I’ve been thinking a lot this morning about identity, depression, and the difference between choosing isolation and experiencing abandonment. Over the last three years, I’ve changed almost everything about myself. My beliefs, my relationships, my priorities, and the direction I want my life to go. For a while, isolation was intentional. I needed distance from the life I’d always known to figure out who I actually wanted to become. But something happened this summer that I didn’t choose. My relationships with my children changed, and the emotional impact was far greater than I anticipated. For months, I’ve been criticizing myself for not being productive enough. I know I want to write a book. I know I want to build this community. I know I want to help people navigate identity changes and difficult life transitions. Yet I’ve struggled to move forward. And this morning I realized something: Knowing what you need to do and being emotionally capable of doing it are two very different things. Sometimes what looks like procrastination is grief. Sometimes what looks like laziness is depression. And sometimes the person you used to be no longer exists, but you haven’t collected enough evidence to believe in the person you’re becoming. That’s what I’ve been calling the identity gap. I’ve also been thinking about Stoner by John Williams, which has become my favorite novel. It’s a story about an ordinary man whose life doesn’t turn out the way he expected. Yet he discovers meaning through something he genuinely loves. It reminded me of something important: A meaningful life and a successful life aren’t necessarily the same thing. And that’s the direction I want to take this community. Not endless motivational speeches. Not telling people to wake up at 5 a.m. and work harder. I want us to explore the psychology of identity, ask difficult questions, challenge the stories we tell ourselves, and take small, meaningful actions toward lives we actually want to live. I’m working toward coaching people through these kinds of transitions, and I want this community to be a place where we can develop those ideas together.

Living in the day we are in is all we truly have.

Have you ever thought about selling everything and traveling before you die?

What’s everyone working on today?

Do any of you guys deal with ADHD?