When lawyer Atticus Finch is tasked with defending a Black man in 1933 Alabama, for the first time, the single dad to two preteens is forced to put his children through something they won’t understand. For months, they’ll have to endure the misgiving looks and hateful comments from all around town. Never mind the fact that the defendant is innocent. People believe what they want to believe.

Naturally, the central case in To Kill a Mockingbird dampens the mood around the Finches’ home. But through the many dark days, Atticus repeats one line again and again: “It’s not time to worry yet.”

When Jem, Atticus’ son, destroys an old lady’s flowerbed because she ridicules his dad, his sister Scout fears the consequences. “It’s not time to worry yet,” Atticus tells her. And sure enough, Jem survives his apology to Mrs. Dubose.

After Atticus loses the case, his family is outraged. How could the town do this to an innocent man? “It’s not time to worry yet,” Atticus goes. There’s an appeal to be held, and his client is far from dead.

To the book’s characters, each next challenge seems to be worse than the last, but for them as for us, it’s empowering to tack on one little word to a sentence that might otherwise be nothing more than outright denial: “It’s not time to worry yet.”

Don’t ignore harsh realities, but don’t lose your head either. Chances are, you’re not stuck in a guillotine—and it’s not time to worry yet.

There once was a painter who couldn’t see. He wasn’t born blind. In fact, he enjoyed the gift of vision for the first 68 years of his life. Once he developed cataracts, however, the sense he relied most on to make his art began to darken—and so did his paintings.

The painter had lived a slow life in the countryside since his 40s. His favorite subjects were the plants in his garden. By the time his vision began to fade, he had been painting the same themes for a decade. On some days, despair caught hold of him. “Useless old fool!” he denounced himself as he slashed, painted over, and burned some of his works. Yet, on most days, he simply continued painting.

As the years went by, his sight ebbed and flowed. Near his 80s, he received a final request from his government: Paint your flowers on large canvases, so we may install them in large halls for the world to see. He painted some. He destroyed some. But in the end, he furnished over 40 large paintings of lilies swimming in the water.

By the time the painter closed his eyes for the last time, he was 86 years old. He had painted the same subject, water lilies, more than 250 times over the course of 30 years—and those marked just 10% of his body of work. He had also painted people, train stations, and hay stacks.

After his death, the government exhibited some of his works. People from all over the world marveled at the beautiful flowers on the walls. He had been a prolific artist, no doubt. But the water lilies—they stuck. Was it the 30 years of dedication? Or the struggle against his waning eyesight?

Whatever it was, even 100 years after his passing, anyone who witnesses his art can feel it: Via the indelible intention of his life, Claude Monet, the painter who couldn’t see, proved a fellow French artist right: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

One theme in Samurai Champloo is hunger. The protagonist, a teenage girl named Fuu, and her companions—two bickering swordsmen—are mainly trying to make it from meal to meal in feudal Japan.

In one episode, they discover a bag of gold in a river. Thrilled with their good fortune, they instantly treat themselves to a massive meal. As she does several times in the show, Fuu tries to eat in advance for the whole week. While it’s funny to see the anime character triple in size, we can guess where it’s going. By the time the episode’s adventure ends the next day, Fuu sits under a tree, looking slim as ever. With a big sigh, she goes: “I’m hungry.”

Some things, you can only nourish in increments. Humans. Love. Art. It’s nice to finally find a gap in the calendar for a big project—a trip with the family, shooting a short film—but it’s rarely needed and, sometimes, an outright excuse to not get started.

No tank can be filled to the point where it’ll never run out. The only way to not go hungry is to eat a little every day. Nourish the big things in increments.

It’s possible to write a daily blog in 15 minutes. Even ten. Even five. The question is how many minutes went into it before you started typing?

Sometimes, the very spontaneous, off the cuff, almost-stream-of-consciousness pieces turn out amazing. Most of the time, they don’t. If nothing went in, how can anything come out?

When you press a dry sponge, it releases no water. First, you must soak it. Continuing to fill an already-filled sponge merely changes the composition of the output. Squeeze too early, however, and you won’t get any output at all.

