searching for meaning, only to feel more lost than ever. That’s why my colleague’s words resonated with me. The real place to be isn’t in constantly chasing meaning, but in finding joy and peace in simply existing.

I believe the path to this place begins by looking inward.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about time and what we leave behind — not just for our children or our children’s children, but for those far down the line.

A generation, they say, is about 30 years. Ten generations? That’s 300 years. It makes me wonder: what could I pass on that lasts for one generation? And, more curiously, what could endure for 10?

One of the biggest lessons I learned while writing Character by Choice was this: to truly be good people, we need to think beyond ourselves. It’s not just about what we accomplish in our lifetimes, but about listening deeply to the call of something greater — something that stretches far into the future, beyond what we’ll ever see or experience. In fact, I’ve come to believe that selflessness becomes joyful when we shift our focus far beyond the present. When we know our actions aren’t ephemeral, but rooted in something that will last for generations, it deepens the sense of purpose and fulfillment. It’s this depth that sustains us, guiding us to work on things that really matter, even if we’ll never see the results.

Let’s say we’ve done the hard inner work, the kind that builds empathy for those distant future generations — the ones we’ll never meet but whose lives we still want to impact. So, what then? What do we actually do with that kind of perspective? How do we spend our time, knowing that we’re playing a much longer game?

I started asking myself this question and even opened it up to some friends on Facebook. Together, we came up with a list of ideas — some lighthearted, some heavy, but all worth considering. What I’ve realized through this process is that I want to focus more on the long game — the 10-gen stuff — instead of getting caught up in things that might only matter for one generation.

So, what might last for 10 generations? Here are some things that came to mind, from the obvious to the unexpected:

• Inventions

• Great companies and institutions that do the right thing

• Values and moral principles

• Beautiful heirlooms

• Novel, simple mental models

• The effects of unconditional love

• Trauma

• Recipes

• Wisdom

• Practical knowledge (e.g., how to can vegetables, how to lay a brick)

• Waste (e.g., plastics, radioactive material)

• Art

• Genetics and predisposition to disease

• A well-built house (or other very well-built things)

• Big beefs

• Spiritual beliefs / Religions

• Culture

• General-purpose technologies (e.g., electricity, the internet)

• The earth and climate

And then there’s the stuff that might burn bright for just one generation before it fades — things we invest time in but maybe shouldn’t overvalue in the long run:

• Inherited wealth

• Reputation / Fame

• Debt

• Status

• Most possessions

• Little beefs

• A “career”

• Incremental innovations

• Politics (for the most part)

• Pop culture

• Gadgets

• News

So, what do you think? What would you add to these lists? More importantly, do you believe the 10-gen stuff is worth striving for? Is it even something we can shape? I’d love to hear your thoughts — let’s keep the conversation going.

Always,

Neil

I thought back to a lesson I learned at Student Council camp in high school: all jobs on the team are important.

At camp, years ago, one of our exercises was a simulation of a manufacturing process—we had to replicate a design, transport parts, and rebuild the design to spec in a different room. I felt unimportant as the truck driver—all I did was follow orders, wait around, and move parts from one room to another.

But my camp counselor reminded me during our debrief, “Could the team have built the design without you driving the truck?” I learned one of the most important lessons in leadership: if it needs to be done, the job is important. And no matter what the job is, the person who does it should be treated with the same high level of respect as everyone else on the team.

That’s what I told Robert: it’s okay that the sack of water was too heavy for you to carry. You’ll be stronger someday. But carrying those dishes? We need those dishes too, and I appreciate you carrying them. You’re doing an important job.

Over the years, as I’ve taken on more leadership roles, the lesson I learned at camp has deepened. It’s not just about recognizing that all jobs are important and treating everyone with respect, regardless of status. It’s also about ensuring that everyone has a role that truly matters.

Too many people in too many organizations have jobs that underutilize their capabilities, sometimes in ways that are almost insulting. Generally, if someone is good enough to be hired, they want to contribute meaningfully. Not everyone aspires to senior roles, but almost everyone wants their job to be impactful, not bullshit.

Unfortunately, some leaders seem to think that their team members should figure out what’s important on their own—they can’t be bothered to help those with less power craft meaningful roles.

I don’t live by that standard. If we have more authority and status than someone else, we need to help them find and fulfill an important job. We need to create opportunities for others to be respected. Sure, it’s a two-way street, but more of that responsibility lies with those of us who have more authority.

One of the most impactful things we can do as leaders is to actively help others create roles that matter. When we create opportunities for everyone to contribute meaningfully, we not only respect them—we elevate the entire team.

We must create important jobs.

The Tough Reality of True Inclusivity

Creating a truly inclusive culture—whether in a society, a company, a small team, or even a family—in a diverse environment requires a special mindset. We have to believe that everybody matters and has a place if they treat others with respect. More importantly, we have to believe that it’s possible for everybody to matter.

Here’s what I mean by “it’s possible” for everybody to matter. Some situations feel like a prisoners’ dilemma, where not everyone can win. For example, multiple people vying for the same CEO position may see each other as competitors. Only one person can win, so it feels like others must lose.

Or consider children who feel they must be their parents’ favorite to feel secure and loved. This zero-sum mindset leads them to believe that not everyone can matter equally.

People who think this way might believe: We can’t have true inclusivity because there will always be winners and losers. Only winners matter. Everyone mattering is therefore impossible.

Inclusivity is hard because we must overcome this zero-sum mindset—that the world must always have winners and losers—to begin creating an inclusive society, company, or team. We have to believe that it’s even possible for everyone to matter.

Simply saying that everybody matters and it’s possible for everyone to matter can be dismissed as cheap talk. Why should we believe it’s possible for everyone to matter when the zero-sum mindset is so pervasive? A skeptic might say, “prove it.”

And to be fair, examples of true inclusivity are rare and often seem exceptional. How many spaces have you seen where everyone truly mattered? When I think of public examples, I think of the Apollo program, which brought together diverse talents to land people on the moon. Other examples include the Manhattan Project, the Toyota Production System, Microsoft’s transformation under Satya Nadella, and Southwest Airlines in its heyday. But even these examples have flaws and limitations, showing how hard it is to scale inclusivity.

Audacious Dreams

Inclusion is a complex phenomenon that’s hard to explain, but I think a big part of it is dreams. We need audacious dreams.

Inclusion is really hard. To counter the zero-sum mindset, inclusion can't be voluntary. It has to be involuntary, where we have no choice but to put aside our fears and egos and create the gravity that brings everyone in.

Audacious dreams create this gravity and make inclusion emerge. When we have a dream that matters deeply, we do anything to bring people in to achieve it. We look for the superpowers in others to help make the dream come true. With these dreams, we forget how hard it is to build an inclusive culture and just do it because we care about the dream and the mission.

