Black Swan Events: Why the Unexpected Changes How We See Our Lives

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When something unexpected changes our lives, does it change who we are, or does it change how we understand who we've become?

Looking back over a lifetime, it's remarkable how many important events were never part of our plans.

Some were welcome surprises. Others brought disappointment, uncertainty, or lasting consequences. A few changed the direction of our lives so completely that we could scarcely imagine what might have happened without them.

Yet something else happens as time passes.

We begin to see those experiences differently.

An event that once seemed like an unfortunate interruption may eventually become a defining moment in our story. Something we barely noticed at the time may turn out to have influenced years of decisions.

Our past doesn't necessarily change, but our understanding of it does.

What Is a Black Swan Event?

The concept of a black swan event was popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

A black swan event generally has three characteristics:

• It is an extreme outlier, lying beyond what ordinary expectations would lead us to anticipate.

• It has an unusually significant impact.

• Afterward, people develop explanations that make the event appear more predictable than it actually was.

The third characteristic is particularly interesting.

Once something has happened, we tend to look backward and identify the circumstances that led to it.

We connect events, recognize patterns, and construct explanations.

Sometimes those explanations are useful. But they can also create the illusion that we should have known what was coming.

Knowing what happened is not the same as having been able to predict it.

The Unexpected Events in Our Own Lives

Not every unexpected personal experience qualifies as a true black swan event.

Yet smaller, unpredictable moments can have enormous consequences for the individuals involved.

Consider how often our lives are influenced by circumstances we never anticipated.

A conversation introduces us to someone who becomes important in our future.

A job opportunity appears because another person happened to make a particular decision.

An illness, accident, or unexpected loss changes what we thought the coming years would look like.

Even the place and circumstances of our birth influence opportunities and experiences long before we begin making decisions for ourselves.

We may eventually recognize these moments as turning points.

But while we were living through them, we often had no idea how significant they would become.

Do We Attract What Happens to Us?

One popular idea, often called the law of attraction, suggests that our thoughts and attitudes influence what we bring into our lives.

There is a practical truth worth considering here.

Our attitudes can influence our behavior, our relationships, and the opportunities we recognize.

A person who approaches others with curiosity and kindness may develop relationships that someone more withdrawn or distrustful might never experience.

Our expectations can also influence the choices we make.

But that doesn't mean we attract everything that happens to us.

Unexpected illness, accidents, economic disruption, and countless other circumstances cannot reasonably be explained as consequences of someone's attitude or thoughts.

Nor should we assume that people who experience tragedy somehow brought it upon themselves.

Life is more complicated than that.

Our attitudes influence how we participate in life, but they do not give us control over everything life brings.

Recognizing this distinction allows us to accept responsibility for our choices without assuming responsibility for every circumstance we encounter.

Why Hindsight Changes the Story

One of the most fascinating things about memory is that we don't simply retrieve the past exactly as it happened.

We remember it through the perspective of the person we are today.

Our experiences, beliefs, emotions, and accumulated knowledge influence how we interpret earlier events.

A decision that once seemed like a mistake may look different after we understand its long-term consequences.

A relationship we thought we understood may take on another meaning years later.

An unexpected event that disrupted our plans may eventually become central to the story we tell about how our lives developed.

The event itself hasn't changed.

What has changed is our understanding of its place in our lives.

This raises another interesting question.

When we tell our life stories, are we describing what happened, or are we explaining what we now believe those experiences meant?

Perhaps we are doing both.

We organize our memories into a story that makes sense to us today. As our perspective changes, that story changes with it.

The Difference Between Finding Meaning and Believing Everything Was Meant to Happen

There is comfort in believing that everything happens for a reason.

It suggests that even the most difficult experiences belong to a larger pattern.

But I think we should distinguish between an event having a predetermined purpose and our ability to find meaning in it afterward.

Not every tragedy leads to something better.

Not every disappointment turns into an opportunity.

Some experiences remain painful, even after many years.

Yet we may still learn something from them, reconsider our priorities, or develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and others.

That doesn't mean the event was necessary.

It means our relationship with the experience can continue to evolve.

Sometimes the meaning we discover is not something that existed before the event.

It is something we develop through reflection, memory, and the choices we make afterward.

Chance, Choice, and the Person We Become

Our lives emerge from a complicated relationship between circumstances and decisions.

We cannot choose every event that affects us.

We cannot anticipate every consequence of the decisions we make.

