Newsletter Archives
1/15/26: Take Two — Sunshine and Shadows
We imagine a future version of life with fewer problems and more joy. But real happiness isn’t waiting somewhere else—it’s found in how we live, notice, and attend to life today.
Ideas and inspiration for a more intentional, extraordinary life.
January 15, 2026
WORDS TO WONDER
Sunshine and Shadows
“If you think of your future self living in a new mansion, you imagine basking in splendor and everything feeling great. What’s easy to forget is that people in mansions can get the flu, have psoriasis, become embroiled in lawsuits, bicker with their spouses, feel wracked with insecurity and annoyed with politicians—which in any given moment can supersede any joy that comes from material success. Future fortunes are imagined in a vacuum, but reality is always lived with the good and bad taken together, competing for attention.”
— Morgan Housel
PERSPECTIVES TO PONDER
One of the most subtle ways we make ourselves unhappy is by comparing our full, lived reality to some imagined future.
We picture a future version of life with more perks and fewer problems than we have now. Our imagination makes it easy to believe we can have success without cost, happiness without interruption. But as Morgan Housel reminds us, those futures exist only in theory. Real life is never lived in a vacuum.
Every life (no matter how enviable it looks from the outside) is lived with a mix of beauty and burden. Joy shares space with inconvenience. Success coexists with insecurity. Love does not eliminate worry. Even the lives we most admire still include sickness, conflict, boredom, and doubt. That’s not failure—it’s simply what it means to be human.
The mistake isn’t wanting things to improve. Growth and progress matter. The mistake is believing that happiness lives somewhere else, that it will finally arrive once the variables line up just right. When we do that, we overlook the quiet goodness already woven into our days. We trade presence for projection.
A better way to live is to hold both perspectives at once. To acknowledge the hard without letting it eclipse the good. To pursue a better future without dismissing the life we’re already living. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s real.
My future (and yours) will come with a mix of sunshine and shadows. It always does. But so does today. And if we’re paying attention, there is almost always something here, right now, worth noticing, appreciating, and enjoying.
QUOTATIONS TO CONSIDER
1. "Tend to the small things. More people are defeated by blisters than mountains."
— Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor Wired magazine (b. 1952)
2. "If we only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are."
— Montesquieu, French judge, philosopher (1689-1755)
3. "People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us."
— Iris Murdoch, novelist and philosopher (1919-1999)
THE COMPLIMENT MOST PEOPLE NEVER GIVE
C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, died on November 22, 1963, at the age of 64. His passing went largely unnoticed—not because his life was insignificant, but because that same day the world’s attention was consumed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Lewis was buried near Oxford with only a few dozen people in attendance. At his funeral, his friend Austin Farrer offered a simple but striking tribute: “His characteristic attitude to people in general was one of consideration and respect. He paid you the compliment of attending to your words.”
When is the last time someone truly attended to your words?
We live in a distracted world where people attend to their phones more than they do people. The result? Half-heard conversations, eyes drawn elsewhere, attention divided and diluted. We may be physically present, but mentally we’re a hundred other places.
Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “The most important person is the one you are with in this moment.” Imagine what might change if we lived as if that were true. If we offered others the rare gift of undivided attention.
In a world starved for presence, attending to another’s words is no small thing. It is an act of respect. A form of generosity. And a quiet way to set yourself apart.
BEFORE YOU GO
We’re 15 days into 2026. If you repeated the past two weeks over and over for the rest of the year, would you be content with how you lived it?
Not every moment will be productive or wonderful. But I hope you’ve already made time to connect with people you care about, tried something you’ve never tried before, or created a memory you’ll enjoy revisiting for years to come.
Stay inspired by the life you’re living.
Kevin
1/2/26: Take Two — Course Correction, Not Reinvention
A meaningful life isn’t built through dramatic reinvention. It’s shaped by small course corrections—made often—that slowly guide us toward the life we want.
Ideas and inspiration for a more intentional, extraordinary life.
January 2, 2026
Course Correction, Not Reinvention
We often approach the New Year as if it requires a total overhaul of our lives. New habits. New goals. A new version of ourselves.
But meaningful change rarely happens that way.
Commercial airplanes offer a helpful reminder. After a plane takes off, it's slightly off course for much of the journey. What matters isn’t flawless precision—it’s the constant course corrections made along the way.
Small adjustments. Repeated often. That’s how a plane arrives where it intends to go.
Our lives work much the same way.
Most New Year’s goals fail not because we lack motivation in January, but because we don’t revisit them in February… or April… or October. We set a direction once and hope momentum will carry us the rest of the year. When life inevitably drifts us off course, we don’t notice—or we notice too late.
The alternative is simpler and far more effective.
Instead of asking, How can I reinvent myself this year?
Try asking, What small correction would bring me closer to the life I want to be living right now?
Improve your sleep.
Reduce screen time.
Watch less television and read more books—even a page or two each day.
Give more time and attention to your health, your relationships, your spiritual life.
Course correction doesn’t demand perfection. It requires awareness.
And the good news is this: you don’t have to wait until next January to begin again. You can recalibrate today. Tomorrow. As often as needed.
A meaningful life isn’t built through dramatic resolutions. It’s shaped through small, repeated adjustments.
What small adjustment can you take today that will help you move in the direction of the life you want to live?
THREE QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
A New Year is an invitation to ask better questions—because the quality of our lives is often shaped more by the questions we ask than the goals we chase. Here are three worth sitting with as you begin the year:
1. Fast forward to December 31, 2026—what one thing would need to have happened for you to feel this was a good, meaningful year?
2. If you knew 2026 would be the last year of your life, how would you live differently than you did last year? What conversations would you want to have?
3. What routines, habits, or time-consuming activities are no longer serving you? Remove one that's not working and replace it with something that will help you create the life you want.
NEVER MISS THE CHANCE TO START AGAIN
A new year doesn’t magically change our lives—but it does offer something precious: the chance to begin again with more wisdom than before. I wrote a short article that explores the value in starting again. You can read it here.
QUOTES TO CONSIDER
Quote #1:
“You do not have to be the same person you were five minutes ago.”
— Alan Watts
Quote #2:
“The truth is each of us are only one or two decisions away from a more beautiful and winsome life.”
— Bob Goff
Quote #3:
“Although no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending.”
— Carl Bard
BEFORE YOU GO
I hope the year ahead is filled with wonderful moments and memories you’ll carry with you for years to come.
Spend some time imagining what this year could bring—but remember, you don’t have to have the whole year figured out. You don’t need a flawless plan or perfect follow-through. You only need a direction, and the willingness to make small course corrections along the way.
If you’re looking for ideas and inspiration for living a more meaningful, purpose-filled year, I invite you to read my first book, A Life Worth Living. I wrote it as a reminder—to myself most of all—to live intentionally and to make the most of my one wild and precious life. I’m reading it again now, because I’ve learned I always need reminding to live the life I’ve imagined.
Stay inspired by the life you’re living.
Kevin