I saw this when I worked at the Detroit Police Department. Many leaders, community members, and staffers—inside and outside of government—had the audacious dream to reduce gun violence in Detroit. This was audacious because for decades, Detroit had been one of the most violent cities in the country, with no data suggesting it would change.

The audacity of this dream brought everyone in. We had no choice but to include people because there was too much work to do. We had to find and involve new funders, community partners, law enforcement agencies, university researchers, and even victims and perpetrators of violence. We had to be inclusive and find ways for everyone to contribute their unique gifts because the dream of reducing violence was so challenging.

I’ve been away from this work for several years, but a lot of good work to reduce gun violence in Detroit has happened in the past decade. Audacious dreams that foster inclusivity are possible.

Guarding Against the Dark Side of Dreams

Audacious dreams create the gravity that helps inclusion emerge involuntarily. We need audacious dreams about “all of us.”

Yet, if contemplated with bad intent, audacious dreams can also be dangerous. There are many examples of people who manipulate others by sharing an audacious dream, recruiting people to help them, and ultimately pursuing an agenda of self-enrichment.

It’s also easy to use audacious dreams to be selectively inclusive—only including a chosen few and excluding others to build in-group unity.

How do we ensure our audacious dreams lead to an inclusive culture instead of a toxic one?

I think how we, as individual dreamers, dream matters. Is our dream one where the final image is of our own personal glory? Or is the final glimpse a better future for everyone? Is the dream about just us as individuals or all of us as a group?

This is hard. I’ve struggled with delusional dreams about my own advancement and personal glory for decades. I try not to be too hard on myself because our culture worships achievement, but it’s true. I’ve had dreams of being inaugurated as a senator or giving a press conference as a CEO. Even after seven-plus years of inner work as I’ve written a book - Character by Choice - which goes deep on the inner work that builds our capacity to be good people, I still relapse into dreams about moments of personal glory instead of dreams about all of us.

But this inner work is worth doing because we desperately need audacious dreams that create the gravity to bring everybody in. We need to leave ourselves no choice but to find ways for everyone to matter. I truly believe that an inclusive culture will lead to a healthier, more prosperous, and greener world in the long run. So we have no choice but to dream audacious dreams.

But like power, audacious dreams can corrupt. If we make them about just us instead of all of us, those dreams can lead to exclusion and exploitation.

We can’t have it both ways. If we want to create an inclusive culture, we have to dream audaciously. But we also have to do the inner work to ensure those dreams aren’t about just us, but about all of us.

However, one crucial element that underpins effective leadership is frequently overlooked: imagination. From my experience, both personal and professional, I have learned that taking full responsibility for a project or goal requires the ability to vividly imagine its realization. This power of imagination is not just a lofty concept but a practical and essential skill for leaders.

To inspire a team to bring our vision to life, we must articulate it clearly and compellingly. This act of sharing our imagination is what we commonly refer to as having a vision. Whether you are a CEO, product manager, entrepreneur, artist, politician, or parent, the ability to communicate your vision is fundamental to effective leadership.

Imagination operates on three distinct levels when we take responsibility for a project. To illustrate, consider the creation of a running shoe. The first level involves envisioning the product itself. What does the shoe look like? How is it designed? What makes it unique and special? This product vision is the core of what we aim to create, whether it’s a shoe, a family, a city, or a store.

The second level of imagination is what I call the market or cultural vision. This involves envisioning the broader impact of our product or project on the world. For our running shoe, we must consider who will be using it. Are they solo runners or part of running clubs? How does running with our shoe change them as individuals? What new stories do they tell themselves because of their experiences? How do these runners interact with others differently? Envisioning this broader impact helps us understand how our efforts contribute to making the world a slightly better place.

The third level of imagination is the internal vision, which focuses on the process and team dynamics required to bring our vision to life. For the running shoe, this means imagining the manufacturing process: How will the shoe be made and designed? Who will be part of our team? What kind of culture will we cultivate within our team? What will our interactions look and feel like? If a documentary were made about our journey, what key moments and values would it highlight? This internal vision ensures that we have a clear roadmap for achieving our goals.

In essence, a leader is someone who takes end-to-end responsibility for a project or goal. To do this effectively, the ability to imagine and share what’s in our mind’s eye is essential. Without this, we risk merely replicating someone else’s vision instead of creating our own.

This brings us to two key “how” questions: How do we get better at imagining, and how do we assess imagination in others?

To improve our imagination, we need practice. However, imagination cannot be practiced in the abstract. We must engage in the act of creation—whether it’s building a custom shelf, writing a book, painting a picture, or organizing a street festival. The process of imagining often unfolds naturally as we commit to building something. We don’t set out with the intent to imagine; instead, we follow our instincts, commit to the project, and let the imagination flow.

Assessing imagination, particularly in an interview setting, is relatively straightforward. Ask candidates to share their dreams—whether for their current company, their family, or their community. Encourage them to elaborate with follow-up questions. If, within 5-10 minutes, you can vividly see what they envision and feel excited about it, they likely possess a refined ability to imagine and communicate their vision. Chief James Craig, who led the Detroit Police Department while I was there, emphasized this principle: “We have to talk about our dreams.” I wholeheartedly agree.

To ground this discussion, which may seem abstract, let’s envision a world where people are committed to making their corner of the world a bit better by bringing their dreams to life. Achieving this requires the ability to imagine and clearly communicate what’s in our mind’s eye. How do we cultivate this capability? By building things and talking about our dreams.

To be healthy, human beings need to express themselves. The problem with the phrases I mentioned (and others) is that they prescribe a specific means of expression. Not everyone likes or wants to express themselves through conversations about their feelings or through tears.

Personally, I express myself through words (writing, talking) and physical expressions (tears, laughter, singing, dancing, hugs). But those aren’t the only healthy means of self-expression. Athletics, fine arts, martial arts, carpentry, cooking – these are also healthy ways to express oneself.

While these phrases are true – it is okay to cry, and people probably do need to talk about their feelings to some degree – throwing them around can cause withdrawal. Men who aren’t naturally cryers or talkers withdraw when others impose a specific means of expression onto them. Even as someone who is a cryer and a talker, I feel controlled and violated when people insist that men need to cry and talk more, despite agreeing with the statements themselves.

It’s more productive to remind everyone, regardless of age or gender identity, that we need to express ourselves to be healthy. Instead of saying, “it’s okay for men to cry,” it’s more effective to ask, “how do you express yourself, and what type of forum do you need?”

This post may sound like a rant, and in some ways, it is. However, I appreciate the intent behind encouraging men to talk about their feelings because many men, myself included, have faced or will face challenges. I’m glad people are starting to understand that men and boys – and other groups too – have unique mental health challenges.

These challenges are reflected in suicide rates. Here are three informative data sources about suicide rates and how they intersect with gender, age, occupation, and other factors. The punchline is that men have higher suicide rates than women, particularly Native American and White men.

• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention - Suicide Statistics

• CDC: Suicide Rates by Industry and Occupation — National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2021

• Population Reference Bureau: In U.S., Who Is at Greatest Risk for Suicides?

I’m suggesting there’s a better way to communicate with men about mental and emotional health. While I appreciate well-intentioned phrases like “it’s okay to cry” and “it’s important to talk about feelings,” I believe they often lead to closed doors, particularly for men. A more effective approach is to emphasize the importance of expression and begin a conversation about how each of us wants and needs to express ourselves.

Our small urban garden in Detroit is a raised bed measuring just 4x12 feet. As novice gardeners, we often cram in more transplants than we should. Despite the tight space, tending to the garden is a joy, and I often talk to the plants while working the soil.

Last year, we took a chance and planted tomatillos. Although they grew well, we didn’t use them much because I wasn’t sure how to incorporate them into recipes, and we didn’t harvest enough to make it worthwhile. Many of the tomatillos fell into the bed and nestled into the soil. This year, tomatillo plants sprouted up all over the raised bed with cheer and resilience.

This weekend, while clearing weeds and preparing the bed for the fall crop season, I reflected on a lesson in enterprise strategy and leadership. We belong to a wonderful garden club, Keep Growing Detroit, and I’m picking up transplants from them this week. This is where the parable begins to take root.

As a gardener, some choices are easy. Do I pull the weeds? Absolutely. Weeds steal resources and space from our vegetables. It was sad but straightforward to cut our losses and pull the carrots we planted. Despite our efforts, the carrots didn’t thrive because weeds and grasses consumed the resources and space they needed to grow. Moreover, we planted them 2-3 weeks too late, and the cool-weather-loving carrots couldn’t withstand the heat. After assessing the situation, it was clear these carrots wouldn’t reach maturity.

We were disappointed because carrots are a family favorite. They’re delicious, and it’s fun to pull them while joking, “What’s up Doc?” like Bugs Bunny. Despite being a risk worth taking, the carrots didn’t turn out as planned.

Next, I had to decide about the tomatillos. Should I pull them or let them grow? The fallen tomatillos were thriving, already fruiting with many more to come. Ultimately, I decided to pull the tomatillos from the bed. It was painful and felt wasteful since they were already producing fruit.

What I realized was that even with a bumper crop of tomatillos, I would have had to go out of my way to use them. Honestly, I wasn’t interested in experimenting with new tomatillo recipes; I would have preferred trying a new vegetable like a pepper, squash, or bean. I would have used them, but I wouldn’t have been excited about the results. Tomatillos weren’t going to get me where I wanted to go.

In our garden, those tomatillos represented a real opportunity cost. With limited space in the bed, keeping the tomatillos meant losing the chance to plant fall crops that would better serve our needs. The tension was real; the tomatillos were already fruiting, creating inertia to leave them in the ground. But I knew I had to pull them because of the opportunity cost. Even a bumper crop of tomatillos wouldn’t help me achieve the outcomes I cared about.

We have to pull the tomatillo priorities. In enterprises, just like in a garden, attention and resources are limited. As enterprise leaders and strategists, we must focus on initiatives that not only bear fruit but also get us to where we want to go.

Every enterprise I have worked in has projects analogous to the weeds, carrots, and tomatillos in my garden. It’s challenging, but relatively easy, to end pet projects that pop up uninvited and steal resources and space from our most critical initiatives. We just have to recognize these projects for what they are—weeds—even if it requires a crucial conversation with the project leader.

We also have to pull the carrots, which are the projects we should be doing but have run off the rails and are no longer viable. For these, we need to celebrate our failure and learn from our mistakes so that the next time we attempt them, we succeed.

And hardest of all, we need to pull the projects that are bearing fruit but aren’t getting us where we actually want to go. These tomatillo projects are crucial to end because if they grow and succeed, they commit us even more to a direction that isn’t in the enterprise’s long-term interest. Tomatillo projects make us feel great right now but are dead ends in the long run.

To be sure, it’s not easy for any enterprise to say no, establish priorities, and end initiatives. But the enterprise is our garden bed, and we have to do what helps the garden grow the fruit that gets us to where we want to go.

That means we have to find the weeds and pull them. Even if it’s sad, we have to pull the carrots. And even though it feels terrible to end projects that are bearing fruit, we must have the courage to pull the tomatillos. The success of our enterprises and our gardens depends on it.

In tennis, maintaining a positive and aggressive state of mind is crucial throughout the match. If you’re not positive enough, your muscles tighten, leading to overthinking and missed shots. Conversely, if you’re not aggressive enough, you won’t take the necessary risks to win points.

The key to staying in this optimal mindset is learning to forget points quickly. Each point in tennis carries emotional weight, whether it’s a win or a loss. However, carrying these emotions from point to point disrupts the flow state essential for a tennis player. Therefore, it's vital to let go of previous points, regardless of whether they were good or bad.

The moments between points in tennis are crucial for resetting your mindset. This brief pause is the only opportunity to unload emotions and regain focus. To move on effectively, a tennis player must express all their emotions—whether positive or critical—between points, ensuring no lingering feelings disrupt their game.

The essential lesson here is to express, forget, and refocus on the point ahead.

This lesson from my time as a boy who grew up playing sports has profoundly impacted my adult life: the necessity to express myself every day, even if it's just in my journal. This need to express is a significant reason I’m committed to writing on this blog weekly.

Expressing myself allows me to calm down and gain the mindset required to truly listen and pay attention to those around me—whether it’s my family or my team at work. This ability to express and unload my thoughts is critical because if I can’t listen, I can’t love. If I can’t listen, I can’t solve problems. If I can’t listen, I can’t support others.

Even a five-minute free-write or singing songs from my karaoke favorites playlist on the way to work helps me to express, forget, and refocus.

I am so grateful for the chance to play and watch tennis because this lesson has been so impactful in my life. To anyone whose interest was piqued by this post, my advice is simple: express yourself every day. Whether it’s writing in a journal, talking to an old friend, or taking a few minutes to draw, do something daily that allows you to embrace the tennis mindset of express, forget, and refocus.

This simple lesson from one of the world’s great sports - to express, forget, and refocus - is the key to truly listening. By listening, we create the space to solve problems and form loving relationships with those around us.

My hypothesis is this: low trust isn’t just a social ill—it’s a profitable venture for some. Over the years, I’ve noticed different groups that seem to benefit from distrust, both within organizations and across our culture. In this post, I’ll share my observations and explore who profits from distrust. If you have your own observations or data, please share them as we delve into this critical issue together.

Adversaries

The first group that benefits from low trust is straightforward: our adversaries. Distrust and infighting often go hand in hand. It’s much easier to defeat a rival, whether in the market, in an election, in a war, or in a race for positioning, when they are busy fighting among themselves and imploding from within.