And we cannot always recognize which moments will eventually matter most.

But we can continue examining our experiences and reconsidering what they mean.

Perhaps that is one of the more valuable aspects of growing older.

We have a longer view of our lives.

We can recognize connections that were invisible when we were younger. We can see how unexpected events influenced choices, relationships, and opportunities that followed.

And sometimes we discover that the story we once told ourselves no longer explains everything we have come to understand.

Our Pasts Change as We Change

I have often thought about how differently we see our lives when we look backward.

The person who experienced an event years ago is not quite the same person who remembers it today.

We have learned things, changed our minds, experienced losses, developed relationships, and reconsidered assumptions.

Those changes influence the meaning we assign to our memories.

Perhaps the most significant consequence of an unexpected event isn't always what happened at the time.

Sometimes it is how that event continues to influence our understanding of ourselves.

Black swan events remind us that the future can be far less predictable than we imagine.

Our personal histories remind us of something equally important.

We may not control everything that becomes part of our story, but the meaning of that story can continue changing for as long as we do.

These reflections connect with themes explored in my book, Embrace Life's Randomness: Your Path to Personal Reinvention and Positive Change, including the relationship between chance, choice, memory, and the unexpected events that shape our lives.

Originally published October 16, 2022. Revised and expanded October 2026.

Brent M. Jones

Social Media Is Fantasy: When Other People’s Lives Aren’t What They Seem →

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We know that social media isn’t real life.

And yet, sometimes we respond to it as though it is.

We see the vacation, not the argument that happened on the way there. We see the smiling family photograph, not everything the family may be struggling with. We see the announcement of a new job, a promotion, an accomplishment, or a celebration.

We see moments.

But we can easily mistake those moments for lives.

That was what I was thinking about when I first wrote about social media several years ago. I was concerned that these platforms could give us a false sense of connection while also encouraging us to compare our ordinary lives with carefully selected versions of other people's lives.

Since then, social media has changed considerably.

But I am not sure the underlying human problem has.

We Know Our Own Lives From the Inside

There is a basic imbalance in how we compare ourselves with other people.

We experience our own lives from the inside, but we usually see other people's lives from the outside.

We know our own disappointments.

We know the conversations that didn't go well. The opportunities we missed. The relationships that became complicated. The plans that didn't work. The mornings when we weren't particularly enthusiastic about getting out of bed.

We know the doubts we don't talk about.

But we don't necessarily know those things about someone else.

Instead, we see what they choose to show us.

Social media magnifies that difference.

Someone else posts the photograph from the beautiful restaurant. We don't know what happened before dinner or after it.

Someone announces an accomplishment. We don't see the failures that preceded it.

Someone posts photographs of a wonderful trip. We don't know whether the trip was actually wonderful.

Perhaps it was.

Perhaps it wasn't.

Usually, we simply don't know.

The Problem Isn't That Everything Is False

Calling social media "fantasy" doesn't mean that everything we see there is dishonest.

The photograph may be real. The accomplishment may be real. The happiness may be real.

The problem is selection.

All of us select what we tell other people about ourselves.

We have always done that.

Long before Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or whatever platform comes next, people presented different versions of themselves in different situations. We behaved one way at work, another way with family, and perhaps another way with close friends.

Social media didn't invent this.

It simply gave us a remarkably powerful way to do it.

Now we can construct a public version of our lives one photograph, comment, accomplishment, and story at a time.

And then something curious happens.

Other people compare their complete lives with our selected one.

We do the same with theirs.

Comparison Becomes Unequal

There is nothing particularly new about comparing ourselves with others.

What is different is the scale.

At one time, most of our comparisons were with people we actually knew. We had some context for their lives. We knew something about their struggles as well as their successes.

Social media can remove that context.

We may now compare ourselves with hundreds or thousands of people we barely know.

And the comparison is almost always unfair.

We compare our ordinary Tuesday afternoon with someone else's vacation.

Our uncertainty with someone else's announcement.

Our aging body with someone's carefully selected photograph.

Our unfinished work with someone else's finished accomplishment.

Our private doubts with someone else's public confidence.

The comparison begins with incomplete information, yet we can still allow it to influence how we feel about ourselves.

And Now, Even Seeing Isn't Necessarily Believing

There is another dimension to this today that wasn't nearly as obvious when I first wrote about the subject.

Technology has made it increasingly difficult to know exactly what we're looking at.

