Parenting

Unstuck Brutal Guidance for Getting Out of Your Own Way Executive Summary Unstuck is a no-nonsense guide to breaking through inertia and self-sabotage. It rejects motivational fluff and insists on discipline, responsibility, and daily action. The core message: stop waiting. Move now. 8 Core Principles Stop Stalling: Waiting for the “right time” is an illusion. Take one step now; action creates momentum. Your Excuses Are BS: Excuses are lies we tell ourselves. Face the truth, and act on it, however small. Embrace Discomfort: Growth demands discomfort. Avoid comfort traps and toxic influences; lean into struggle. Don’t Negotiate with Yourself: Motivation fails; discipline wins. Lower the bar, stop debating, and show up daily. Action Comes First: Clarity and confidence come from doing, not thinking. Small wins lead to streaks and momentum. Stack Wins: Life will hit hard. Reframe setbacks, control what you can, and adopt a “so what?” mindset. Persistence Over Perfection: Consistency beats flawless effort. Build systems and routines that sustain growth. Don’t Miss Twice: Slipping once is normal. Failing twice breaks the streak. Reset quickly and keep moving forward. The Stoic Thread Drawing on wisdom from Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, Unstuck reminds us: you cannot control the world, but you can control your choices. Courage, discipline, and clarity are cultivated, not gifted. ...

Raise ‘Em Right Raising Kids with Agency, Resilience, and Purpose Executive Summary Raise ‘Em Right draws on sixteen years of step-parenting to argue that the central task of raising children is not protection or instruction but the cultivation of independent judgment. It treats critical thinking and healthy skepticism as learnable skills (not innate gifts or rebellious postures) and examines how adults can model these capacities without performing them. The core message: skepticism, taught well, is a form of care. ...

On Saturday afternoon, hundreds (and by some accounts thousands) of people gathered at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, for the second wave of the nationwide “No Kings” protests, a coordinated effort of demonstrations held in over 2,600 U.S. locations. (Reuters) The local event, organized by Indivisible Kansas City’s founder Beverly Harvey, kicked off around 2 p.m. and emphasized that the movement was about defending democracy, not creating a spectacle. “We’re not going to bow down to a dictator,” she told the crowd. “We’re going to rise up… until this dictatorship is gone.” (KCUR) ...

Investing isn’t just a numbers game. It’s an emotional one. Charts, spreadsheets, and allocation tables give us the illusion that investing is rational. But when real money is on the line, our brains often have other plans. Market drops, headlines, and the actions of others trigger deep-seated biases that can quietly sabotage even the smartest strategies. Understanding these psychological traps, and building systems to guard against them, is every bit as important as choosing the right investments. ...

🪞 A Reflection - Advice vs. Theater I still remember when placing a trade felt like walking into a marble-floored bank: handshakes, hushed voices, and a commission that quietly skimmed my returns. Traditional brokerages sold reassurance: someone to call, someone who “knew a guy.” The price of that comfort was friction. Then the discount houses rewired the game. Zero-commission trades, index funds with fees measured in basis points, slick dashboards instead of mahogany desks. The pitch wasn’t romance; it was math. Keep costs down, keep behavior simple, let compounding work without the rake. ...

🪞 Reflection What We Feed Grows We all have a diet. Not just of food, but of thoughts, habits, and attention. Every day, we choose what to give our time and energy to. And here’s the truth: what you feed, grows. Scroll through social media for hours and you’re feeding distraction. Watch the news on repeat and you’re feeding anxiety. Spend time with your family, read a book, or write a page, and you’re feeding connection and growth. Like it or not, the results are predictable: seeds always sprout into what they are meant to become. ...

I’m not chasing a fantasy of elsewhere. I’m chasing a better use of my remaining time. Albania keeps coming up because it offers something I can’t seem to buy in the States at any reasonable price: a quieter life that still feels alive. What I want is simple. I want mornings that begin with a short walk to coffee, not a long drive to errands. I want a budget that buys time (time to write, read, and call the people I love) rather than buying square footage I barely use. I want streets that reward curiosity, not speed. Albania, from Tirana’s café lanes to the Adriatic towns, looks like a place built for human pace. ...

If caring about people makes me woke, then I’ll wear the word like a medal. Somewhere along the way, a simple idea (that we should stay alert to injustice and aware of the struggles of others) was dragged through the mud. The word “woke” didn’t come from politicians or pundits; it came from ordinary people warning each other to keep their eyes open, to see the truth, to act with compassion. It was a call to vigilance, not a declaration of war. I don’t believe being woke is a cause for shame. I believe shame belongs to those who mock it. ...

We often think of ourselves as the end result of history’s long arc. The inheritors. The living echoes of those who came before. And while that’s true, it’s not the whole truth. Because we’re not just descendants; we’re ancestors, too. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are laying the foundation for lives we will never see. The future isn’t some abstract idea waiting to arrive; it’s being shaped by the sum of our decisions, right now. Every time we choose convenience over conscience, or courage over comfort, we are setting the terms of tomorrow’s world. That makes us architects. Stewards. For better or worse, we are becoming the stories future generations will tell about how it all turned out. Will they see us as the ones who looked away, or the ones who stepped up? ...

Our Pale Blue Dot Still Turns. And It Still Needs Us. There’s a photo taken by Voyager 1 in 1990, as it was leaving the planetary region of our solar system. It shows Earth from 3.7 billion miles away: a tiny speck caught in a beam of scattered sunlight. That speck is us. Everyone you’ve ever loved. Every moment of history. Every act of courage and cruelty. Every hope and heartbreak. ...