Brokers

Another group that profits from distrust are brokers. Though they often don’t have bad intentions, brokers make a living by filling the gap that distrust creates. By “broker,” I mean someone who advocates on our behalf in an untrusting or uncertain environment. This could be a real estate agent, someone who vouches for us as a business partner, a friend who sets people up on blind dates, or someone whose endorsement wins us favor with others.

Mercenaries

Mercenaries are a less well-intentioned version of brokers. These people paint a dark picture of a distrustful world and then offer to fight for us or provide protection—for a price. Mercenaries never portray themselves as such, even if that’s what they really are.

Aggregators

Aggregators are people or organizations that build a reputation for being consistently trustworthy, especially when their rivals are not. Essentially, they aggregate trust and communicate it as a symbol of value. A good example of aggregators are fast food brands. When traveling abroad, people trust an American fast food chain to be clean, consistent, and reasonably priced. Many brands across industries thrive because they’ve built a trustworthy reputation.

These groups are fairly straightforward, and many of you might find these categories intuitive and relatable. However, they didn’t seem to cover enough ground to explain the persistent low trust levels in our culture. As I thought more about it, I realized that the largest group benefiting from distrust might be hidden in plain sight…

Stale Incumbents

Now, let’s consider the largest group that might be benefiting from distrust: stale incumbents.

Imagine someone you’ve worked with who always slows down projects. They resist learning new things and believe in sticking to the old ways. They’re nice, but their team never meets deadlines or finishes projects—they always have a believable excuse. This person is a stale incumbent.

More specifically, a stale incumbent is someone in a position who is out of ideas or motivation to innovate. Their ability to keep their job depends on everyone being stuck in the status quo. Here’s how it works:

1. They get into a comfortable position.

2. They stop learning and trying new things.

3. They run out of ideas because they stopped learning.

4. They try to hide and let new ideas fade.

5. They allow distrust and low standards to settle in.

6. When new people ask questions, they blame distrust: “It’s not my fault; others aren’t cooperating.”

7. They make the status quo seem inevitable, doing the minimum to keep their position and discourage change.

8. They repeat steps 4-7.

Stale incumbents need distrust to hide behind. They want to keep their comfortable position but have no new ideas because they stopped learning. A culture of distrust is the perfect scapegoat: it can’t argue back, and people think it can’t be changed, so they stop asking questions and give up. The distrust also makes it harder for new people to show up, innovate, annd expose the stale incumbent.

Ultimately, stale incumbents can keep their jobs while delivering mediocre results. This staleness spreads, making the culture of distrust harder to reverse because more stale incumbents depend on it. It’s a cycle of mediocrity, not anger and fear.

I don’t have experimental data, but I do have decades of regular observation draw from. I believe stale incumbents help explain the persistent low trust in America. Many people started with energy but never found allies, and the stale culture assimilated them.

The good news is there’s hope. If distrust is due to stale incumbents rather than malicious actors, we may not face much resistance in bringing about change. The path to change is clear: bring in energetic people and help them bring others along. It’s hard, but not complicated. By fostering a culture of learning, innovation, and trust, we can break the cycle of mediocrity and create a more trusting and dynamic society.

And maybe, it’ll be on a zoom call with all our pals who can make it. Or, perhaps in one of its fleeting uses, Facebook will remind me that it’s your birthday.

One of my sons, after awhile will ask, “how do you know them, Papa?”

And I’ll get to say one of the phrases in the whole of the English language that is the most special to me:

“We’re old friends.”

I am lucky enough to have old friends from three places I’ve lived: Rochester, Ann Arbor, and Detroit. We’ve lived in Detroit for 13 years this fall, longer than I’ve lived anywhere and certainly long enough to be “old friends.”

I was laid up sick this weekend, and as my fever was peaking above 103 degrees and I didn’t even have the energy to fall asleep, I listened to Ben Rector’s live album, thought of you, and wept - like I am now. How I miss you, so desperately.

I think of you so much more than I let on. I am so sorry that it can be years sometimes before I’ll pop up out of my hole. I’m so sorry I’m not better.

The reason why, is one I owe you.

My dreams have come true. All I ever wanted, I realize now, was a family. And we have one. It has been a beautiful, messy, hilarious, journey. Here, tucked away in Detroit, my life has been made.

I want to be here, in my hole, soaking up every moment.

There’ll be times when I’m about to text or call and one of my sons will rope me into a soccer game in our basement. We’ll laugh. And then it’ll be bedtime, and then it’s dishes time, and then I’ll be wiped but glowing with happiness as Robyn and I spend 30m together if we can - and the moment will have passed.

I don’t mean this to be an excuse, but it is a reason.

So to my old friends, I miss you. I love you very much, and will think of you often - I promise.

Until we meet again,

Neil

All my sons put so much effort and care into my Father’s Day present. It helped me remember that, no matter who you are, as a young kid, the people who raise you are your whole world. Mothers and fathers are just…giants to a kid. All children explore this, fascinated and in awe. That’s why all kids put on their parents’ shoes and mittens and walk around in them.

“Maybe someday,” we wish, “these will fit and I’ll get the chance to be like them.”

Mothers and fathers are giants to a kid.

This is such a gift of love, not just for our joy and hearts but for the people we will become in the future.

I’ve been thinking about how this year, on my birthday, my perception of age changed. When we’re young, the first change comes when you realize how awesome it will be to be older: bigger, stronger, and more free. Then you hit the invincibility years of your twenties, wishing to stay 27 or 28 forever.

Next come the years of control—or lack thereof, I suppose. There’s not enough money, not a good enough job, the kids grow up too quickly, and you find yourself nervously joking about the increasing gray in your hair or talking about revisiting old haunts to recapture fleeting youth.

Then my 37th birthday hit, and my perception of age changed again. It was a birthday where I thought, “Damn, I’m just glad to be here for it.”

Why? Because I became very conscious of how our table grew more crowded this year, not less. This year, we’ve added children, brothers, and sisters to our table of friends and family. And we lost almost nobody. I’m old enough now to realize how rare and precious birthdays like this one will be from here on out.

So yes, when I blew out the candles on my pineapple birthday cake this year, my wish was: “Thank you, God, for letting me celebrate this birthday. My wish is for my next birthday to be like this one, with our table more crowded, not less.”

One of my greatest fears about death now is not the pain, suffering, and uncertainty that surrounds it—though that’s still a real fear. I have started to fear that a birthday will come—especially if my friends and family are gone, and I’m the last one standing—where I won’t wish for another one.

That’s the final change in our perception of age: moving from a place of peace and gratitude for our life—where we’re just happy to be here—to hoping for death to come peacefully, but also soon. I don’t want to ever slip into that last phase of age. I hope this last birthday, where I was just happy to be here and hoped for another birthday, is the last time my perception of age meaningfully changes.

