Month: September 2025

“Wait wait wait,” he said. “So who knows who? And how do y’all know Ted?” He was a stranger standing on the opposite side of the table with the massive, four-liter jug of vodka lemon on it. Just one of the many characters you meet during the annual city festival.

The four of us laughed at him failing to comprehend how we had met. “These two went to elementary school together. These two went to high school together.” You know. The usual smoke and mirrors of names. Suddenly, he had another question.

“Hold on. How old are you guys?” We each went in turn. “34.” “34.” “Almost 34.” “Well, 34.” His jaw dropped after the first “34” already. “What? No way! You look… No way you’re 34 man!” To be fair, with his dark curly hair, well-groomed stubble, and jovial attitude, Matt really does not look his age. Me? I was humbled by the age credit the guy gave me: “And you?! You don’t look a day older than 22! Damn, you guys have aged well.”

It was a fun moment but also a nice piece of flattery. Everyone laughed, and we moved on. First in the conversation and, soon, to the next table.

You never know where your next compliment might come from. Enjoy them as they find you, and then keep flowing.

Like millions of investors around the globe, I often kick myself for not timing my buys and sells better. The list of missed opportunities is long. Foregone crypto investments that skyrocketed. Trading a good asset for a bad asset. Not selling a Pokémon card before the price crashed.

But the truth is: I have a good nose. That, too, is a trait you, and I, and millions of other people share. We have a flair for the things we like, and that allows us to be early to trends that will eventually catch on.

I bought a beyblade in Italy when I was 11. Soon after, it became all the rage in Germany. I’ve been snooping around in blockchain land since 2017. And, for some reason, I got back into Pokémon cards exactly 12 months before they saw their biggest boom of all time.

It’s easy to berate yourself for your bad decisions, but, chances are, they’re a few wilted flowers lying in a pile of good choices. For every missed opportunity, you can find a handful of smart calls taken. Even if those calls are tiny, they add up.

Celebrate your good nose, and enjoy the new frontiers it takes you to. No one ever hits all home runs. Life is about the joy of discovery more so than taking the perfect series of steps along the way.

For every one comment I get on a course script at work suggesting I remove something, I get four or five recommending I add this idea or that one. It’s normal. It’s human.

We want to add. Create. Make something out of nothing. The problem is that in most creative projects—which, nowadays, is basically all projects—the nothing is what gives shape to the elements that remain. Removing the inessential is what makes the creation shine, not the addition of more bells and whistles.

Half of what makes Michelangelo’s David astonishing are all the bits of marble he chipped away. If all the stone was still there, it would be a square block of rock, nothing more.

There’s a reason Lego sets have a fixed number of parts and an order for assembling them. Sure, you can keep tacking on more bricks after you’re done, but would you really add anything to the original model? Or, ironically, take away from it with each next piece you clip on?

Subtracting is hard. It doesn’t feel nice. You don’t get much credit for it. How is anyone supposed to know what distraction you saved them from if, in the end, no one can see it? But subtracting is like polishing: It smoothes rough edges and brings the creation to light.

Instead of throwing out more ideas no one has time to execute, today, suggest a subtraction. Remove a piece of what you’re working on, and see how it feels. Sometimes, the greatest contribution we can make is to remove what’s not needed.

The first time I told myself and others to “say no to meetings you don’t want to do,” I, ironically, did not have many meetings to begin with. I had just started my path as a self-employed writer and was mostly staring at my screen.

Fast-forward a decade, and I’m in a job where not only are new meetings flying at me left, right, and center, but I also feel somewhat obligated to attend them. Contractually, sure, but even morally.

If my employment contract stipulates certain goals, technically, I can only attend the meetings I believe will support those goals. In reality, however, I work with people—and people want to see your face regularly before they’ll trust you enough to genuinely want to help you.

Showing up at meetings is about more than the agenda. It’s about spending time together, building rapport, and being present in a way others notice—especially if you work remotely, like I do.

Seven months into the job, I’ve declined a handful of meetings here and there. For some reason, this week it first felt like I deliberately turned one down. It was short-notice, not immediately relevant to me, if ever, and it would have taken away time from a more important task. Despite all of this, actually saying no was still a bit harder than I would have imagined.

“When you feel like a meeting won’t help you make any progress, politely decline and suggest an alternative solution,” I wrote 10 years ago. As it turns out, that’s exactly what I did. I told the host I’d review the call’s notes afterwards. I did that, and it was enough for the moment.

Sometimes, we give ourselves advice we only really need ten years later. That’s cool—but it does make writing down your best thoughts extremely valuable. Every now and then, new dogs must learn old tricks. Like saying no to meetings you don’t want to do.

The Last of Us is a TV show based on a video game series of the same name.

