“Is everyone here?”

Who answers that question? Who has the awareness?

In small groups, it can be easy to know the answer.

In larger groups, we rely on various levels of leadership to know who’s present and who’s missing.

But in any situation, each of us can make our own assessment.

Who’s here? Who should be here? Who isn’t represented? Whose voices should be present?

And when we ourselves are absent, perhaps others will notice and speak up too.

Someone with half what you have is flourishing.

Someone with double what you have is struggling.

It’s not about what you have; it’s about your perception of what you have.

All too often, our suffering is of our own making.

Thich Nhat Hanh offers this coda: “There is no way to happiness — happiness is the way.”

Tools and resources can help, most certainly, but remember: you don’t need an app, you don’t need a subscription, you don’t need a special notebook, and you might not even need an accountability partner.

All you really need … is to do the thing.

Trust yourself.

The most valuable resource you have is your own mind and its reasoned choice.

From under the covers well before the sun rises, one might wonder: who’s out and about at this hour?

But from the street, one sees: people exercising, walking dogs, leaving for work, even talking with neighbors.

Creatively, intellectually, socially — when we venture out, we often discover that we are not alone. Others are out there in that space. Others are doing what me might also seek to do.

From the warmth of our beds, however, we’re left wondering.

In some parts of the world, people have no access to clean drinking water.

Where I live, it’s in such abundance that we use it to fill toilets.

* * *

When we’re so close to a thing that it becomes invisible to us, a plain comparison can bring reality into sharp focus.

We listen to others tell stories we already know …

… because from time to time, we need to be reminded of what we believe.

A timer pre-determines the boundaries. Here’s how long you’ll do it. When time’s up, you’re finished.

A stopwatch only pre-determines one point: when you start.

Both tools are useful. Both mentalities are useful.

Sometimes we need the limitations of a timer. A chosen stopping point creates a goal, which adds valuable tension. It also presents important pauses in activity.

But in other situations, the timer is an unhelpful limiter. In counting down, we’ve already decided on the upper constraint. We get to zero and we stop counting.

The stopwatch, however — the counter, the habit tracker, the tally — offers a gentle invitation to continue. Go until you stop. If you can keep going, keep going.

Whether we use timers and stopwatches as physical tools or as metaphors, the lesson is in knowing which tool to choose and when.

When things don’t go to plan, how do you respond?

We don’t always have the presence of mind at the time, but that’s exactly when we should reconnect with our intentions.

Is this about me? Is this about someone else? What was I trying to accomplish? How can I refocus on the goal? How can I adjust?

Because it’s easy to get distracted by snafus. Unexpected changes have a way of drawing our attention away from intention and toward ego, frustration, impatience, and even resentment.

Have the wisdom to pause.

What was your intention? How can you pivot to realign with it?

Don’t judge someone unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

Assuming they can walk.

Assuming they have shoes.

* * *

Empathy is hard. Even with the best intentions, we still have blind spots.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Try we must.

Imperfect empathy is far better than perfect apathy.

Solving problems can be messy. Physical therapy can be uncomfortable. Mediation can be awkward. Reconciliation can be embarrassing.

But we know: doing the right thing sometimes means doing the hard thing.

It’s not that hard is always right and easy is always wrong. But we’re often faced with situations where doing the right thing means taking action ... and the easier thing is to do nothing.

After all, if doing the right thing was easy, we’d collectively do the right things more often.

If that’s the case, then how can we engineer our personal lives so that doing the right things is easy? How can we lubricate that machinery?

And for those in business and government, how can we orchestrate systems and organizations so that doing the right thing isn’t harder, but easier?

Jessie Potter (and others) have wisely said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.”

The thing is, what you’ve gotten might not always be clear. Sometimes the feedback and outcomes are long delayed.

How quickly do you see the return for being a patient listener? How soon do you feel the effects of small, but regular unhealthy choices? How obvious is the benefit of a daily gratitude practice?