No matter what happens, I know today that I have mattered to my sons. Days like these, marked by little celebrations and small gestures of love, remind us that we mattered to someone—whether it was our kids, friends, family, colleagues, or neighbors—that we loomed large.

These little Father’s Day gifts, like the ones I received today, are more than just presents. They are symbols we can hold onto as we age, reminders that we loved and were loved. These symbols of love will always give me hope and a feeling of worth, a reason to keep wishing for more birthdays. Because we were loved once, there’s always hope that each day we wake up, there will be that light of love again—whether it comes to us or is the light we carry and gift to others.

At the end of each gratitude, I add a simple “Thank you” to acknowledge the forces and people making my life better. This small change has significantly impacted my daily gratitude practice, and I recommend trying it if you keep a gratitude journal.

First, it’s humbling. Giving “credit” for the good things in my life makes me realize the generosity and care others are capable of. I am often in awe of their talents, grace, and how they share both with me.

Second, I feel loved—the opposite of alone. Every time I write the name of someone who has done something—knowingly or unknowingly—for me, it’s as if I feel that person giving me a hug or a smile. With a stroke of a pen, writing the name of another person in gratitude builds a feeling of love in my heart and reminds me that no matter what I think or what is happening around me, I am not alone.

Interestingly, I can’t always articulate something specific to acknowledge in my daily gratitude. Sometimes, all I can think to thank is the universe, the culture, God, or the Earth. It’s a reminder of how expansive human life can be and breaks me out of the minutiae of the daily grind. It helps me reach a headspace where small things remain small and the traces of bigger things emerge.

This emergence of these bigger forces is motivating. It makes me want to forget about the narrow and childish things that can often consume too much of my energy. When I remember that there are forces out there conspiring to make my life joyous, it makes me want to add a dollop of untraceable love and support out into the universe for others.

Ultimately, this is the broadest lesson from adding a “thank you” to my daily gratitude: by thanking the people behind my blessings, it helps me to think of and make sacrifices for others myself. If we are trying to be good people in the toughest moments, this is exactly the motivation we need to cultivate.

The reason for this deliberate non-post? It’s because one of the building blocks of human bonding is attention. Relationships only form when we pay attention. Love blossoms in the here and now.

I remembered this after attending a very special family wedding where the bride and groom gave us the gift of presence by asking for the ceremony to be phone-free.

This is an image of a dog offering up a glass of water. Take one more brief moment to look at it and plant it firmly in your mind.

Now, when you and I inevitably see a dog or a glass of water this summer, let’s use it as a trigger which gives us the permission to take 15 seconds, shake out of whatever we were thinking about, and get back to the present moment.

Once we’re back to the here and now we’re ready for love and fellowship.

The first bit is a good illustration of how I think about the American Dream. But for what it’s worth, I mean this post more as an exercise in how to “do” politics differently than just having a platform on 50+ issues that matter to the polity and shouting about it as loud as you can - not an unpacking of my own vision.

My main consternation as a citizen is this: I don’t want a policy platform unless you’ve shared a bona fide vision first! Rather than just griping, I figured I’d actually explain how I think things could work instead.

And, for what it’s worth, this is how I’ve seen great organizations function across sectors. This sort of discipline around strategy and execution is one of the things I most wish the public sector would adopt from private sector organizations and business school professors.

To start, let’s assume a visionary political leader believes these are the three overarching questions that unify the largest possible amount of our polity:

1. On average, do people have enough optimism about the present and future to want to bring children into this world?

2. On average, once someone is brought into this world, do they flourish from cradle to grave?

3. Overall, the simplest and most comprehensive way to measure the health of a society is Total Fertility Rate vs. replacement rate. Is our long-run population stable, growing, or declining?

Thinking about the fundamental need gripping the polity is key. I think whether or not people want to reproduce is a good bellwether of a LOT and therefore a good framework for contemplating political issues at a national level.

A vision statement based on these questions could be:

I imagine a country where our citizens believe it’s worth bringing children into the world and have reasonable confidence that those children will flourish during their lifetimes.

A vision statement statement has to describe the world after you’ve succeeded from the POV of the citizen, not the work itself.

A pithy slogan / mission (which does sharply focus and describe the work itself) to capture the essence of this vision statement could be:

“Families will thrive here.”

Let’s assume this is a vision / mission statement that the polity believes in. If so, then the political leader can translate their rhetoric into action by asking two simple questions:

1. Is the vision true today?

2. If not, what would have to be true for the vision to become reality?

From there, a political leader can create an integrated set of mutually reinforcing policy and administrative choices that they believe will allow the polity to make disproportionate progress toward the vision state.

Put another way, by working backwards from the vision, you can place bets on the initiatives that are more likely to succeed rather than wasting resources on those that won’t get us to where we agreed we want to go.

The problem with this approach is that you actually have to articulate a vision, understand the root causes that are preventing it from happening without intervention, do the extremely abstract work of forming a strategy, and then communicate it clearly enough so that people get behind it. That’s really hard, and you have to have major guts to go through this exercise of vision -> strategy -> priorities -> outcomes.

This is quite different, I think, than simply articulating a pro-con list of policy preferences across a widely distributed set of issue areas that aren’t contemplated in an integrated way. But the thing is, having focus and priorities tends to work much better than “boiling the ocean” or “being all things to all people.”

To be fair, I’ve seen some contemporary politicians operate this way. Not many though.

In a nutshell, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from observing the leadership of private-sector companies is that it’s a big waste to just start doing stuff in a way that’s not integrated and focused—as if every possible initiative is equally impactful. It works much better when you start with a specific end state in mind and work backwards. It’s an idea that’s useful for political leaders, too.

Over the years, I’ve reflected on their mindsets, which, on the surface, appear quite different. (Check out this post on athletes and this one on artists).

But there’s at least one big thing that elite artists and athletes have in common: they can think and feel at the same time. Let’s take the example of a tennis player and a stage actor.

A tennis player has to think and make snap decisions with every stroke, fluidly, in real-time. When you’re playing tennis, you’re constantly thinking about your game plan, your opponent, the match's momentum, and your tactical strategy—and then putting it into action on every single point.

Additionally, a tennis player must manage their emotions because the sport is an emotional roller coaster. Clinging to bad shots or failing to ride the momentum can hinder their performance. To be a great tennis player, you have to be able to think and feel at the same time.

Consider a moment in a high-stakes tennis match. The player is down a set and facing a break point. The crowd holds its breath as the player takes a deep breath, silencing the noise in their mind. In that instant, they must trust their training and instincts, feeling the weight of the moment while calculating their next move.

A stage actor must also access their emotions. Characters become believable and storytelling compelling only when it comes from a genuine emotional place. As a stage actor, you have to delve deep into your inner world to tap the emotional reservoir necessary for an outstanding performance.

