Tabs
Open Tabs
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Last night I woke up at 2 a.m. wrestling with problems I couldn’t solve at 2 a.m.
My mind was moving from one open tab to another—family matters, project deadlines, responsibilities, and all the mental load that comes with building something meaningful while still managing everyday life.
After lying there for a while, I caught myself and asked a simple question:
Is there anything I can do about any of this right now?
The answer was no.
The conversations, decisions, and next steps would still be there in the morning.
That led to a second question:
What is the highest return-on-energy choice available to me right now?
The answer wasn’t more thinking.
It was sleep.
So I took a few deep breaths, let my nervous system settle, and put the problems down for the night.
When I woke up at 5 a.m., I felt surprisingly good.
Sitting outside with my coffee this morning, I realized something.
The problems hadn’t changed.
What changed was that I stopped paying for them twice.
A few months ago, I might have spent hours mentally circling the same issues and shown up the next day with less energy to actually deal with them.
The problems would still have been waiting for me. The only difference is that I would have shown up to meet them with less energy.
That realization brought me back to a question I’ve been exploring lately:
How much energy do we lose not because of what we’re facing, but because of how we’re carrying it?
Many of us confuse carrying with caring.
We believe that worrying or overthinking proves we care.
But often we’re spending energy on a problem without moving it forward an inch.
Maybe that’s where grace comes in.
Grace is the ability to stop adding unnecessary friction to an already demanding season of life.
It’s also recognizing that some problems require action, while others simply require patience until action becomes possible.
There is a lot happening behind the scenes in my life right now. Most people looking from the outside would never know any of that, which is a useful reminder that we rarely know what someone else is carrying.
People see a small fraction of our lives and assume they understand the whole story, while much of what we’re navigating remains invisible.
Last night I didn’t solve any problems.
I simply stopped carrying them long enough to rest.
And this morning, that felt like a small act of self-mastery.
The more I pay attention, the more convinced I become that transformation is often less about building capacity and more about recovering it.
Sometimes the fastest way to regain energy isn’t to add something new.
It’s to stop paying for the same problem before the bill is due.
Read The Next One: THE DANGEROUS CHIP ON MY SHOULDER →
PLAY IN THE LIVING LAB →
ENJOY THE FULL LIBRARY:
The Dangerous Chip On My Shoulder
Why Do Smart People Stay Stuck?
I Threw Away Every Medal I Ever Earned
Instead Of A Promotion, I Got Fired
I Ran An Experiment With The Universe
People MisJudge High Performers
The Cost Of Other People’s Opinions Of You
Some books are discovered after they’re published.
This one can be experienced while it’s still unfolding.
What began with deep self-inquiry became the Courageous Heart Expedition—and now my first book. Stories, films, photographs, reflections and discoveries are coming together as the work continues to unfold. You’re invited to explore what I’m creating and find your way in.
My Latest…
The Living Lab
Life is a lab. It’s always open.
How much of your life did you actually choose?
Most of us inherit far more than we realize—beliefs, identities, fears, and subconscious programming that control how we see ourselves.
The Living Lab is an ongoing exploration of what we discover when we question what we’ve been taught, challenge the ego, examine our conditioning, and experiment with different ways of being.
Because once you see what you didn’t choose, you get to decide what comes next.
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