Don’t be afraid to keep inhaling.

A new LinkedIn connection sent me a nice compliment. I thanked him, gave him my email, and we briefly went back and forth. He asked to speak more, but when I offered him a 20-minute chat on a weekday, which, given my full-time job, is a lot, he said: “Oh, that’s not really enough for a proper presentation.”

That one sentence made me second-guess our entire interaction. So far, everything had seemed genuine. Kind. Authentic. But now? Crack. Did he say all the other stuff so he could pitch me his product in a meeting? Or did it just occur to him because of our interaction? Maybe I’m seeing ghosts?

Now, no matter what follows, I’m suspicious. The potential for a real connection has all but left the chat. The sad part is not missing out on one of them. It’s that this scenario has happened to me hundreds of times. Inevitably, I’ll sit on a call, and, sooner or later, there comes the pitch. “Ahh, here it is…”

It’s fair to make calculated moves in business. But what you should calculate is the product. “Our flights will be the cheapest, no frills.” “We will not compromise on the quality of our locally sourced ingredients.” Run the numbers, then let the market decide.

Humans, however, are made from love, not calculations. That’s why no one likes being a number in someone else’s equation.

If you want to ask, just ask. If you’re not sure, don’t. There’s no template for the perfect transition. Some relationships turn from business to friendship, others vice versa. But no one enjoys being hoodwinked 15 minutes after the introduction. Beware your calculated moves.

Samurai Champloo is an anime classic set in Japan’s Edo period, a time of shoguns, samurai, and strict social order. The story follows three unlikely friends: Fuu, a young waitress from a teahouse, Mugen, a short-tempered outlaw, and Jin, a quiet, disgraced samurai, aka ronin.

Looking for “the samurai who smells of sunflowers,” the trio stumbles into all kinds of adventures. In one episode, they end up in a village tormented by a “tsujigiri,” a rogue samurai randomly attacking—and, in this case, killing—others. This particular tsujigiri has been going after the best swordsman in the area, and, as it happens, both Mugen and Jin can more than hold their own with a blade.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Mugen is most eager to encounter the tsujigiri. One night, while following a trail of clues to a sake bar, he finds him. For the first time in the show, it appears Mugen is outmatched. Thankfully, a bunch of villagers come to his rescue. “At the next full moon, same place!” the tsujigiri yells as he runs away.

Even if it was his own, Mugen has tasted blood, and so, for the next month, he trains like a madman. He works on his handstand and jumping skills. He practices with his sword. He even lugs a heavy Buddha statue up and down the stairs. Time flies by, and the next full moon arrives.

As the trio is busy with their usual evening activities, Mugen suddenly gets up, picks up his sword, and walks off. “Well, I’m heading out for a bit,” he says. No one dares say what they actually think, but Fuu reminds him: “Hey, you haven’t forgotten, have you? You’re gonna help me look for the samurai who smells of sunflowers, right?” “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Mugen goes. Even the quiet Jin feels compelled to pitch in: “If someone is gonna kill you, it’s gonna be me, got it?” The usual banter is met with the usual response: “Who do you think you are, my wife or something?” And with that, Mugen strolls into an unknown future.

Life drops us at difficult crossroads. Even when we’re not alone in facing them, sometimes it’s easier to not draw out the worst-case scenario. “Don’t paint the devil on the wall,” we say in Germany. If everyone already knows, why dwell on the conclusion? Pretending a fateful day is the same as every other can be a way of letting our loved ones know: No matter what happens, nothing between us is going to change.

Will Mugen defeat his challenger? There is only one way to find out. But even before we do, we already know: In not breaking character, his friends have shown they truly care for him—and they’ll be there regardless of what comes next.

As I was lying awake at 6 AM this morning, hoping for another hour of sleep, I tried to focus on my breath. It helps whenever I can manage to stay with it. Unfortunately, that’s rare. Thoughts follow thoughts, and, before I know it, it’s time to get up.

