Icarus’s father warned him not to fly too close to the sun, but he also warned him not to fly too close to the water. There is a middle ground, a place of wonder and freedom. Let’s meet there. 

I want to tell you something. I don’t understand my body and my mind. It seems the older I get, the more I am morphing into an infant who just lost her mother.

I never imagined that working on a book about money would lead me to writing about chewing my food, but that’s one reason I write: to find connections where none existed before.

I have been thinking about fatigue and why I am tired much of the time. It’s not that I walk around with my head hanging, gasping for air—it’s that I’ll be fine and happy and suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, I’m so tired I can barely finish a sentence, never mind read a book or answer emails or have a thought that feels important. This kind of fatigue is exhausting. It’s like: how can I keep going?

1. Venmo your daughter a million dollars.

2. Venmo her dad two million dollars.

3. Regret ruining your daughter’s life by taking away her fire to provide for herself.

4. Worry that two million won’t get her dad a house in Los Gatos. Venmo another 500k. Worry that won’t be enough for a house with a pool. Venmo another 10 million.

I was getting skinnier and skinnier. At one point in my life, that would have been an exciting thing, but at 54, skinnier was meaning weaker. Skinnier meant I looked like I’d gotten my legs from a chicken and my butt from a pancake.

What if instead of New Year’s Resolutions we called them New Year’s Dreams? What if we treated goals as dreams, and dreams as imaginable targets instead of someday but not today escape routes? What if we had the courage to name what we really wanted even if it seemed petty or impossible?

The magic of the group has already started. One person signed up and offered to pay the $50 monthly cost of participating for someone who could not afford it at this time. I had the perfect person in mind, and now she’s IN. 

There is so much joy in giving and receiving. Both feel so good.

This one will take you 30 seconds to read.

Dear Bliss,

I’m not buying it. I don’t think you’re stuck as an artist. I think you are either angry, afraid, or bored.

This is all to say that you have your heart that beats, and the sound it makes is steady and true, and then you have this maniac in your head who wants you to believe the sky is about to fall. What I want to tell you is, I am listening to you in a new way, you silly maniac, and you are finally starting to bore me.

I mean, we could do this for a year and see what happens, or we could just skip it. Which choice is more apt to conclude with some incredible outcomes?