You just have to stop managing your life long enough to see it

I have a confession that will surprise no one who’s ever watched me “relax” on vacation: I bring a to-do list to the beach. Not a metaphorical one. An actual list, in an actual notebook, that I update while my feet are literally in the sand. My family has learned to accept that my notebook is always within reach, the way you accept that a dog will always check the yard for squirrels even though there are never any squirrels.

I’ve been thinking about this tendency a lot lately, thanks to two pieces that landed in my inbox in the same week.

The first was Robert Waldinger‘s reflection on the quiet assumption that something always needs fixing. He describes a life that looked good from the outside (meaningful career, family he loved, all the markers of success) but one that he experienced as a series of problems to be managed. When something went well, he felt a flicker of relief, and then his attention snapped to what was next. Not because anything was actually wrong, but because that was his operating system.

I felt uncomfortable reading that because of how familiar it was. I’ve gotten really good at scanning for what’s missing or wrong or unfinished, every day, all the time. And not just in my work; this automatic tendency doesn’t clock out when I close my laptop. It follows me home, into my relationships, onto the beach, into the fifteen minutes I had set aside to just sit on my porch with my dog.

The second piece, Sahil Bloom’s “Make the Dash Count,” landed in the same place. Bloom writes about the small dash on his grandmother’s memorial card. The one between her birth year and her death year, and how that tiny “dash” holds an entire life: every hope, every heartbreak, every ordinary Tuesday. All of it, compressed into something you might not even notice.

Noticing Life While You’re Living It

I’m not going to tell you life is short. You already know that. What I want to talk about is something both writers are circling without quite naming: the difference between knowing your time is finite and actually noticing your life while you’re in it.

Those are not the same thing. You can be fully convinced that the time between birth and death is short and still spend it managing, optimizing, and scanning for the next problem (I think this is how most of us live by default). Nobody sets out to miss their own life. It happens by accident, one reasonable, responsible, well-intentioned decision at a time.

Here’s where I’ll get personal. A few years ago I started noticing that I could pinpoint, in granular detail, what was wrong with my week – the client who I couldn’t seem to help, the deadline that slipped, the thing I could’ve said better in a session. But if you’d asked me what had delighted me that week, I’d have gone blank. Not because nothing had, but because I wasn’t looking for it, so it went unseen. I had a very sophisticated radar for problems and no radar for joy.

The Best Five Minutes

So I built one. I tried a gratitude journal, but failed. So I kept searching. What ultimately worked was smaller and simpler. At the end of most days, I ask myself one question: what was the best five minutes today? Not the most productive, or the most important… the best. Sometimes it’s a conversation. Sometimes, often actually, it’s my dog doing something ridiculous that I can’t help but swoon at. The point isn’t the answer, the point is that the question forces me to pause and live a moment where I’m not managing anything, just noticing.  Pro tip: write the question on a note and stick it to your bathroom mirror where you can’t miss it.

That’s the muscle both articles are pointing at, from different angles. Waldinger asks what happens if the issue isn’t that something’s missing, but how we’re relating to what’s already here. Bloom asks what you want your dash to say. Put them together and you get something more useful than either alone: notice what’s already good, and then go get more of it, on purpose, repeatedly, without waiting for permission or a vacation or a health scare to make you.

Seek More Joy

So here’s my ask of you, my coach hat fully on. Don’t wait for the profound version of this question. Ask yourself the small one, and do it often: what brought me joy today, or this week? Not what should have (like my dear friend says, “stop shoulding on yourself”); what did? Then, do more of that thing, and do it deliberately, before you’re old enough to be the stranger on the sidewalk telling a young parent it goes by fast.

Your life doesn’t demand to be filled with achievements. It just asks to be lived, noticed, on purpose, while you’re still in it.