Ideas worth sitting with.
Essays, observations, and questions about work, adulthood, culture, ambition, success, and the assumptions hiding in plain sight.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Not sure where to start?
Start with a question that catches your attention. There’s no required reading order here. Follow your curiosity.
HAVE A THOUGHT?
Don’t keep it to yourself.
Agree. Disagree. Add another perspective. The conversation doesn’t have to end when the essay does.
LATEST THOUGHTS
What Happens When Success Stops Feeling Successful?
WORK · SUCCESS · IDENTITY
You can do everything you were told would make you successful and still wake up one day wondering who exactly you built that life for.
When did being reachable become the same thing as being available?
BOUNDARIES · ACCESS · AVAILABILITY
Your phone makes you reachable almost all the time. Somewhere along the way, we started treating that access like an obligation to respond. But being reachable and being available were never the same thing.
Some Traditions Are Just Peer Pressure From Dead People
TRADITION · INHERITANCE · CULTURE
We inherit more than money, names, and family recipes. We inherit beliefs, traditions, rules, and entire ways of doing things. But receiving an inheritance doesn’t mean you have to keep everything in it.
Why Do We Treat Changing Your Mind Like Evidence That You Were Wrong Instead of Evidence That You Learned Something?
GROWTH · BELIEFS · IDENTITY
We say we value growth, but when someone actually changes their mind, we often treat it like inconsistency instead of evidence that the learning worked.
Why Do We Live Like Tomorrow Is Guaranteed?
LIFE · TIME · PERSPECTIVE
We make plans for tomorrow so naturally that it’s easy to forget tomorrow was never guaranteed. Maybe that isn’t a reason to fear the future. Maybe it’s a reason to pay a little more attention to the life happening today.
When Did Being Alone Become Something We Were Supposed to Fix?
SOLITUDE · SELF · CONNECTION
We spend so much time learning how to build relationships with other people. But you are the one person you’ll spend your entire life with. Maybe it’s worth asking whether you actually enjoy your company.
At What Point Did Being Busy Become Evidence That Your Life Is Important?
WORK · WORTH · TIME
We’ve gotten very good at filling our calendars. But somewhere along the way, being busy stopped describing what we were doing and started saying something about who we were.
tianicolespeaks 