One reason might be that, often, I doubt my method instead of using it. I take a few deep breaths and go: “Why isn’t this working?” This morning, my answer was new: “Maybe I just don’t believe in it working. I have to believe that focusing on each next breath is enough. If I don’t, I’ll always jump on another thought to justify my existence.”

I spent some time encouraging myself to hold fast to the idea. But, inevitably, I reflected more, and I realized: Actually, “the next breath is enough” is not something I must believe—it’s something I merely need to accept. After all, I have 33 years of physical evidence that it’s always been true. There’s nothing else I’ve been doing as consistently throughout my entire life. Neither have you, of course. Even food, water, and sleep come second to breathing. So it’s not just a comforting idea. It’s the absolute, undeniable truth: The next breath is enough.

Acceptance also isn’t easy, but it has a different feel to it than trying to will yourself into belief. That, too, I found comforting. “Ahh, yes. I can get cosy around this. The next breath is enough.” I didn’t fall asleep again, but I did find more rest. And if I wake up at night again today? Maybe I’ll remember that the next breath is enough and, this time, drift back to sleep. Now that one I’ll gladly will myself to believe.

I need to rake the leaves later today. When I look outside my office window, I can see myself standing there, raking. I can feel the cold come in under my sweater, and I can see my breath form little clouds in the freezing air.

It’s not a pleasant vision, but it still allows me to get comfortable with the idea. It makes me believe that, in a few hours, I’ll actually be raking, and that alone increases the likelihood of me going outside by a great deal.

When it comes to a new reality, every animal will “believe it when they see it.” Humans are the only creatures who can bring about said new reality by turning the phrase around. See it in order to believe it. Once you can feel something being true in your heart, often all it takes is a little push for life to adjust.

If anything could happen, it might as well be something good. That’s one of my mottos.

In a chapter titled “Roll the Dice” in his book Creative Doing, my friend Herbert Lui transfers the idea to being creative: “If you’re ever experiencing blockage or a sense of stuckness on a decision, try opening the door to chance in order to support your creative work,” he writes.

Sometimes, a calculated gamble just might point you in the right direction, Herbert believes. Instead of continuing to stare at a wall, why not throw something at it? Flip the dictionary to any page, play with a random name generator, or toss some coins onto a table and start with whatever pattern they land in, Herbert suggests.

When it comes to work projects, you may want to ask someone on a completely different team for an outside perspective. Stuck on bad first dates? Go somewhere you’d never go. A violin concert, perhaps, or a pottery class. Even for your energy, a bit of entropy can help on occasion. Maybe staying up late for once will make you feel more energized, not less.

No matter the arena, the point remains: “If you want to make fewer decisions, enlist chance as an assistant,” Herbert says. Fortuna is a goddess, not a creature of the underworld, and for good reason: She wants to be on our side. Will we relinquish our stubbornness and let her? The right time only we can determine, but sooner or later, we should.

See chance as an ally, not an enemy. After all, if anything could happen, it might as well be something good.

David Rowland wanted a better chair. It took him eight years to invent one. Then, plenty of rejections. Finally, a man named Davis Allen gave Rowland a chance: He ordered 17,000 of his 40/4 chairs for a university campus his firm was designing.

50 years later, it all seems obvious: Which company wouldn’t want a chair that stacks only four feet tall when you pile 40 of them on top of one another? But initially, different just seemed different, not better.

Rowland knew what he was doing. He wanted “better,” and he was willing to cycle through “different” as many times as he needed. In a 1965 interview, he admitted as much, leaving behind a maxim for us which might be even better than his chair: “Different is not always better, but better is always different.”

Our default approach to “better” is “more.” After we realize “different” is the way to go, we often still stray. It takes a thoughtful, deliberate kind of “different” to land on “better.” And even once we do, it may still require years of rejection and a stranger giving us a trust advance before the world can see: “Ahh, this is the ‘better’ we’ve been waiting for.”

“Different” is hard—but worth it. “More” is a socially acceptable dead end. “Different” offers no guarantees, but it’s the only road that might lead to “better.” Choose different. Try for better.