So many celebrations in life are celebrations of life.

The promise of new life. The appreciation of long life. The joy of shared life.

* * *

My mother-in-law is ninety today. She’s an active, healthy, sharp-minded, generous, well-loved inspiration to many. A reader of this blog, too. Happy Birthday! May we all live so well.

If you’re generating ideas and your well has run dry, it’s worth considering what the wider team has to say.

The larger group will have more ideas, different perspectives, and new energy.

They’ll also bring a lot of bad ideas. Ideas you’ve vetted and discarded. Ideas that are a distraction.

But this is no surprise. Measure your expectations. If you’ve filtered through your own bad ideas (to discover viable options) others will need to do the same. Let them. It’s part of the process.

If the good ideas were already known, we wouldn’t be asking for more ideas.

Underinflated and overinflated tires degrade prematurely; proper inflation is optimal.

80% inflation is functional, but wear and tear will increase.

50% inflation might work, but only for a short time.

And 120% inflation is potentially dangerous.

In place of inflation, substitute sleep, energy, or effort.

When our trends hover around the optimal range, we thrive.

When we cheat the system high or low, we’ll eventually find ourselves in need of repair.

I recently visited a local park. The weather was nice, and I had taken my lunch to a sunny picnic bench. I have two takeaways from that experience.

First, I was surprised by the number of people sitting in parked cars. The parking lot had seven vehicles; six of them had drivers eating or looking at their phones. The seventh vehicle was mine.

The second takeaway has to do with what I noticed while I ate. A shiny piece of metal on one of the trees caught my eye. It was a small, numbered aluminum tag. As I looked around, I noticed other trees with tags. Were all of them tagged?

My thought was this: someone tends to these trees. They’re cared for. Managed. Maintained.

To the casual passerby, it’s just a park with trees. But they’re not just any trees. They are trees that are known individually. Cared for individually. Loved individually?

I was glad to choose a bench over a driver’s seat, and glad to pause long enough to notice the trees.

Materials dry in stages. (Think: paint, clay, and concrete.)

In the first few minutes and hours, things begin to settle. Viscosities change. Surfaces might generate a skin. What was soft becomes firm.

Most of the drying happens up front. The curing, however — the gradual movement toward maximal hardness — that takes much longer. Maybe days. Maybe weeks.

We can make the mistake of thinking that we’re like these materials. That we’ve been molded and formed. Indeed, it’s a useful metaphor. But the metaphor can also imply that we’re in the final stages of hardening. That we’re locked in.

And we’re not.

We’re as pliable as we’d like to be. We can change our mind. We can change our approach. We can change our selves.

We can soften and we can change.

If we choose.

Strategy One: Voice your struggles aloud. Whine so that others can hear. Increase the volume. Wait to see if someone comes to your aid.

Strategy Two: Seek out someone who is capable of helping. Ask them directly.

The first strategy — in a strange way — deflects vulnerability. It relieves some pressure by letting us vent while simultaneously avoiding the awkwardness of saying directly, “I need help.” By whining, there’s no request. No ask. No transaction. Rather, it’s a bet on pity. “I didn’t ask for help, yet here you are.” Magic.

The second strategy — the better approach — takes courage. It can take humility. It can call for vulnerability. But it’s the way that is more likely to produce results.

Perhaps when we whine we feel less in debt when we receive help. After all, we never really asked for it.

But “debt” is a curious thing when it comes to assistance. Many times, when we help, we ourselves are helped. We reap benefits from our own generosity. That well-known phrase from St. Francis of Assisi, it is in giving that we receive … it’s true.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t be afraid to give it.

In this chapter of your existence, you inhabit one, imperfect, ever-aging vessel. Care for it. Tend to its needs.

It can improve, yes. It can heal, surely. But it has its limits.

Love it well; it’s yours.

“This is how we do things here.”

This phrase can be delivered in so many ways. It can be helpful. Generous. Welcoming. Instructive. Threatening. Alienating. Combative …

“This is how we do things here.”

This phrase can be received in so many ways. With relief. Surprise. Gratitude. Embarrassment. Offense. Fear. Anger …

As with much of language, there’s a lot of nuance. And intention plays a huge roll.

“You seem lost. I’d like to help you fit in easily,” versus, “You’re different. Get right or get out.”

How we do things is about culture and norms. How we communicate how we do things tells a lot about our desire to be welcoming, our capacity for empathy, and our ability to be flexible.

If you don’t feel like showering and getting ready for the day, pour a glass of juice.

Then, dump it on yourself.

Of course, this will create other problems, but it will surely motivate you regarding the shower.

Sometimes, we need to manufacture motivation. We need to take a small, irreversible step that becomes the catalyst for the work we know we need to do.

This might be accomplished by imagining that step — calling it to mind and visualizing it. This could be enough to get ourselves going in the right direction.

Other times, the only thing that works is to start by making a mess.

Consider the whoosh that happens when you quickly swing a long stick. Or the small sonic boom that occurs when a whip cracks. Both of these instances involve an arc, a moment of acceleration, and a climax in activity.