“What we get” can be a long story that unfolds little by little.

So we aim for better, we trust the process, and we’re not too quick to ask, “What’d I get?”

Just begin again. No need to shame yourself. No need to review your history. No need to keep a backlog of missed days, missed opportunities, broken promises, or backward stumbles.

Well-worn groves are well-worn for a reason. But you can create new patterns.

Just begin the effort again. Clean slate. Fresh start. No apologies necessary.

Just because you don’t like someone’s personality … doesn’t make them wrong.

And just because you like someone … doesn’t make them right.

Our feelings toward others can bias our tendency to agree or disagree with them.

But right or wrong is a lot bigger than differences in personality.

We might even benefit from giving more consideration to the opinions of those we dislike.

In some cases, could they be right?

Part of keeping the peace in a work environment is knowing when you’re off-cycle. That is, when the intensity of your work isn’t in sync with your colleagues.

For instance: you’re headed into a week of vacation while others are scrambling to finalize year-end reports.

Or: your mid-day break starts just when the office gets flooded with urgent requests.

Or: you’re minutes from a submission deadline while your colleagues are enjoying a laugh about a movie they recently watched.

Or: you’re trying to get a shipment out the door at the same time someone is socializing their new puppy.

(There are parallel experiences with households and families.)

When we’re on either side of the stress-level equation, it’s important to have some sensitivity to those operating in a different mode. Not that we should suffer silently, or celebrate secretly. But we can try to have awareness of our neighbor’s headspace.

We won’t always be in sync. We won’t always be in the weeds together. But it helps to have a sense of the temperature in your teammate’s corner.

If you’ve ever felt unqualified for a position, consider these inequivalent phrases:

“I’m unqualified.”
“Even with hard work, I cannot become qualified.”
“I don't have much experience.”
“I cannot gain experience.”
“I don’t have the requisite skills.”
“I’m unable to learn new skills.”

It’s unlikely that one would hold all of these statements to be true.

In most cases, “lacking qualifications” is not permanent state.

We can be beginners. We can grow. We can adapt.

But we can’t do any of it if we embrace “I’m unqualified” as a rigid verdict.

It’s only a verdict if we make it so.

Short-sighted critics are close enough to see you, but they can’t see far enough to understand your vision.

Educate them or ignore them. Either way, don’t let them stop you.

There may be periods of time when we have to work alone before others can see what we see.

Usually, the intense desire to quit will pass. So if you’re on a meaningful journey, it’s important to know what will get you through those moments when you want to stop, turn back, or lay down.

If you can learn to hold on in times of weakness, the storm will pass. Thankfully, mental fortitude is a skill that can be learned.

Of course, if you’re on a journey that isn’t meaningful or purpose-driven … an intense desire to quit probably shouldn’t be ignored.

It’s more than the start and stop, beginning and end.

What matters is what’s in the middle.

Consider sleep. The time between falling asleep and waking up is a mix of sleeping lightly, sleeping deeply, moments of wakefulness, and periods of dreaming.

The beginning and end are important factors, but what happens in between is of great consequence.

And so it is with life. When we’re born and when we die is significant, but what happens in between is what matters most.

You’ve still got some “in between” left. What will you do with it?

Public speaking. There are excellent lessons, workshops, coaches, and programs.

But compared to how often we have opportunities to speak in public, how many opportunities do we have to listen?

I wonder what might happen if we invested just as much effort in learning how to listen as we do in learning how to speak.

When we’re hungry, we can feel it. There’s a growling. A craving. A restlessness.

Even when we don’t recognize the cue, hunger reveals itself in our mood, our energy, and our feelings of satisfaction. We sometimes have to remind ourselves: oh, I haven’t eaten.

And it’s not just food.

We experience creative hunger too.

We’re hard-wired to be problem-solvers and makers. Creativity is in our DNA.

When those feelings of discomfort come, the fix might not be in the kitchen — it might be in the studio.

Not in consumption, but in production.