At the same time, a stage actor has to think deeply. The actor has to think about their lines and their cues, of course. But also, the stage actor has to think about their technique, body movements, intonation, and their interplay with all the other actors onstage - especially if something goes wrong and the ensemble has to start improvising. To be a great stage actor, you have to think and feel at the same time.

This skill of simultaneous thinking and feeling applies to many domains of our lives. As a parent, we have to think about our actions and principles while deeply empathizing with and listening to our children. At work, we have to think analytically about problems but feel and attune to human dynamics and emotions within our teams. This skill - which artists and athletes possess - is broadly applicable.

The trick lies in the “how.” How do we cultivate this dual skill of thinking and feeling simultaneously?

As I contemplate this, I think of two martial artists who spar inside our heads: “The Thinker” and “The Feeler.” The key, I believe, is letting these fighters go at it. Not in an antagonistic way, but in a symbiotic, we’re-on-the-same-team, iron-sharpens-iron kind of way when we do hard stuff.

In practice, this means two things. First, we have to do novel, challenging things. We need new, difficult stuff for The Thinker and The Feeler to work on. Maybe it’s a new project at work, or training for a race, or resolving to be a more patient parent.

Second, we have to ensure that The Thinker and The Feeler aren’t just going through the motions. We can’t let ourselves go on autopilot and do things the way we always do. The Thinker has to be trying new stuff to become a better thinker, and The Feeler has to be trying new stuff to be a better feeler. In any novel situation where we’re trying to “train,” we should periodically ask ourselves, "Am I on autopilot, just going through the motions? Should I be?"

If we aim for excellence in any field—be it artistry, athletics, parenting, or our vocation—we cannot afford to be pushovers. We need The Thinker and The Feeler in our minds to be strong, agile sparring partners, ready to tackle any challenge in real-time. By continuously training both, we forge a path to mastery.

However, the times of ease and abundance in our lives—moments when we are most comfortable—also define us, yet these periods receive far less scrutiny. This week, I've come to realize that our actions during these comfortable times are equally telling. When the pressure is off, and we are left to our own devices with resources at hand, who do we choose to be? This question, I believe, is as crucial as how we face adversity, for it sheds light on the values we hold dear even when no one is compelling us to uphold them.

The Challenge of Super Comfort

I might become super comfortable for various reasons. Perhaps I’ve fallen into some money, achieved sustainable wealth, gained mastery in my job, or it’s simply sunny and I’m on vacation. Maybe I’ve just gotten a promotion or been recognized for some sort of award. Maybe one of my posts has gone viral, and I’m currently "the it guy" because of it. How do I act then?

Do I lose my hunger to be a better man? Do I let my standards slide? Do I forget about the injustices others face because this mojito I’m palming is just that hypnotizing? Do I take the day off from my duties because I feel like I’m above doing the work in the trenches now that I’ve "made it"? Do I stop diving for the metaphorical loose ball? Will my tastes get more expensive simply because they can, or will I remain the same guy from the schoolyard who went out and worked for it every day and put the team ahead of himself?

When things are rolling my way and I’m super comfortable, who am I going to be? When I feel like I’ve made it, will the game be about "me" or will I walk the walk on it being about "we"?

How We Can Manage Super Comfort

Dealing with super comfort is a real issue, not confined to stratospheric levels of wealth or social status. Owning a house, maintaining a retirement account, having a respected job, and enjoying paid vacation days—these are signs of 'super comfort' accessible to many, not just the super-rich. And here's the crux: I don’t want comfort to corrupt my character.

I've always cared about more than my own comfort, tracing back to when I joined the Brooklands Elementary student council at nine years old. I still aspire to be that hopeful, gregarious lad who believed that serving others was time well spent. Honestly, I don’t want to fade into a life of super comfort and become a self-indulgent navel-gazer. When I enjoy a lazy, restorative moment, I want it to be just that—a moment. Once it passes, I aim to return to something bigger than comfort.

So, if we care about our character and the impact we have on others and our corner of the world, this question is vital: How do we not let super comfort corrupt who we are?

It starts with a strong sense of who we are and what we care about unconditionally. We must literally post our deep convictions on our wall so we can't ignore them once we've 'made it.' Moreover, we must be wary of gated communities. The term 'gated community' often brings to mind exclusive residential areas that are physically gated off from the surrounding world, but it also applies to social circles and activities that are metaphorically gated through economic, cultural, or educational barriers.

True inclusive spaces are those accessible to everyone. To prevent our comfort from corrupting us, we must actively engage with these places. It's not just about avoiding country clubs or luxury suites at stadiums; it's about ensuring our daily environments—coffee shops, churches, date nights—are not so elite and self-selecting that we go weeks without having our comfort zones challenged. It's about choosing to leave the bubbles of our grad school networks and being open to interactions with diverse groups of people at the grocery store or our kids’ soccer games. The only real inclusive spaces are those that everyone can access, and to prevent corruption through comfort, we must show up in those places.

Super comfort becomes normal when we detach from public life and limit our social interactions to these private, exclusive spaces. It’s easy to indulge in comfort and rationalize elitist behaviors when we only inhabit specific slices of our world.

This is a bit of a rant, and that’s because this idea of corruption through comfort is new to me. How we act when we face adversity defines us, obviously. But how we act when we are faced with super comfort matters just as much. Maybe even more so, because in the throes of being comfortable is when we are most likely to make an exception to the standards of character we have set for ourselves.

Maybe it’s not novel for you, but it is novel for me: I have to fight the effects of super comfort, and that starts by even acknowledging this idea that how we act when we are super comfortable requires introspection and scrutiny.

Just as our character is defined by how we act in moments of adversity, it’s also defined by how we act in the moments where adversity is furthest away.

Eight years ago this week, Robyn and I were wed at an old Jesuit church in downtown Detroit. This was the Gospel reading we chose, Matthew 7:24-25:

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."

We chose this reading deliberately. Fresh off the sudden passing of my father three months before our wedding day, we had already been through the gales and floods of a big storm. The notion of “in good times and bad” wasn’t just an abstract concept to us—our young relationship had already lived through both.

We had at least some notion of the good and bad days ahead. We knew that there would be more death and grief ahead. We didn’t know exactly what parenting would be like, but we did have some idea of the intense joy and struggle it would entail.

We knew that jobs would come and go with varying levels of stress and accomplishment. We knew that we’d have fun passing time around Detroit with friends and neighbors. And, perhaps most importantly, we knew that “family first” would be a guiding principle for our life together, and with that commitment would come love and sacrifice.

We chose that passage for our wedding Gospel reading because we wanted to anchor our marriage into the “rock” of God and love so we could celebrate the good days and weather the bad days we knew would come.

We didn’t know exactly what was coming or when, but we knew it would.

