It’s only been a few short days since English sailor John Blackthorne arrived in feudal Japan of the 1600s, but they’ve been rather eventful. Cast into the midst of both an international and domestic political nightmare, John and his host Lord Yoshii Toranaga have already saved each other’s life several times from enemies without and within.

In a brief moment of reprieve after an epic boat escape from Osaka Castle, Toranaga watches John dive off the side of their ship in elegant fashion. Eager to learn, Toranaga asks John to teach him. John begins to explain how diving works, but Toranaga would rather he repeat the action.

“Ah. Observational learner,” John notes and obliges. As soon as he climbs back on the boat, he hears the next prompt: “Again.” And again. And again. After dozens of demonstrations, even John’s translator feels bad for him. “Perhaps he can try again tomorrow?” Mariko asks Lord Toranaga.

As John catches his, Toranaga, too, takes a deep breath. It’s been a long few days. The regent has lost several loyal samurai. He has discovered the Christian settlers in his country are plotting behind his back. And to top it all off, Toranaga has been evicted from Osaka Castle, the place where he usually reigns when his fellow rulers aren’t gunning for his head.

After a long exhale, Toranaga looks out across the ocean. With his eyes on the setting sun beyond the horizon, he finally answers Mariko’s request: “Tomorrow is tomorrow. Today I will learn how to dive.”

Life won’t always hand you the best of opportunities in the most convenient of moments — but every moment offers some opportunity, and whichever one you feel inspired to take, it’s best to seize it before the sun sets.

Nobody knows what the next 24 hours might bring, but there is an hour unfolding just in front of you right now. The only way to learn, to love, to feel, act, and live, is to use that hour. And no matter what you hope to understand, as long as you make the most of it, at the very least, you’ll always receive a new life lesson.

Tomorrow is tomorrow — but today, we learn how to live.

There are at least ten bakeries on the way to my WeWork. That’s ten options for a simple morning coffee. But on a holiday, seven of them will be closed. Out of the two remaining stores, one might look a little suspicious in terms of quality, whereas the other won’t offer the caffè crema variety I usually start my day with.

Of course, WeWork has coffee machines too, but if it’s a holiday after a weekend, chances are, they’ll all have run out. So what do I do? I go to Starbucks. I know, I know. Queue the roaring laughter. But you know what? Starbucks is reliable. I can go there day and night, rain or sunshine, holiday or Tuesday morning, and I know exactly what I will get when I order a grande Americano.

Could I take a gamble on one of the few bakeries that’s open? Sure. Could I trawl around WeWork and hope for a coffee machine that’s not empty? Of course. But when it’s a holiday and you’re trying to do some work, you don’t want to play games. You want a reliable source of coffee — and say what you will, that Starbucks will be at all times.

Is it the best coffee in the world? No. Is it the cheapest? No. But it’s a reliable experience that’s always available. Not just at the Starbucks next to your WeWork, but in fact in any of the 38,038 Starbucks around the world — and at that scale, reliability for a simple service becomes an extraordinary service in and of itself.

In the short term and on a small scale, reliability is just table stakes, and many businesses fail to deliver even that. But in the long run and bigger picture, reliability at scale is exceptional.

When you begin by being reliable, that won’t necessarily lead to greatness, but if you stay reliable long enough, chances are, you’ll never run out of business — and if you don’t, even your most astonishing creation won’t matter. Start with reliable.

Clumsy wasn’t the right word. After all, Clara fell where it was slippery, turned into roads closed for construction, and left the house only for pouring rain to commence minutes later. Unlucky, perhaps? Real misfortune regardless, it was a hell of a nickname: “Clumsy Clara” had stuck since high school, and when cups break and coffee spills wherever you go, sooner or later, you start believing.

Fired from yet another job for yet another mistake she didn’t make, Clara wandered home through the big park one dark autumn evening, desolate. She was already feeling low, but when her new phone turned off and refused to turn back on, her misery quickly turned into panic. Clumsy or not, a gloomy, deserted park was no place for a lonely lady, and Clara being Clara, she needed directions.