The story puts Joel, a reluctant hero, on a path to protect Ellie, a special kid reminding him of his dead daughter. A nasty fungus has brought a zombie apocalypse to the world, and while most people are just trying to survive, Ellie might hold the key to saving humanity.

The games have found universal acclaim, and season one of the show knocked it out of the park as well. With the release of season two, however, the TV tale seems to start unraveling at the seams. Why? Because the makers of the TV show have stopped minding the medium.

There are two games which will be adapted into three seasons on TV. Naturally, the starting and end points of each season will differ from the games. That’s not a problem in and of itself. You can restructure the story and, hopefully, what made sense to people who spent 40-50 hours playing both games will still make sense to TV viewers in around 20 hours of episodes.

The first season pretty closely depicted the first game, and that’s why it went down like butter. The second season, however, breaks from this pattern. The second game switches opposing characters’ perspectives for extended periods of time. You see both sides of the protagonist and the antagonist, one after the other. This does not work for the show.

In a video game, you’re learning by doing. No matter who you’re playing as, there’s enough to do to keep you busy and engaged, even neglecting the story altogether.

In a TV show, all you have is the story—and as soon as people can’t keep up, they lose interest. When did Ellie get so angry? Who is this random other girl showing up out of nowhere? Why is she angry, too? The creators of the show have claimed they intend to continue following the games’ structure. That means season three of the show will put us in the antagonist’s shoes—a person we barely know, let alone care about, after season two, since, well, we haven’t spent any time with her!

Time with characters builds character. Were the TV show to switch regularly from Ellie’s perspective to Abby’s—the antagonist in question—we might have come to understand both their frustrations. Right now, a lot of people are left scratching their heads. “Where did this show go wrong?” It simply forgot its medium.

There’s a reason it’s hard to succeed writing essays on X, posting only writing on Instagram, or growing a Facebook page without videos: The medium requires the message to change shape. It’s rarely easy to turn the wood into perfect proportions. Sometimes, it’s outright impossible. But if we’re not willing to fire up the lathe and start spinning our tale and gears, we can’t be surprised if the piece is received as flatly as a square block of wood dropping to the ground.

Mind your medium—for your stories only have to work in one to succeed.

In Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, you play the famous detective on a quest to solve six mysterious murders, thefts, and disappearances. All the usual tools are at your disposal.

You start by observing the crime scene and collecting evidence. You analyze it in your improvised lab in 221B Baker Street. There’s an archive for you to cross-reference letters and news articles with. Of course, you follow the trail to various locations, too. You might find yourself in a clay mine or the morgue at Scotland Yard.

But of course, Holmes’ best source of information remains to be, as ever, people. From Inspector Lestrade to witnesses and suspects, they all have something to say, and the better you listen, the faster you can piece the picture together.

Since it’s a game, which questions you can ask to whom is predetermined. There might be anywhere from five to ten topics you can prompt any character about. The questions cover details of the crime scene, the person’s relationship with the victim, and the progression of the day’s events.

There is, however, one question that pops up with everyone you meet, almost without fail: “Did the victim do anything unusual in the last few days?” The answers are always fascinating. “He seemed anxious and erratic.” “It felt as if there was something she kept secret, news she wasn’t yet ready to share.” “This group of people bought expensive train tickets but never used them.”

Why does Holmes keep asking this question? For one, it reveals that we pay more attention than we think we do. If only we prod our brains for a bit, we’ll realize we have processed that something seems off—we just didn’t do it consciously. For another, the unusual is a generous source of clues. If you don’t understand why something’s happening, look for pattern breaks surrounding the event. If it hadn’t come to pass under normal conditions, what changed that made the situation possible?

This is as valuable when applied to our own lives as it is in solving murder mysteries. Sure, plenty a crooked habit hides behind the veneer of routine, but just as many gremlins try to steal the good from our lives in its breaks.

Do you have a big event coming up that’ll put you on the spot? Perhaps that’s the source of you not sleeping well. Has the tone at work shifted from jovial to serious? If everyone’s worried about layoffs, maybe it’s no wonder you’ve become more guarded with your tasks. And if it’s raining for two weeks straight in a town that typically knows only sun this time of year, it might not be surprising that you’re uncharacteristically grumpy.

Take your clues from everywhere—especially the unusual. Even if you’re not a master detective, sooner or later, you’ll piece your own puzzle together.

That’s what he said. He was talking about chauffeuring people around for a living.

“I’ve only been doing this for a week,” my Uber driver told me. “I was working at restaurants before, but I got tired of that. Had to take a break for a while. Then a friend got me into this. I’ll do it for a few months. Then life will probably take me somewhere else again.”