All that said, something happened over the last 8 years that I never predicted, and honestly, it completely blindsided me.

I never imagined, after that first season of falling in love, that I’d fall in love with Robyn again. That I’d feel that rush of romance after we had long passed the days of being love birds and our honeymoon phase.

But I have. As we’ve lived through each new season of our life together, I’ve fallen in love with Robyn again and again.

And I’m so grateful.

The reason why this happened is simple: we’ve each changed, a lot. Of course, our core principles remain intact. But holy cow, so much has happened these past 8 years. The entire context in which our lives are set has changed, how could we not be different people?

All this change has made things novel and fresh. It has given us an opportunity to fall in love again and again, in every new season. That’s a choice: we’re choosing to grow together instead of apart, and that has perhaps made falling in love the second, third, and fourth times even more exciting and beautiful than the first.

And what a silver lining that is.

Because I know I’m getting older. I see it and feel it regularly. Like when with each new haircut I notice a few more grey hairs. Or in how my hangovers are less frequent, but last much longer.

All these are mile markers that remind me that every day I’m a day closer to the end of this beautiful life.

But damn. It makes aging so much more bearable to know that as we grow old we are growing older together. And that as our seasons change we will get to fall in love several more times throughout our life.

If we must trade our youth for age, it is a blessing to realize that we get this gift to fall in love, again and again.

Maybe my meddling between two sons, who have infinitely more experience in what it’s like to have a brother, isn’t helping. Unless they’re drawing blood, breaking bones, or veering into legitimate cruelty, maybe I should keep doing the dishes and let the hollering in our basement work itself out.

Maybe I’ve taken what Dr. Becky taught me a little too far. I should help narrate and put some scaffolding on their big feelings, sure. But maybe I can let him freak out for at least 20 seconds before I interfere and force his heart rate to lower through me and my adult voice. Maybe I can just sit here with him and just breathe for a minute, before I say something that he’s trying to express and feel himself.

Maybe if my reaction to whatever just happened carries the tone that I’m older, smarter, and more arrogant—believing my son is being ridiculous—I should take my own advice and shut up if I don’t have anything nice to say or if I can’t say it kindly right now.

Maybe when they’re excited about something—like a goal they scored, a word they learned to read, or a bug they saw on the playground—I can just smile eagerly. I don’t have to rattle off details like Wikipedia, make their moment mine, or turn it into something teachable. Maybe I can just look at them, give them my attention with my whole body, and smile eagerly.

It turns out, for an external processor of feelings and thoughts like me, learning to keep my mouth shut long enough to let a pause pass was really hard. But it turns out, it freaking works.

I always worry about letting them struggle to the point of developing depression, anxiety, or God forbid, a hopelessness dangerous enough to invite self-harm.

Yes, I need to not cross that line.

But damn, it turns out I could have avoided many of the worst moments, where I’ve been the worst version of myself, by shutting my mouth, opening my ears, and letting things linger a little before I shift into “dad mode.”

They’re smart, good, and capable young men—already. As difficult as it is to let them grow forward, something they might need from me is to stay nearby, with love waiting, but also quietly.

Sometimes, the greatest act of love for them today, and for our future selves where we’re all grown men, is to just shut up.

Asking myself (and my teammates) this question helps me put it in perspective: How would you rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 100?

• A 100 represents making the highest possible impact that your talent and potential allow.

• A 1 represents completely wasting the opportunity to positively contribute to the world.

I think most of us, myself included, are much lower on this scale than we realize—maybe a 20 or 30 at best. This realization begs the question: Why is there such a discrepancy, and what can we do about it?

In my experience, there are three reasons we leave vast amounts of our talent and potential untouched. First, we may never be challenged enough to use it. Second, we're not in the right contexts to let our strengths shine. Third, we may not have the support we need to develop the untapped talent we possess.

If we were all fully auto-didactic, we’d have no problem. That's because an auto-didact can fully teach and develop themselves. But none of us are completely auto-didactic; we all need others' help to develop ourselves so that we make our fullest contributions.

Introducing Exponential Skills

The difficulty in fully developing ourselves and others is relevant in many contexts. In professional settings, we call this challenge "talent development." In family settings, it’s "parenting." In community spheres, it's "mentorship" in secular contexts and "faith formation" in spiritual ones. In all domains of our lives, fulfilling and contributing the totality of our potential to the world matters.

The question I like to ask to really push my thinking is: What would have to be true for everyone in the world to develop and contribute 100% of their potential? As I’ve reasoned through this, the only way we get to the point of the world contributing 100% of their talent is through an exponential feedback loop where the number of people helping others to grow and develop increases exponentially.

To make the jump to create a society with an exponential feedback loop for talent development, let me define some terms and introduce some concepts:

We are all contributors who bring our talent and potential to the world. Some of us contribute by making art, others by building bridges, creating knowledge, making cakes, or making decisions. In mathematical terms, think of this as a constant: c.

A coach is a contributor who also helps develop others. Coaches are a big deal because they help others close the gap between their potential and their contribution. Think of this as x(c), where x is the number of people a coach is able to develop.

A linear coach is a coach who also helps develop other people into coaches. Think of this as mx(c), where m is the number of other coaches the linear coach creates.

An exponential coach is a linear coach whose coaching tree goes on in perpetuity: the people I coach become coaches, and then those people create more coaches, and those people create more coaches, and so on. Think of this as (mx(c))^n, where n is the number of generations an exponential coach is able to influence the cycle of creating more coaches.

Visually, I think of it like this:

Barriers To Creating Exponential Coaches

To create exponential coaches, several significant challenges need addressing. These challenges revolve around how we internalize and transmit knowledge, and the intrinsic motivations behind our contributions.

Challenge 1: Recognition Gap — The further you get from a contributor, the less credit you get for your work. This recognition gap can demotivate those who do not see immediate returns on their efforts. Solution: To overcome this, we must cultivate inner motivation and focus on long-term impact rather than immediate recognition. Developing a sense of purpose that transcends acknowledgment allows leaders to dedicate themselves to creating a lineage of coaches, thus prioritizing legacy over accolades.

Challenge 2: Complex Idea Communication — For an idea to spread, the messenger must internalize it sufficiently to simplify and communicate it effectively. This requires a deep understanding of both the intellectual and emotional aspects of the idea. Solution: Coaches need to engage in profound introspection to grasp the nuances of their knowledge and experiences fully. This depth of understanding enables them to articulate these concepts clearly and simply, making them accessible and teachable.

Challenge 3: Teaching to Teach — Teaching others to teach is a complex task that involves not only passing on knowledge but also instilling the value and methodology of teaching itself. This requires a reflective understanding of one’s own teaching practices. Solution: Coaches should introspect on their teaching methods and motivations, understanding them deeply enough to convey their importance to others. This process ensures that the coaches they develop can, in turn, teach effectively, perpetuating a cycle of self-replication in coaching practices.