After stumbling around aimlessly for a good 45 minutes while flinching from various noises, all of which turned out to be on the spectrum of bird sounds, Clara spotted a tick-tocking ray of light shooting out of the ground in the distance. Only half-joking to herself, she thought, “Oh great, this is it. The aliens are here to pick me up.” Her body told her to run, but we all know what happens to moths and flames, and so step by step, Clara inched closer to the oscillating light. By the time she could almost reach into it, she bumped into a hip-high construction barrier. “Ow!” Thankfully, in this case, what might otherwise have served as an admonishment to mind her surroundings already marked her destination. Finally at the source, Clara looked down and…at Karl.

“Whoa!” Karl stumbled backwards so suddenly when his phone’s flashlight illuminated Clara’s face, he actually dropped his makeshift bat-signal and ended up uttering his next words in complete darkness: “Are you real? Please tell me you’re real.” “Sure am,” Clara said, and once Karl had found both his feet and phone again, the two could finally talk face to face — albeit at different elevations, for where Clara stood on solid ground, Karl stood in a muddy pit that set them about one adult-height apart.

“What are you doing in there?” Clara asked. “Don’t ask,” Karl said, trying to be cool for a second. “Long story.” But when he saw Clara scrunch her face, he quickly abandoned that plan, afraid she might do the same to him. “I fell in! I fell in!” he confessed. “I’m a doofus! That’s what I’m doing. Stupid pit. Who puts a construction site in the middle of a park without lights anyway?” Clara tried not to, but she couldn’t help it, and her initial chuckle burst into full-blown laughter. Whether it was the relief that her abduction-scare had turned out to be harmless, the hilarity of a non-cartoon character falling into an actual pit, or the fact that, for once, Clara was not the one on the receiving end of calamity, who could say? But in that moment, she felt something she hadn’t felt in a while: Clara was filled with joy.

After she had calmed down and got back to the situation at hand, Clara realized that if she squatted down and Carl stretched, their hands could reach each other, even lock arms. However, the position was no good for her to exercise what average strength she had, so instead of a Hollywood rescue, Karl received a hip-high construction barrier, which Clara pushed into the pit, and thus a good old-fashioned leg-up from a sturdy if quiet friend.

“How long have you been in there?” Clara asked as she watched Karl try to wipe the mud off his shoes. “Not trying to be all mysterious or anything, but…longer than I care to admit,” Karl said. “I think I’ve had my fill of embarrassment for today. Maybe I’ll let you try to guess next time.” “Fair enough,” Clara went, “and don’t worry: It’s my turn now…because I really need directions.” One incredulous look and several minutes later, Clara had filled in Karl on her own little predicament. After the two had double-checked that, from here on out, everyone knew where to go without getting lost or falling into further pits, they agreed to meet for coffee later that week before heading their separate ways.

“Looking forward to the full pit story!” Clara said with a smirk. “But you might want to bring a metal straw, or wear waterproof pants, or something. Filled with coffee or not, cups tend to spill and break around me.” “I just fell into A PIT, Clara,” Karl waved her off. “Trust me, I can get coffee anywhere but my stomach just fine on my own!” “Alright then,” Clara shrugged, “see you Thursday!”

It would be a few more years until she realized the full meaning of their encounter, but even as she watched him disappear through one of the park’s exits, Clara had a good feeling about Karl. She didn’t know it yet, but today had been the luckiest unlucky day of her life — and her future without a nickname was only just beginning.

When I don’t know what to write about, I can pace around the house trying to come up with an idea. I can stare at the blinking cursor in silence. I can also go do something else and hope lightning will strike later. There are a million ways to handle a creative drought or friction in productivity.

Nine out of ten times, however, the simplest solution is also the best: I can sit down, put my fingers on my keyboard, and press play on a timer and some music. Once the “game” of writing has officially begun with some ritual, however silly it may be, chances are, I will start playing — and something will end up on the page.

