I’m neither the best nor the most passionate cook. One reason is that, in the kitchen, I can’t multitask to save my life. Not that anyone can, but when I have to chop this, throw that into the pan, turn down the heat here, and quickly whisk everything over a slight boil there, my mind explodes. To avoid the stress, I must prepare, line up all the dominoes, and then go as sequentially as the recipe will allow.

My fiancée, meanwhile, loves it. When I watch her, it appears like a cartoon scene, where stuff is flying out of a dust cloud left, right, and center, only for a perfect dish to magically emerge at the end.

Given our usual kitchen context, I was more than surprised to find myself shouting instructions at her Gordon Ramsay–style the first time we played Overcooked 2. The goal of the game is to work well with your partner in order to serve your restaurant customers the right dishes in the right order. To me, despite the funny plot twists and kitchen settings, from a graveyard to a hot air balloon, it seems about as close to a real restaurant kitchen to me as it gets.

It took less than a minute for me to get completely roped in. “You need to announce the orders! Where is my chopped salad? I need more pasta, more pasta!!” Ironically, this time, my girlfriend felt overwhelmed. “So many icons on the screen, so many tasks to take care of!” The game is a great exercise in real-time communication, and we’re having fun, but it was marvelous to see our talents reversed: me shuttling dishes over the counter, her not sure what to put into which pan.

It’s not just differing skills that make great complements. It can also be the same skills in different arenas. Find your criss-cross talents with others, and, every day, you’ll understand a little better why you need both like and unlike to make the perfect match.

Hober Mallow was never a man of the church, yet he still ends up drawing a large stroke in the Foundation’s big picture. Before he returns to his usual trade of, well, trade, but also thievery and deceit, however, he does get to share with someone special—someone special who, unlike him, always believed, and who represents hope above all else.

“I was a shitty student of the Church,” Hober opens, “but I remember this, uh, homily. A parable. About how life is like collecting jewels in a bag. And in the end, you don’t want the bag to be full. You want it to be empty…because you’ve given them all away.”

For once in their short relationship, Hober gets to be the giver of hope instead of its recipient, reminding his love how she, too, has received many a helping hand along the way.

Sometimes, our jewel bags run out before we’re done. We’ve got no gifts left, and we’re running on empty for a while—until someone comes along and puts a new shiny stone into our purse. A good story to take with us. An outpouring of unconditional love. A friendly face to call upon in need.

Whenever you’re feeling jewel-less, remember: The next gem will find its way to you—and should it one day not, then at least you know you’ve left nothing on the table. You played this life with all you had, and the only reason you’re ending on zero is because you did the noblest thing one can do with their treasures: You gave them all away.

One thing you notice as you go through Letters of the Dragon, a compilation of Bruce Lee’s mail correspondence, is the sheer amount of travel the man took upon himself.

Lee went from Hong Kong to Seattle, to Oakland, Los Angeles, and back again. He even moved between all of them several times. By the time I was halfway through the book, I’d already lost count of his many trips—all of which happened in the 1960s and 70s, no less.

Air travel was only just becoming a more common occurrence. It wasn’t as safe as it is today, and definitely not as cheap. Lee wasn’t rich for most of his life either. It was probably only in his last three to four years that he could book most flights without batting an eye, so he must have scraped together his dollars for a long distance ticket more than once.

I don’t know whether Bruce ultimately believed travel was the best or the worst, but, in one letter, he does write: “I’m sick of traveling around.” Yet, he kept doing it anyway. Why? Because Bruce Lee had to go where Bruce Lee was needed.

As an actor, he had to jump on whatever opportunity came his way. Sometimes, that was a new movie in Hong Kong. At other times, doors opened in LA. He would be invited to teach kung fu somewhere for three days and pocket $750, roughly $7,000 today. Maybe he’d meet other famous actors. Any next connection might have been the one giving him his big break, so of course he would say yes.

We’re lucky. Nowadays, most of us can stay at home yet still show up anywhere in the world. It won’t always be enough, but most of the time, a video call does just fine. And though the location might not require us to take a plane, there’s honor in going where you’re needed.

Show up where people value you, and the cost of going there will take care of itself.

Even if I don’t do anything in particular to get smudges on them, at least every other day or so, I have to wipe my glasses. Dust particles, small hairs, tiny pieces of skin dropping from my face—whatever it is, there’s always something to clear away, and I always see better once I’ve done so.

Life can be the same. Every now and then, it simply asks us to clean our glasses. An illness reminds you of how wonderful it is to be healthy. A cluttered home can be a prompt to find peace in organization. And a weekend after a week that went anything but well offers an opportunity to start anew.

It’s a process, cleaning our glasses. We can’t do it preemptively all the time. We simply wear them, look through them, and once we notice our vision getting blurry, we check them. Don’t lament the process. Have faith that life will send you the right reminders at the right time—and when you realize your glasses are smudgy, you wipe them and get back to living.

I don’t know what species they are, but every year, several trees in our compound light up with white blossoms. It always reminds me of sakura season in Japan. The trees are just gorgeous, and so all it takes to make me smile is to leave the house and walk past them.