Mastering these challenges not only enhances our own potential but also multiplies our impact exponentially across our communities and industries.

Where Do We Even Start?

On a personal note, the person I call Nanna is not my grandmother by birth but rather by love; she's my father-in-law's mother. During a trip to England a few years ago, I asked her about the secret to a long and healthy life. Here are the highlights of what she said:

• Make time for family, faith, and community.

• Stay active; keep your body moving, whether it’s through dancing, walking a dog, or any other physical activity.

• Find a way to express yourself—through music, art, writing, knitting, making movies, having a book club, or any other form—because expression is crucial to mental and emotional health.

That last imperative is so deeply intertwined with introspection. Isn’t expression just a word that means exploring our inner world and then sharing it outside of ourselves? We have to express to be sane and healthy.

I know this post is heady and meta. I’ve been thinking about this concept for months, and I’ve only just synthesized enough to share a muddy morsel of it. A fair question to ask is: Where, in the real world, do we even start?

For inspiration on where to start on our own journeys to become exponential coaches, we can take heed from Nanna. She was onto something.

To become an exponential coach, we have to introspect and express. And to introspect and express, we have to find a medium that works for us and allows us to explore our inner world. And once we find it, we have to just practice with that medium, over and over.

For me, that medium is writing. For others, it might be painting, photography, singing, or making pottery. For others still, it might be talking honestly with a good friend, praying, or starting a podcast.

The medium doesn’t really matter, as long as we just do it. As long as we take that time to introspect and express. That’s the first step we all can take to grow toward becoming exponential coaches. Expression is the first step to becoming an exponential coach.

Sometimes, it’s stated sincerely. But too often it’s a humblebrag, a ploy to assert status, or a facade for someone who really isn’t accomplishing much of anything. For instance, a colleague might constantly mention their packed schedule in meetings and emails, yet their actual output barely reflects the supposed busyness.

Almost always, “I’m busy" is not what someone actually means. When I hear, 'I've been so busy…,' I often wonder if what they really mean is something like:

• “I don’t know what’s actually most important, so I’m doing a little of everything.”

• “I want you to think I’m important, so I’m going to act like I am by giving the appearance that people have asked me to do a lot of stuff.”

• “I don’t know how to delegate or coach people, so I’m doing everything myself.”

• “Our organization doesn’t value results, just the appearance of results so I have to make it seem like I’m working really hard.”

• “Our culture isn’t trusting, and I’m afraid to be transparent and specific with you about my job.”

• “I don’t trust you enough or have the time for you now, so I’m making polite small talk about something other than the weather.”

• “I’ve given up because no matter how hard I try, my leadership doesn’t make a decision or ever say no to anything.”

• “I don’t know what my job actually is so I’m taking shots in the dark to try to put in an honest day’s work.”

• “Help.”

I’m quite skeptical of the phrase “I’m just sooo busy.” This phrase often serves as coded language for deeper issues. I avoid using it to ensure my words match my true intentions, and perhaps you should too.

While 'I'm just sooo busy' might seem trivial, it often masks deeper issues of mistrust and miscommunication within an organization. By saying one thing but meaning another, employees reveal a culture that does not support straightforward, honest dialogue. This should concern us all—not just as a nuisance but as a symptom of larger, systemic problems.

Hearing this phrase shouldn’t just pass by unnoticed. It should prompt us to adopt a more curious and compassionate approach, asking ourselves: What is really being said here? And why isn't there room for honesty?

Let’s challenge ourselves and our workplaces to foster a culture where transparency and trust are the norm, not the exception. What would have to be true for your organization to become a place where 'I'm busy' is no longer a common response?

A parent’s love for a child is, and ought to be, unconditional. Despite occasionally being angered or critical of our children’s antics, we, as parents, embraced this unwavering love as part of our commitment when starting a family.

I don’t think a child’s love for their parents is necessarily unconditional, nor should it be. For example, if I abused my kids, they certainly shouldn’t love me unconditionally.

What I realized this week, as I’ve observed aging family members up close and from afar, is the concept of unreciprocated love. A child’s love for their elders may be unreciprocated—unable to be returned as those elders age and lose their mental and physical capacities. This unreciprocated love so often shown by children to their aging elders is courageous, thankless, and uncommonly special.

Sometimes, as our elders age—our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and godparents—they might not have the capacity to love us back in the ways they once did. They may become too weak to hug, kiss, or care for us as they did when we were younger. In the most cruel of possibilities, they may not even recognize the person in front of them who is offering love and care. They may want to reciprocate the love they’re receiving, but there may come a time when our older loved ones simply can’t.

Fourteen percent of the population, equating to 37.1 million people, provide unpaid eldercare in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In our culture, and especially in the workplace, the caregiving these people do is invisible. Being a parent, on the other hand, is very visible and at least a little bit supported. Even though the US lags behind the rest of the world in workplace policies related to families, parenting is at least visible and acknowledged.

Adult caregiving is much less visible, supported, or even understood to be a reality that millions of people live with every day. It seems, sometimes, that we often forget that adult caregiving even exists.

In my writing, I often talk about parenting and its immense struggles. I’m a parent, so I unsurprisingly over-index there.

Today, I’d like to put us aside as parents and pause to be grateful for the children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews who are caring for older loved ones, even though that love and care might be unreciprocated. Even if we don’t celebrate it or value it broadly in our culture, I think we should at least acknowledge and name this very gracious sacrifice of unreciprocated love.

Let us hope and pray that we have the strength to care for someone even when they can’t reciprocate our love. And that we are good enough to our children that they are willing to love us when our love for them is unconditional, yes, but cannot be reciprocated.

To avoid boondoggle projects in any organization or team, these five questions must be clear to everyone (especially to me): who, what, to what end, why, and how.

Here they are:

• Who are we serving? Answering this provides clarity on whose needs we really have to meet and who the judge of success and failure actually is. If we’re not clear on who is saying “thank you” at the end of all this, how can we do something magical for them?

• To what end do we aspire? This clarifies what a successful mission looks like. The needle has to move on something; otherwise, why are we putting forth any effort?

• What are we delivering? This clarifies the tangible thing we have to put in front of someone’s face or into their hands. If we’re not clear on what we’re building, aren’t we all just wasting our time?

• Why does this matter? This clarifies the urgency and importance. If this doesn’t matter a lot, let’s respect ourselves enough to do something else that does.

• How are we going to get from here to the end? This clarifies the process. If we don’t know how to get this done, will we ever finish?

Answering these five questions is the cheapest, simplest project charter you’ve ever had. If everyone on the team has the same answers to these questions, you’ll prevent the project from becoming a boondoggle.

If we’re part of leading a project, getting the team to clarity on these five questions is our job.