This solution is simple because all it requires is trust: As long as I believe that work will happen once I play some work music, start a work timer, or make a “work coffee,” it almost inevitably does. Of course, that trust isn’t always easy to find, and that’s why we feel friction and “writer’s block” in the first place. But if you can build and reinforce those habits — and along with them the belief — the system will become more reliable than even the best productivity hack or creativity exercise.

You don’t need the perfect idea or a finished roadmap before you start. Just press play and allow progress to happen.

In the Pokémon trading card game, Supporter cards breathe new life into your turn. They allow you to draw additional cards to battle with, swap unhelpful cards for better ones, or push back your opponent’s Pokémon to buy you some time.

When you look at the rules and conventions of Supporter cards, you might notice something interesting. First, you can only play one Supporter card per turn. Second, Supporter cards almost always support the trainer more so than the Pokémon. If you want to heal your little monsters or make them stronger, there are Item and Tool cards for that. Finally, Supporter cards always feature people in their artworks. They’re usually named after the characters in the anime and video games, who are “showing up” to help you out.

It’s just like real life, isn’t it? Support comes from people for people. You’ll never get an unlimited amount of it, but there’s almost always someone there to cheer you on and remind you that you are not alone. They might do nothing more than hand you a banana, say a few words, or pat you on the back, but often, that’s more than enough.

There is, however, one difference between the game and real life: In a match, you’ll have to play your Supporter cards in order to use them. In life, we rarely get to control the support we receive — but when it comes to giving it, we’re the ones holding the cards. All we have to do is play them, and the effect will be even more profound once it is felt by the recipient.

So go on. Play a Supporter card. Buy your friend’s book, drop by your spouse’s office, or leave a kind note on your kid’s desk. Just as with Pokémon cards, it rarely takes more than a bit of cardboard and imagination to make someone’s day.

In the last 40 years, the average song intro has shortened by 80%. What used to be a 50-second guitar solo before the first lyric has become an instant, repetitive backdrop of “hey!”s, “ooohhh”s, and “oh yeah!”s — because if you don’t grab the listener in the first ten seconds, chances are, they’ll be gone by the eleventh.

Spotify gives you access to over 100 million seconds. Even if you tap “Next” every second, it’ll take you over three years to get through it. Who wants to wait ten, 20, 50 times as long to find out if a song is any good? Actually, a lot of people — if we’re willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The first Dune movie is basically two and a half hours of setup for the second. Yet it still made $400 million at the box office. Nothing substantial happens in the first 12 episodes of Steins;Gate, the first few chapters of Snow Crash, or the first half of any Quentin Tarantino movie, and yet we still watch, read, and enjoy those works of entertainment. Why? Because we like spending time with people, and we appreciate good art.

It’s okay if that art mirrors real life from time to time. If it’s not climax after climax, an instantaneous series of ever-escalating dopamine hits. Just chill, you know? Come hang out with these characters. Get to know them. Listen to Mike’s guitar solo or Robbert’s epic beat. Watch normal people have normal problems like you. That way, once the stakes and action do explode, they’ll actually have meaning.

In a world where front-loaded hooks and immediate attention-grabbing have become the norm, it’s scary to take your time. To go the long way around and risk losing folks. But it’s also liberating to buck the trend. To acknowledge that the new normal is perhaps a little bit crazy, and to insist on your right to take as long as it takes. And while you’ll lose some folks indeed, at the end of the day, the sky won’t fall — because so far it never has.

Dare to start slow. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and great things never will be. Have faith in yourself, but perhaps more importantly, have faith in us. As long as the story is worth telling, you can choose any pace, and we’ll still follow along.

My friend Herbert writes a daily blog. He used to be a freelancer with more time on his hands, but right now, his day job is keeping him pretty busy.

When we spoke a while ago, Herbert said he only has around 15 minutes each day to write. Last week, he half-joked that “right now, it’s more like five minutes.” Some of his posts are more like tweets, Herbert said. He might share a quote he liked and only add one line of his own thinking.

And while Herbert is wondering where I find the 25, 45, sometimes 60 minutes it takes me to write my daily blog, I’m constantly impressed by his ability to wring something from the hands of the muse in just five or 15 minutes on a daily basis.