The only catch? The whole event lasts but a week, maybe two. After that, the blossoms turn brown, the trees grow their leaves, and the cycle starts anew. That’s 50 weeks of waiting for a few days of the ultimate spring experience. It’s strange, imbalanced, and almost makes the whole thing regrettable—almost. Because actually, its ephemerality is also part of its charm.

There’s a tragic urgency to looking at the trees when they’re blooming. You know every time could be the last. “Wow, what beauty! Too bad it can’t last a little longer.” Nostalgia and joy, inextricably baked together.

There’s plenty of nature to gaze upon year round—but when you get white trees for a week, cherish them while you can.

When I got back into collecting Pokémon cards in late 2023, I made a spreadsheet. I scoured the landscape of available cards and products, and, by and large, I decided right then and there: This is everything I ever want to collect. Then, I wrote it all down and started tracking.

That list hasn’t changed much since then. I’m very cautious about adding. But I have been pretty dogged in checking a few boxes every month. Once I have my eyes set on a goal, I can be rather stubborn. Plus, in Pokémon, most items increase in value over time, given you take care of them—and leave them sealed, if they still are. So commonly, the best price you’ll get is today’s. It’s a market with urgency, especially if you collect older items.

Sometimes, I wonder why I’m so relentless. “Why don’t you just let this go? You’ll still find it next month.” Every now and then, I do. But, often, I don’t. And you know what? I think when you have a bone you’re chasing, it’s okay to chase. Especially if the bone is one you can realistically fetch.

Allow yourself to be dogged. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m a man on a mission, and I have a spreadsheet to finish.

Most forest fires don’t have arsonists behind them. Nature simply decided it was time for this area to start anew—and without ashes, where would the phoenix rise from?

Yesterday night, my throat started burning the same way it does a few days before I get sick. I thought, “Okay, here it comes. Let’s see what happens next.” But then I realized: “Hey, maybe, even if it gets worse before it gets better, this burning is already part of the healing.”

Perhaps my throat is like a forest—sometimes, an area needs to be reset. I can almost hear my immune system: “Raze the bacteria to the ground guys, let’s level this place and start over!” Even if it’s no more than a placebo, it’s the attitude that counts.

An archive set aflame, a forest fire, or the itchy feeling in your throat: Maybe it’s burning because it’s healing—and just because it’s painful doesn’t mean your train is off track.

After schlepping his unsuspecting protégé Gaal Dornick across an empty desert planet for hours in service of the Foundation, Dr. Hari Seldon finally announces their arrival at their target location. Having ventured not just across sand and rock but also into the depths of a cold, dark cave, his matter-of-fact tone already grinds Gaal’s gears: “Our destination must be on the other side of this door.”

There is, however, one tiny problem, and it’s even more annoying than Seldon’s nonchalance: “Traditionally, doors have hinges and maybe a knob,” Gaal notes. “This…is a wall.” She’s right, of course. Instead of fresh air inviting them through the large archway carved into the rock, there is nothing but cold steel, carved with strange symbols.

But, as usual, Seldon is one step ahead. Almost rolling his eyes, he says: “Open a wall, it becomes a door.” And just like that, as much to her dismay as to her astonishment, Gaal must concede Seldon’s genius once more. She looks, she feels, she presses and—clunk!—the multi-ton metal obstacles slides away as if it weighed no more than a feather.

There are all kinds of walls in our lives. Walls made of feelings. Walls made of dust. Even invisible ones. But no matter what material may block our path, from rock to concrete to a man with crossed arms, every wall turns into a door once we manage to first open it. Is this one to woo or break through? One to pierce or scale? The answer will differ in each instance, but for the rest of our lives, I’m afraid Hari Seldon will stay in the right: Open a wall, and it becomes a door—now let’s get cracking.

On some days, we say we must “just power through.” We think it’s the powering that gets us through, but, usually, it’s the other way around. Strength follows from accepting our tough reality, and whether we feel powerful or not, remembering we’ll see the end of the day actually helps us get there.

Sometimes, you can spend a long time looking for something inside that may or may not exist, or you can simply look ahead, and the path will appear. After all, it is not strength that overcomes darkness—but light.

That’s the assumption in many companies, isn’t it? If you’re not dropping some, you must be juggling too few balls! Whoever manages to stay on top of everything is suspicious. “Does she have enough work?” God forbid we send someone home at the end of the day with 5% left in the tank.

The good news is it’s not a big deal. If no one can cover all their projects, delays are as common as coffee breaks. It’s only when managers expect miracles that the situation becomes problematic. Luckily, most of them don’t. After all, they, too, are frequently behind.

Still, it seems a better way is so close we could all easily grasp it. Why not say no once you’re booked out? Or even a little bit before? We can always pause less important work if a bigger opportunity comes along. And it simply feels a lot better to end your day with all boxes checked than with worry about everything you’ll still have to tackle tomorrow.

Work is like the ocean: Don’t let the sheer volume of water get into your head. We’re all just swimming as far as we can each day—and that must be enough.