Photographs can be altered. Videos can be manipulated. Artificial intelligence can create people, voices, scenes, and events that never existed.

But perhaps the deeper issue isn't technological at all.

Even when everything in a photograph is genuine, the impression it creates can still be incomplete.

A real photograph can tell an incomplete story.

A true statement can leave out important context.

A genuine happy moment doesn't necessarily mean someone has a happy life.

That distinction matters.

Connection Is Still Real

None of this means social media is inherently bad.

I've used it for years.

I use it to share my writing, communicate ideas, discover other people's work, and connect with people I otherwise might never encounter.

Those connections can be meaningful.

But there is a difference between using social media as a tool for connection and allowing it to become our measure of reality.

Real connection asks more of us.

It requires listening.

It requires curiosity.

Sometimes it requires sitting with another person long enough to discover that the life we imagined they were living isn't quite the life they are actually experiencing.

That is difficult to capture in a post.

Perhaps We Should Ask a Different Question

Instead of asking whether social media is real or fake, perhaps a better question is:

How much of another person's life can we really understand from what they choose to show us?

Probably not very much.

And that should affect the way we compare ourselves with them.

The person who appears to have everything figured out probably doesn't.

The person whose life looks exciting still experiences ordinary days.

The person celebrating success has experienced disappointment.

The person who seems confident has doubts.

Just as we do.

Perhaps the healthiest way to use social media is to remember that what appears on our screens is not necessarily false.

It is simply partial.

A moment isn't a life.

A photograph isn't a relationship.

An announcement isn't a complete story.

And someone else's carefully selected outside should never become the standard by which we judge our own complicated inside.

Social media may show us something real.

We just shouldn't mistake it for the whole truth.

Originally published in an earlier form and substantially revised and expanded in October 2026.

Where Does a Lifetime of Thinking Take Us?

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All our waking lives, we try to turn scattered events into a story. Every night, the dreaming mind takes some of that story apart.

We assume morning is the point, when we wake and put ourselves back together. But someday there will be a final night. Whether anything follows it is a question none of us can answer with certainty.

Perhaps the more immediate question is why the mind spends so much of a lifetime practicing what it feels like when the story no longer has to stay intact.

What Are Dreams Actually Doing?

Dreams have always fascinated me because they seem both intensely personal and strangely careless with the facts of our lives.

Someone we knew forty years ago appears in a house we didn't live in until twenty years later. A person who has died is suddenly alive. Something that once seemed enormously important becomes incidental, while a forgotten detail assumes tremendous importance.

Dreams don't respect chronology. They don't preserve our carefully constructed understanding of ourselves. They take pieces of our lives and rearrange them.

I used to think that perhaps this was another way the mind searched for meaning. But I am less convinced of that now.

We don't need dreams to reconsider our lives.

We do that consciously.

An event that meant one thing to us at thirty may mean something entirely different at sixty or eighty. The event hasn't changed. We have.

We have accumulated experience. We have learned things. We have known more people. We have made mistakes. We have discovered that some things we once considered terribly important weren't very important at all, while seemingly insignificant moments affected the direction of our lives.

That kind of understanding requires reflection.

Dreams seem to do something different.

They blur. They fragment. They distort.

So perhaps we are asking dreams to perform the wrong job when we expect them to explain our lives.

Maybe Understanding Isn't the Point

Suppose something happens that affects us deeply.

We think about it repeatedly. We replay the conversation. We imagine what we should have said. We reconsider what someone else meant. If it was wonderful, we may want to hold onto it. If it was painful, we may desperately want to understand it well enough to finally let it go.

Then we sleep.

The event may appear in a dream, but rarely as it actually happened. The mind borrows pieces of it and mixes them with other memories, people and places.

What if that distortion isn't intended to produce clarity?

Perhaps there is a difference between understanding an experience and loosening our attachment to it.

Our conscious mind may say:

This happened. This is why it mattered. This is what I learned from it.

The dreaming mind seems perfectly willing to tear that orderly explanation apart.

Maybe sleep isn't teaching us what an experience means. Perhaps it is helping the experience lose some of its power over us.

Eventually, something that once demanded our attention becomes something we can remember without needing to live through it again.

The event still mattered.

We simply don't need to hold it quite so tightly.

And Then There Is Death

That thought leads me somewhere I can't prove but can't easily dismiss.

What if this loosening is somehow connected to the fact that we are mortal?