What does this look like in the arc of your day? Or the arc of your efforts?

Where is that moment? When is it? What is it like?

It doesn’t happen in every instance. The wave of a hand is not a clap. A meditative moment has no interest in sonic booms. A burst of activity is even a misstep in some settings.

But there are times when a whoosh — or even a speedier crack — makes sense. Perhaps we call it into being often. Or maybe it’s carefully reserved for specific times.

If we want, we can organize our energy evenly, or such that we curate an occasional explosive rush.

What sort of rhythm might you choose?

We can exert command and control to guarantee an outcome. Compliance can be compelled using force when necessary.

But we can also earn trust, seek affiliation, and gain enrollment.

If you need everyone in the kitchen, you can drag them there … or you can bake cookies. The outcomes are similar, but the outlooks could hardly be further apart.

“Room temperature” isn’t a set number; it’s a function of the particular room.

Why does this matter?

Because sometimes we feel like we need to be spectacular. That we need to be remarkable, more often than not. And pressure like that can be a lot to bear.

But our average — your specific average — might just be above the norm. Our standard output might just be better than we think. And there’s some relief in that.

Sometimes we’re in the wilderness. This can be exciting (we get to explore) and a little unsettling (when there’s no path and few landmarks, choosing a direction can be a challenge).

Other times, we’re at a crossroads. This can be exciting (these roads lead to different places) and a little unsettling (we want to make sure we’re choosing wisely).

Still other times, we’re at a threshold. This can be exciting (a specific adventure awaits on the other side) and a little unsettling (once we’ve stepped through, we’ve made a commitment).

Life is a series of changes in scenery. Our actions tell the story of how we navigate between what we are doing and what we could be doing. And while we have many tools to help us choose, predicting the future with certainty is never one of them.

An AI bot can answer it.
A modeling tool can render it.
A machine can create it.
A robot can assemble it.

And. Don’t forget: there are things worth doing because you’re the one doing them. You’re the one learning. You’re the one doing. You’re the one creating.

It’s not always a question of whether technology can do it instead. Sometimes, our own participation is the point.

When we’re choosing — whether it’s a new job, a new school, or a new endeavor — we’re not just assessing what is; we’re making a guess about what could be.

What does this new thing promise?
What is the journey that would begin here?

Because every new thing is a story we’ve written in our imagination.

But it’s good to remember that in choosing, we’re often selecting only the first page; the rest is a collaboration yet to be written.

If you budgeted your time and attention the same way as you do your bank account, would you be more judicious in your spending?

And if you budgeted your bank account the same way as you do your time and attention, would you frequently have a zero balance?

We live in a culture where our attention is the prize. Be wary; not every shiny thing is worth the personal cost.

A good idea today might be a terrible idea a year from now.

Timing matters.

So two things are at play.

One, sometimes we need to trust our judgement and act now. Today. The timing is right.

Two, when we revisit an old idea or a long-held musing — and we’re ready to take action — it can be wise to evaluate the present moment. Is yesterday’s good thought still a good thought for today? Is the timing right?

We will have many good ideas in our lifetime; not all of them will be evergreen. Where it makes sense, look for the best-by clues.

We all need a little grace. But we need it in different ways.

Sometimes, we need a little grace in many areas. We’re doing generally fine, but there are a lot of ragged edges.

Other times, we we’re doing pretty well overall, but we could use some grace in one particular area in life.

Like so many things, personal difficulty and suffering can be unequally distributed. They can exist as a permeating layer, and they can exist in small, concentrated places.

The principle here is not in how we accept grace (though we’d do well to remember self-compassion) but in how we extend grace to others. Do so in a broad, benefit-of-the-doubt, generous way. Our job is not to litigate the need; it’s to give freely. And as we do, the reservoir replenishes itself.

It is the better way.

Comparison is said to be the thief of joy.

That makes it seem so simple. Like someone stealing a package off your porch. Or a colleague taking your pencil and you can just take it back. But comparison is more complicated than that.

Comparison is like an elaborate con. It’s a secret heist. A white-collar psychological fraud.

Comparison sneaks in innocently. Naturally. It lures us into simple better-than-less-than judgements about ourselves and others. And then, when we’re not paying attention, it guts us.

Better to handle comparison like an untrustworthy operative. Or a useful but dangerous chemical.

We can’t avoid comparison, but we can contend with it wisely.

I don’t care if Lin-Manuel Miranda knows much about the U.S. tax code.

I don’t care if Kathy Bates can operate a manual transmission.

I don’t care if Mona Hatoum got today’s Wordle. Or if Bukowski knew how to use a sewing machine. Or if FDR knew any baseball stats.

Some things we have to know. Other things we know because we’re interested. And for many things, we simply don’t know and we don’t care.

And that’s totally fine. We don’t need to know everything, nor should we feel like we have to.

Like many things, it’s a balance.

Either way, I don’t like the idea of a world where Lin-Manuel knows the details of Form 1040 Schedule 2 and “Hamilton” was never written.