Finding Courage to Write a Better Story
When I was younger, I had an almost crippling fear of heights. At a Scout camp one summer, my friends talked me into trying part of the ropes course for high adventure. I must have been 14 or 15 years…
Beauty in the Struggle Called Life
It has been almost 30 years since I lay awake on a small bunk bed in Guatemala City questioning my life choices. A light in the hallway illuminated the room just enough that I could make out a large spiderweb…
What Is The Antidote to Contention?
It's funny which memories stick with us. Winter 1987. I was in 3rd grade, and at recess my best friend and I had gotten into an argument about something I'm sure was very important to both of us. The bell…
The Thing We Call Balance
In 2013, I attended a tech conference in Las Vegas. I’d never heard of the keynote speaker, and I don’t remember his name now. He walked onto the stage in a humdrum kind of way and began introducing his talk…
Beware the When Then Syndrome
Friday night, I told my wife I was going out for a long run the next morning. Fifteen miles, at least. We went to bed at a reasonable hour, but I slept poorly. I had weird dreams and back pain…
The Economics of Your Ignorance
“Hey honey!” I shout from the kitchen as I mix up my baking soda concoction. “Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Kelly Clarkson told me I would literally not be able to stop losing weight if I drink this.” Except none…
Why We Long For Solace
I love singing, and when I was nineteen years old, I had the privilege of participating in a religious choir made up almost entirely of young men who were nineteen or twenty years old. I was only part of the…
Shaped, Not Sentenced
Like a lot of teenagers, I spoke first and thought later. We were on a youth service project, with a few adult supervisors helping but mostly watching. We were scrubbing crayon and worse off plastic chairs with chemicals that required…
Are You Allergic to Personal Accountability?
I’ve got to stop drinking so much Diet Dr Pepper. The thought went through my mind as I climbed out of my truck and walked into the convenience store, Charlie’s Market mug in hand, to refill it for the second…
What’s Up With Crack?
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you read this headline? Refining Stocks Soar As Crack Spread Hits Record High In 2026 I don’t want to ruin the punchline of this satirical article, but “The crack spread is…
The Future Usefulness of Impossible Dreams
Yesterday, I spent way too many hours fighting with Windows Task Scheduler. Even my trusty AI companion couldn’t figure it out, and I could practically imagine Claude staring into the void after we’d collectively exhausted the accumulated body of human…
Despair Cries Boldly, Claiming Victory
Despair has a remarkable way of sounding certain. It practically shouts its declaration that the story is already over. The final page has been written, the verdict has been rendered, and nothing you do from this point forward will matter…
Do You Know Where the Shadows Are?
Do you know where the shadows are? I thought I did. I’d been running the same stretch of road for more than fifteen years and had never fallen. Then one bright, sunny morning I found two old men far more…
Don’t Be in a Hurry to Get There
“We should move to Manderfield.” I say it almost every time my wife and I drive to and from southern Utah. Somewhere around Beaver, as the freeway begins advertising towns most people have never visited, I start pointing. Manderfield. Paragonah…
To Be More, Do Less
“Aaron works himself to death.” It’s been a recurring theme throughout my career. I don’t know exactly when I developed the mental model, but somewhere along the way I became convinced that if something wasn’t working, the solution was almost…