I know Herbert sometimes feels bad about how little time he has for his writing. I know he wishes he could spare more minutes for his daily blog. But when I look at Herbert and his incredible dedication to maintain his daily blog against the odds, all I can think is this: Life in the fringes is still life — and sometimes, what happens in the fringes is the most important activity of all.

A writer who can maintain a daily blog through the chaotic storm that everyday life can be is a much stronger writer than someone who only types when they feel like they have the time for it — and whenever their art takes center stage again, they’ll come back swinging.

I’m proud of Herbert, and if your passion, too, has been relegated to the sidelines for the time being, I hope you’re proud of yourself too for maintaining what would otherwise wither and die. Sometimes, your art might feel like it’s on life support, but that doesn’t make your art worth less. It only makes your support more important.

Keep steady until the next door opens, and remember: Life in the fringes is still life — and every part and kind of life is worth preserving.

Back in high school, a friend had a distinctive taste for sad songs and ballads. They reflected her perpetual teenage heartbreak well, she said.

I remember thinking: “But if you keep listening to sad songs, how is your heartbreak supposed to ever go away? Perhaps you should change it up a little…”

Sure, you can listen to five minutes of Mozart when you really need a break, cry over a sad song after a breakup, or vent your inexplicable anger with a good metal-medley.

But you can also crank up a happy tune to start a day you’re not looking forward to with vigor. You can play some epic trailer music to get into the mood of tackling a momentous task. And you can enjoy the calm but relentless drum rhythm of a lo-fi radio station as you press on with your work as slowly and steadily as the beat.

Express your moods via the music you choose — but don’t forget to also choose your music based on the moods you want to be in. Music and moods are a two-way street. Make sure you use both lanes.

Halo 3 was released in 2007. That’s 17 years ago, and yet, once a year or so, usually while not thinking about video games at all, I suddenly hear a slowly ascending piano song in my head. As it builds to a crescendo, I rack my brain: “Where is that melody from again?”

It never takes me long to remember: “Believe!” That was the name of the commercial that announced the game to the world. The ad is only 60 seconds long. There is no narration. In fact, it does not show any footage of the game at all. All you get is a series of moving shots of a miniature 3D-model of a battle scene. Nothing is moving except the camera, and yet…

The model displays a fight of epic proportions. Humans. Aliens. Explosions. Movement. Some soldiers seem suspended in mid-air, caught in the blast of a grenade. Others are pinned to the ground by alien spikes fired from a nasty weapon. Every individual is either falling, fighting, struggling, dying, or hiding, and the torment is etched into their faces.

Looking at these scenes with Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, you don’t need narration. You don’t need gameplay footage. You see these men and women, hear the music, and despite everything being made out of plastic, you can feel their pain. Their courage. Their willingness to put everything on the line for one last fight. In that moment, you just know: This is it. The end. The conclusion of an epic saga, and you must be there to witness it.

The Believe campaign was not a series of ads. It was art — and that’s why thousands of people will remember it out of nowhere on a random Thursday morning 17 years later.

Things of quality have no fear of time. Choose quality, make art.

A doctor holding a cigarette can hardly convince you to stop smoking. If an envoy armed to the teeth talks of ceasefire and peace, those words will sound hollow.

Anyone can tell you there’s a new letter in your mailbox, and you’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. All you have to do is go and check. But some messages only the right messenger can deliver. When the stakes are our identity, a random delivery-man-for-hire won’t — and shouldn’t — do the trick.

There are two lessons in this dynamic. The first is obvious: Be careful who you listen to. Marriage advice from a woman who’s been divorced three times might not be the most dependable.

The second is about the important messages you deliver: Make sure you’re entitled to pass them on. Don’t hand out life-changing advice you haven’t tried. If you really want to be of service, first become the messenger you need to be in order for your story to stick.

After all, the most powerful messages are the ones we don’t need to hear at all. Make us see and emulate rather than listen and follow — and where you can’t, perhaps it’s best to let someone else deliver the message.