You may have noticed that I stepped back from the newsletter these last few weeks. Everything has been good. Great really. I just had kind of a lot going on all at once.  Marathon training.  Buying and selling a house.  A heavier stretch at work.  And of course all of the normal things that one deals with in life.

With all of that going on, I made a clear choice not to focus on the newsletter for a little while.  Not because I stopped caring.  Because I needed to slow down. And because I wanted to live my message.

Slow down when you need to. Everything is not a priority.

We do not need permission to pause.  We just need the intention to do it and the commitment to follow through.  It is another form of self care.  A way of saying thank you to ourselves for being human in a busy world.

I am grateful for everyone who gave me space to catch my breath.  I am also grateful for the readers who checked in on me while I was quiet.  Those notes were very much appreciated. 

Last weekend I completed the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. We are 80% finished with all of the things that go into buying and selling houses. And work has calmed down about 17%. :)

So I am ready to get back into it. Today I want to share a few simple reminders about gratitude. For other people and especially ourselves.

When we were younger, slowing down was not a skill.  It was just what happened when the world was more still and had fewer moving parts.  And whenever Ferris Bueller’s Day Off appeared on TV, the whole house seemed to slip into a temporary state of wonder, as if the universe itself politely suggested we sit down and pay attention. (Or maybe it was just me.)

The story, in the simplest terms, went like this.  A high school kid wakes up, realizes the day is far too precious to spend in algebra, and decides to take life for a gentle spin.  He grabs his best friend, rescues his girlfriend from school, and heads into Chicago with the kind of confidence you only have when you are young or extremely optimistic.

They wander through a musuem to admire art that stares back a little too deeply.  They stand in the sun.  They borrow a car that absolutely should have remained unborrowed.  And they move through the city as if time were elastic and meant to be stretched.

But beneath the parade float and the jokes and the light chaos was something softer.

Ferris understood the quiet math of being alive.

Life moves fast.

Moments are fragile.

And noticing them is its own kind of superpower.

It was gratitude disguised as mischief.

Presence dressed up as rebellion.

A gentle reminder that if we are not careful, the good parts of life slip by while we are busy convincing ourselves we will enjoy them later.

Ferris showed us that slowing down does not require permission.

Just awareness.

Just intention.

Just the willingness to look around before the moment moves on without us..

Marathon training made something very clear.  Life feels heavier when too many things compete for attention.  The miles were not the hard part.  The hard part was trying to squeeze everything else around them.  Family.  Work.  Packing.  Decisions.  It all piled up.

What helped most was not trying to outrun the chaos.  It was choosing what mattered in the moment.

One thing. Not five.

You can do anything, but not everything. (At least not all at once.)

Gratitude made it practical.  It pulled my attention toward what was supporting me instead of what was draining me.  A quiet breath.  A moment of calm.  Something finished instead of something pending.  When I focused on that, the noise settled.

The move is emphasizing the same lesson.  Having fewer things has made every step easier.  The house was basically show ready within a couple days of work. And moving will be a much more pleasant experience than if we had a lot more things.

Keep this.

Let that go.

Do the next small thing that moves life forward.

That is all simplifying really is.  Not a huge life overhaul.  Just choosing the thing that matters right now and letting the rest wait its turn.

Slowing down becomes practical when you think like Ferris.  Look around.  Pick the moment worth noticing.  Give it your full attention.  Let that be enough for now.

In this section every week, I’ll give step by step instructions on how to tackle one project. It could be something simple and small like this week’s assignment, or it could be more involved. Once you take on a few of these, you’ll learn some of the common strategies that can be applied to just about anything.

My hope for this newsletter is to make it feel like a mini-coaching session with me.

So now, it’s time to…

That is the whole reset.

One moment.

Ten seconds.

One tiny change.

One note of gratitude.

Thanks for giving me the space to step back and return with clearer eyes.  I am grateful you are here and grateful for this small corner where we get to slow things down together.  It means a lot that you keep showing up, even when life gets busy on my side of the screen.

If something in your world feels too fast or too crowded, reply and tell me about it.  We will sort through it piece by piece.  Sometimes all it takes is a small shift and a little gratitude to make life feel lighter.

And no one says it better than Ferris, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”