“In a restaurant, you have to be always on, you know? In here, it’s like…if the customer wants to talk, then great. If not, then I’ll just have a quiet drive.” But of course, the best part was the same part that makes everything in this life great, he said: the people.

“You get all kinds of people. And you get to see what their values are. How different the perceptions can be.” A few days earlier, he drove a professional soccer player, he said. I asked him if the driving is okay in Munich. He said it was easy enough. “Berlin, Hamburg, those are much worse places to drive.”

I got into his cab trying to go to a beer garden to meet a friend. I got out with a lot of new perspective. “It’s nice that I get to do this.” What an empowering way to look at the world. So long, Mr. Uber driver. Perhaps we’ll meet again sometime. And I’m sure whatever you’ll be doing, you’re going to appreciate the moment’s gifts.

Maybe where you live, helicopters fly by every day. Me, the closest I get is drying my hair in the morning. But every now and then, a helicopter does pass overhead in Munich.

Most of the time, they are small city helicopters. The police checking a scene from above or making a safety round trip over the whole town. But every now and then, we get a big one.

It could be a military-grade helicopter or a bigger transport vehicle. Sometimes, you can even spot a tandem-rotor helicopter, which are usually from the “Bundeswehr,” Germany’s armed forces.

Given their rare sightings, spotting a helicopter has always been an event for me. To this day, I’ll say, “Look, a helicopter!” even if whoever’s with me is completely nonplussed by the approaching rotor sounds. But not today.

Today, I was meditating. Sitting cross-legged in a fold-out chair which I parked in the early-morning sun for 15 minutes, I heard the sound while my eyes were closed. “Oh, that’s a helicopter!” It sounded like a big one, too. In my mind, I could already see it. Was it an armed one? A Chinook?

As the noise of its spinning blades slowly went from my left side to my right, I really wanted to look—but meditation is meditation, and so I kept my eyes closed. I tried to stay present, enjoy the sound, and let my thoughts pass through, the way I always do when I meditate.

A few minutes later, my alarm rang, and that was that. No helicopter today. That’s okay, you know?

Take even the small reminders that you’ll never witness everything. They’ll prepare you for the days when you’ll have to forgo the big stuff. Accept missing the helicopter, and the next large loss will sting slightly less—and hopefully, that, too, will be a rare occurrence in your town.

Some people experience strong disappointment early on, and it becomes a great source of fuel for them. An abandoned son becomes the youngest partner in his firm’s history. An abused daughter builds a company that provides safe shelter for millions like her.

For all the productivity this dynamic can create, thankfully, most people never experience it. Myself very much included. I never had a strong reason to stick it to someone, and so I surely had less motivation to change my life than someone who’s on a crusade against whoever. But I still have dreams, and I still learned to pursue them with fervor. I’m aware that time is finite, and I spend as much of it on my dreams as I reasonably can.

Whether it’s for lack of knowing what they are like or because I can see them carrying a steep price tag, I generally don’t recommend vendettas. Sure, you can pick an invisible fight, but that’s a ploy, not a long-term emotional commitment. If anything, you might want to compete against yourself of yesterday, but that, too, can lead to judgment, twisted feelings, and, ultimately, resentment.

There’s a famous quote from Marcus Aurelius that “the best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” Perhaps the same dynamic applies to life itself: The greatest act of defiance is living well just because. Fulfill your potential simply because you have the chance to do so. You were born. You’re here. You might as well shine as bright as you can. What other reason do you need?

Don’t live in spite of. Don’t live for. Live as if nothing can hurt you. As if competition doesn’t exist. As if life’s a play, and the stage is set for nothing less than you making all of your dreams come true—because in lieu of any evidence to the contrary, perhaps that’s exactly what the universe wanted you to do all along.

I usually put private events into my work calendar with a nondescript “busy” tag. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it sets some boundaries with colleagues. It’s worked for my first six months in the company, and I’m sure it would work for many more. But now that the default has been established, I can look into improving it.

Some colleagues set recurring blockers in the morning or at night. “Dinner with the family,” they might read, or “Get kids ready for school.” That’s a good approach, too. When I see these blockers, I don’t think these folks are slackers or up to something fishy behind the scenes. I just remember that they are humans, not just “workers.” They have family, friends, and other things in life to tend to. Plus, since the blockers are recurring, they don’t reveal any particular pattern. They’re just little, public placeholders saying, “Look, you might not reach me at this time, and here’s why.” I like it!

Maybe I, too, should set such a blocker. Even if it’s just one for lunch. Let’s see how I can experiment with it. My gears are churning.

Whichever side on a spectrum you initially fall on, there’s almost always a way to reach the best of both worlds—but the only way to find it is to let down your guard and start looking.