I believe the individual continues after death. I cannot prove that. Part of the reason I believe it is quite simple: I want it to be true, and I hope it is true.

Wanting, hoping, believing and knowing are different things.

Yet they are also deeply human things.

We often begin by wanting something to be true. We may come to believe that it is true. Then we live with the hope that our belief corresponds to something beyond what we can presently know.

Death may be the greatest example.

Either something of us continues or it doesn't. I believe something does. But believing that raises another question.

If we are moving toward some other existence, why do dreams spend so much time recycling the trivia of this one?

Why the old house?

Why someone we haven't thought about for decades?

Why the absurd mixture of people who never knew one another?

Why does a brain capable of maintaining such a powerful sense of self spend part of every night dismantling it?

Perhaps dreams aren't showing us where we're going.

Perhaps they are doing something to what we will eventually leave behind.

The Mystery Inside Our Heads

The human brain makes the question even more difficult.

The old claim that we use only a small percentage of our brains isn't supported by neuroscience. Our brains are active in enormously complicated ways, even when we aren't consciously thinking about anything.

But correcting that misconception doesn't remove the mystery.

The brain contains tens of billions of neurons and an almost incomprehensible number of connections. From that physical structure somehow emerge memory, imagination, love, fear, language, dreams, identity and consciousness itself.

We know a great deal about the brain.

We still don't fully understand how all of that becomes us.

Sometimes the intricate networks of the brain even remind me of the structure we see throughout the universe. Similarity isn't evidence that the two have some hidden connection. But the image is difficult to ignore.

The organ through which we attempt to understand the universe is itself something we do not completely understand.

That should leave room for humility.

How Do We Know What We Know?

This conversation led me to another question.

How do I know the things I think I know?

I have read an enormous number of books. I have spent a lifetime thinking about what I have experienced and learned. At different times in my life, I have had very intelligent friends who caused me to think differently.

But ask me to identify precisely where much of my understanding came from and I couldn't do it.

There isn't a book I can pull from a shelf and say, There. That's where I learned to think this way.

There isn't one conversation.

There isn't one experience.

Somewhere along the way, all those books, conversations, relationships, mistakes, successes, disappointments and years of reflection stopped being separate sources of information.

They became part of the person doing the thinking.

Perhaps that is one of the things we mean by wisdom.

We don't carry around an inventory of everything that taught us what we know. Experience becomes integrated into us so completely that we encounter a new idea and simply recognize something in it.

But today's conversation made me realize that this explanation is incomplete.

The result of thinking may depend on the person doing the thinking.

But it may also depend on how the thinking is directed.

Where We Point the Mind

We can spend years thinking about the same event without understanding it differently.

Repetition isn't necessarily reflection.

We can rehearse a grievance until it becomes stronger. We can revisit an accomplishment until it becomes more important than it deserves to be. We can keep asking why someone hurt us and never ask what the experience eventually taught us about ourselves.

The mind can travel a great distance without going anywhere useful.

Direction matters.

A question can change the direction.

Why did this happen to me?

produces one path of thought.

What did this change in me?

produces another.

What does this mean now that I couldn't have understood then?

takes us somewhere else again.

Perhaps this is one reason conversation matters. Another person doesn't necessarily give us the answer. Sometimes they simply turn the question slightly.

Then everything we already know approaches the problem from a different direction.

The understanding was not entirely supplied by the other person. It couldn't have been. They haven't lived our life.

But we might never have arrived at that particular thought without the direction the conversation provided.

Perhaps That Is What Happened Here

I began by wondering what influences our dreams.

That became a question about whether dreams clarify our lives or simply chop them into pieces.

That led to wondering whether repeatedly fragmenting our experiences eventually helps us loosen our attachment to them.

And that led to death.

Then consciousness.

Then belief.

Then hope.

Then the extraordinary complexity of the brain.

And finally to the question of how we understand any of these things in the first place.

None of those questions answered the one before it.

They redirected it.

Perhaps that is how some of our deepest thinking actually happens.

We imagine that wisdom means accumulating answers. Maybe a considerable part of it is learning which question to ask next.

A lifetime supplies the material.

Experience changes the person examining it.

Reflection gives that person an opportunity to reconsider what the material means.

And other people, books, conversations and sometimes even unexpected questions change the direction from which we look at it.

Dreams may scatter the pieces every night.

But when morning comes, it is the conscious mind that decides which pieces deserve another look.

Perhaps understanding comes not simply from everything that has happened to us, nor from everything we have learned.

