The Moments Archive
the yes you don’t need to earn
A lot of people say they want to be more creative, but what they’re really describing is a wish to feel more free.
Dear Reader,
A lot of people say they want to be more creative, but what they’re really describing is a wish to feel more free. Creativity gets difficult the moment we demand it make sense. When every idea has to be useful, polished, or defensible, we stop making things and start auditioning instead.
Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that permission comes after proof. We earn our way into things by being good at them, productive with them, or praised for them. Creativity doesn’t work that way. It asks for the kind of yes that comes first, before the result is impressive.
This is often where people get stuck. They wait until they have more time, confidence, or clarity that it will be worth it. But creativity is not a reward for being ready. It’s a practice of becoming ready through doing.
The shift is subtle but powerful: choosing to create as an act of permission rather than performance. Letting yourself write the paragraph that no one will read. Sketch the thing that looks wrong at first. Cook without needing it to be impressive. Start the project without deciding what it will become. When the pressure to be excellent loosens, something else has room to appear: play, curiosity, aliveness.
The yes you don’t need to earn is honest. It’s the recognition that making something, even poorly, even privately, is part of being human. And the more often you allow that yes, the more natural it becomes to trust your own creative life again.
Yours in the journey,
Looking for more Moments? Intentional Moments Archive
focused attention
So many of us live our days with an attention that never truly lands.
Dear Reader,
So many of us live our days with an attention that never truly lands. We answer a message while half listening to someone speak, scroll while we eat, think about work while standing in the shower. The mind moves quickly, but very little feels truly touched by us. At the end of those days, it can be hard to remember what actually happened, only that we were busy inside all of it.
Focused attention is one way of stepping out of that blur. It is the decision, even for a short stretch of time, to let one thing be the thing you are with. Long enough that your mind, body, and presence are in roughly the same place. In those moments, life becomes meeting what is here, right now.
You do not need long stretches of silence to practice this. You can pick a single conversation, a single task, a single walk, and decide that, for this small window, your attention belongs here. When the mind wanders, as it will, you notice that and come back without scolding yourself. Over time, these small returns begin to change the feeling of your days. Life feels a little less like something that is happening around you, and more like something you are actually inside of.
Yours in the journey,
Looking for more Moments? Intentional Moments Archive
clear enough to move
Many of us make decisions as if each one has to carry our whole life.
Dear Reader,
Many of us make decisions as if each one has to carry our whole life. We stall, gather more opinions, and hold the choice so tightly that it begins to hold us. Simplifying a decision is not about lowering the stakes. It is about choosing a frame that fits the moment, so you can move without pretending you know everything.
A helpful first move is to sort what kind of choice you are facing. Some decisions set direction. Others simply express the direction you have already chosen. Direction-setting choices may need more time, another conversation, or one more piece of information. Expression choices usually need a boundary: a time limit, a budget, or a brief list of what matters most right now. Naming the kind of decision you are in reduces the fog.
Reversibility also clarifies the path. If a choice can be revised without heavy cost, set a small interval and test it. Pick the option that teaches you the most with the least risk. If a choice is harder to unwind, return to your values and one concrete criterion. Ask what you are protecting, and which option protects it better. Perfection is not required; alignment is.
Your body can offer useful data here. Imagine saying yes and notice what happens in you. Imagine saying no and do the same. You are not looking for comfort, only for steadiness. If both options feel workable, choose the smaller step and give it a clean trial. Decide for the next hour, the next week, or the next season, rather than for forever.
The goal is not to make flawless choices. It is to create decisions that are clear enough to move, honest about what you know, and kind to the person who has to live with them. When you practice deciding this way, the day stops deciding you first.
Yours in the journey,
Looking for more Moments? Intentional Moments Archive
joy as evidence of life
There are times when joy feels like an interruption.
Dear Reader,
There are times when joy feels like an interruption. An emotion that arrives in the middle of everything else and doesn’t quite fit. It can feel strange to laugh when so much remains unresolved, or to feel gratitude when another part of you is still tired, uncertain, or afraid.
But maybe that’s the point. Joy doesn’t need to erase what’s difficult. It reminds us that our story isn’t finished. That even within the heaviness, something inside us is still reaching toward life.
And if joy hasn’t shown up for you in a while, that too is part of being alive. The absence of joy doesn’t mean it’s gone forever, or that you’re doing something wrong. It only means that life has been heavy, that your energy has gone toward endurance and survival. Even then in the most difficult of circumstances, the possibility of joy remains waiting for the smallest opening, ready to return when there’s room.
Life is still happening. We are still here. And the capacity to feel joy, even briefly, is not a denial of pain but a quiet affirmation of life itself.
Yours in the journey,
Looking for more Moments? Intentional Moments Archive
staying open to change
Learning often begins at the moment we least want it.
Dear Reader,
Learning often begins at the moment we least want it. Someone names something we missed or a result shows us our approach isn’t working. The human impulse is to tighten, to explain, or to find the part of the story that makes us look better. Being teachable begins before the explanation that we try to give. It is the brief and intentional choice to stay with what is being offered long enough to see if any of it might be true.
In practice, being teachable looks ordinary. You ask for a concrete example so you can see what the other person saw. You reflect back what you heard to be sure you understood it. You name one change you are willing to try so the conversation lands somewhere real. If the feedback only partly fits, you take the part that serves you and leave the rest without resentment. None of this requires perfection. It requires enough steadiness to keep listening.
Teachability actually protects connection. When harm has happened, the person across from you wants to know that their experience matters and that something will change because of it. If you can hold still long enough to take in the impact, trust begins to rebuild. The room feels safer because you were responsive when it counted.
Yours in the journey,
Looking for more Moments? Intentional Moments Archive