After the Pushback Fades
I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I learned to ride a bike, but I was old enough to remember I waited longer than most of my friends. My best friend was already cruising with ease, flying around…
Essays
Who(m) Is Training Who(m)?
This is a serious departure from my more reflective pieces, but I read a great article about the absurdities of the AI Witch Hunt and just couldn’t help myself. Okay, I probably could have but why would I do my…
Time to Prepare
I once mistook a promotion for a solution to burnout. Looking back, I can see how much I avoided saying what needed to be said. I’m still learning that growth requires honesty sooner, not just more effort after things fall apart.
How to Be a Good Person in a Storm
When I was seven or eight, a good friend of mine took a blow to the face so hard it made me cry. It’s been almost forty years and I can still see the scene. My friend was sprinting across…
What I Thought Made Me Strong
It didn’t happen in a meeting. It didn’t happen during an argument. It also didn’t happen during one of those long, slow-burn moments that can take weeks or months to unfold. It happened while I was writing. I was maybe…
The Weeds Don’t Pull Themselves
I didn’t notice it at first. I was mowing the lawn near the back fence of our yard when something out of place caught my eye. I stopped the mower and stepped up onto our small retaining wall to get…
Public Opinion Is Not the Arbiter of Truth
When I was maybe ten years old, Shasta ran a curious marketing campaign. One can of Root Beer and one of Cream Soda, along with a coupon, were delivered to every doorstep that subscribed to the Deseret News. That was…
Bravery in the Mundane
Our youngest daughter was away from home at a youth camp recently. While she was gone, my wife decided to clean her room. At one point, I walked past the doorway, door wide open, and had to do a double…
Stop Trying to Bounce Back
In 2017, I tore a tendon in my left wrist in maybe the dumbest way possible: reaching for a book on my son’s dresser. I hit the sharp corner at just the wrong angle. Other than a sharp pain that…
The Weight of What We Carry
I’m not strong. Most days, my upper body strength comes from carrying the occasional bag of topsoil or all the grocery bags in one trip, not from any kind of real weight training. Almost twenty years ago now, I learned…
Is the Pursuit of Confidence Useful?
Most people who didn’t know me before eighth grade would probably never believe I was painfully shy. I remember standing in front of a small group of kids at the end of my elementary school days when I was twelve…
The Grace of Starting Small
Standing at the kitchen sink is a great place to think. Sometimes, my wife will sit at the snack bar while I wash dishes. We talk about work, about life, about faith. Whatever’s on our minds. Other times, I wash…
The Path on the Other Side of Adversity
It was 2017 when my wife’s cancer finally showed up. We’d been expecting it, in a way. Her type of thyroid cancer runs in her family. Honestly, it felt like something that came with an invisible countdown; always present in…
Where Effort Meets Enough
I got home after being on the road for a couple of days and in the field for almost 16 hours. I was dead tired. I walked into the house — lights still on in the kitchen and living room…
Why Humans Have Never Been More Relevant
I wonder, sometimes, if people have always worried about their place in the world, their relevance. Now, surrounded by AI that can already do more in a second than I can do in a day, I feel it: a fear…