It comes from who all of that has made us, combined with where we choose to direct our thinking next.

See these articles below if you enjoyed this one

Some Things Are Worth Keeping

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The objects we inherit can carry more than memories.

I inherited this old Remington typewriter years ago.

It is a Remington Standard No. 30, a machine from an era when a typewriter like this was a serious working tool. Someone once sat in front of it, pressed those keys, and used it to put words and numbers onto paper.

Today, of course, there are much easier ways to write.

So why did I keep it?

Because not everything we value needs to remain useful.

Some objects become important because of where they came from, who used them, or the memories and connections they represent. Their practical purpose may disappear while their personal meaning grows.

This typewriter became one of those objects for me.

What We Pass Along

Eventually, I gave the typewriter to my youngest son.

By then I wasn't really giving him an old piece of office equipment. I was passing along something that had existed before either of us owned it, had come into my life, stayed with me for a time, and was now becoming part of his.

I think that's one of the interesting things about inherited objects.

Their value isn't necessarily financial. Sometimes their real value is that they provide a physical connection between people and different periods of their lives.

A typewriter becomes more than a typewriter.

A watch becomes more than a watch.

A photograph becomes more than a photograph.

The object stays essentially the same. What changes is the meaning we attach to it.

Some Things Don't Need to Be Useful

We live in a time when replacing things is easy. When something becomes outdated, inefficient, or unnecessary, getting rid of it often makes perfect sense.

But usefulness isn't the only measure of value.

Some things deserve to be kept because they remind us where we came from, who came before us, or what we want someone after us to remember.

I kept this old typewriter for years.

Then I gave it to my son.

Perhaps that's what keeping something sometimes means. Not holding onto it forever, but knowing when it's time for someone else to become part of its story.

I don't need this typewriter to write anymore.

But I'm glad its story didn't end with me.

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Why Some Moments Stay With Us.

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Memory doesn't preserve every moment. It preserves the moments that eventually mean something.

Our brains aren't trying to create a perfect record of our lives. They're constantly sorting experiences, asking, Does this matter?

Often, the answer doesn't come until years later.

A brief conversation. A chance meeting. A line from a poem. At the time, they may seem ordinary. Looking back, they become turning points.

Perhaps that's why our life stories change. The past doesn't change, but the meaning we discover in it does.

Maybe small moments aren't really small at all. Maybe they're simply the moments our minds eventually recognize as the ones that shaped us.

When we look back, we don't just remember our lives. We discover them.

Your Path Forward Becomes Clearer When You Look Back

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Originally inspired by reflections written in 2022. Revised to reflect how my thinking has continued to evolve.

We often imagine life moving in a straight line.

Education leads to work. Work leads to success. Success leads to fulfillment.

But very few lives unfold that way.

Instead, our lives become a series of relationships, unexpected events, difficult seasons, quiet victories, disappointments, and moments that seemed insignificant when they happened. Only later do we begin connecting those experiences into something that resembles a story.

That story becomes one of the most powerful influences on who we believe we are.

Many successful people describe their lives this way. Looking back, they can identify setbacks that eventually became turning points, failures that redirected them, and disappointments that taught lessons success never could.

The meaning wasn't obvious at the time.

It emerged years later.

Years ago I wrote about an article by Julie Beck in The Atlantic that included a thought I have never forgotten:

"How you arrange the plot points of your life into a narrative shapes who you are and is a fundamental part of being human."

That idea continues to resonate with me.

We don't simply remember our lives.

We interpret them.

Developmental psychologist Monisha Pasupathi has observed that relationships are built by telling pieces of our story. Every introduction, every conversation about where we've been or what we've learned, becomes another opportunity to shape how we understand ourselves.

As we change, those stories change too.

The events themselves remain the same.

What changes is the person looking back at them.

Author Bill George has suggested creating a timeline of your life, marking both the high points and the difficult seasons. I have always liked that exercise because it reveals something many of us overlook.

Rarely does one event stand alone.

Instead, one experience quietly influences another. A difficult job leads to an unexpected opportunity. A painful loss deepens compassion. A conversation changes a career. A disappointment becomes the beginning of a different life than the one we originally imagined.

What once looked like isolated moments begin revealing connections.

Your path forward often becomes clearer because you finally understand where you've already been.

That is one reason I believe reflection matters so much.

A journal can help preserve what happened, but revisiting those pages years later often reveals something entirely different. New experiences reshape old memories. What once seemed like failure may now look like preparation. What once felt random may now appear meaningful.

Our stories are not rewritten because the past changes.

They are rewritten because we do.

Perhaps that is one of the quiet gifts of growing older.

We become less interested in proving ourselves and more interested in understanding ourselves.

Looking back is not about living in the past.

It is about discovering patterns we could never have seen while we were busy living them.

The future remains uncertain for all of us.

But when we pause long enough to reflect, we often realize that our lives have been teaching us far longer than we recognized.

Sometimes the clearest view of the road ahead begins by looking behind.

If these ideas resonate with you, you may also enjoy What Matters: We Are the Sum of Small Moments and Why Life Stories Change, where I explore more deeply how ordinary experiences shape our identity and the stories we tell about our lives.

Is Perfection the Problem, or Is It Pride?

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When is something good enough?

When should we keep working until it becomes excellent?

And when does the pursuit of perfection stop serving the work and begin serving something in ourselves?

I used to think the distinction was fairly simple.

When your contribution is “good enough,” you recognize that it is part of a larger goal. It supports the plan and the other people working toward the same purpose.

When your contribution is “excellent,” you recognize that the quality of your work matters. You want it to stand on its own and strengthen whatever larger purpose it serves.

But perfection is more complicated.

I once thought that pursuing perfection usually meant spending too much time on one part of a larger effort. One person’s insistence on flawless work could delay everyone else, disrupt the larger project, or draw too much attention to one contribution.

I still think that can happen.

But I am no longer sure that the desire for perfection is itself the problem.

There are times when extraordinary care matters. Some work deserves another revision, another examination, another attempt to make it better. A person who takes deep pride in what they do may achieve something that would never have been possible if they had settled for “good enough.”

So perhaps the better question is not whether perfection is good or bad.

Perhaps the question is: What is driving us toward it?

Pride can be a powerful motive.

But pride itself has more than one face.

There is the pride of doing something as well as we are capable of doing it. That kind of pride can produce discipline, patience, persistence, and excellence. It can keep us working after others might have stopped.

Then there is the pride that depends on comparison.

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.”

That is a different motive.

We may tell ourselves we are pursuing excellence when what we really want is recognition. We may continue polishing the work not because it needs improvement, but because we need it to prove something about us.

The work is no longer enough.

We need to be noticed for it.

We need our contribution to stand above the contributions of others.

We need perfection not because the project requires it, but because our self-image does.

That may be where the pursuit of perfection becomes dangerous.

The difference between excellence and unhealthy perfectionism may not be found in the quality of the result. It may be found in the motive behind the effort.

Am I still improving this because the work needs it?

Or because I need something from the work?

Am I trying to make the whole project better?

Or am I trying to make my part of it impossible to overlook?

Am I contributing?

Or am I competing?

These questions become especially important when our work is part of something larger.

If a project depends on many people, the purpose of our contribution should be to strengthen the whole. Excellence should lift the efforts of others, not diminish them. Our desire to make one part flawless should not prevent the larger work from moving forward.

But there are also times when the work points directly to us.

A book. A painting. A performance. A piece of craftsmanship. A decision for which we alone are responsible.

In those moments, the pursuit of perfection may not be prideful at all. It may be an expression of respect for the work, gratitude for our abilities, or a refusal to give less than we know we can give.

And perhaps some pride is necessary.

Without pride in our work, would we care enough to keep improving it?

Without the belief that what we do matters, would we push beyond adequacy toward excellence?

The problem may not be pride itself.

The problem may be what we ask pride to do for us.

Healthy pride says, “I want to do this as well as I can.”

Unhealthy pride says, “I need this to prove that I am better.”

One serves the work.

The other eventually makes the work serve us.

So the choice may not be between good enough, excellence, and perfection.

The more revealing question may be why we need the work to be perfect.

Sometimes the answer will tell us to stop.

Sometimes it will tell us to keep going.

Becoming Is Not a Destination

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We often imagine growth as arrival.

One day we will feel confident. One day we will feel clear. One day we will finally become who we are meant to be.

This expectation is subtle but powerful. It assumes that identity culminates. It assumes there is a finished version of ourselves waiting at the end of enough effort, experience, and self-discovery.

But identity rarely operates that way.

Growth is not a single shift. It is a series of revisions that occur over time. We learn, adapt, recover, reconsider, and adjust. Becoming is not a destination. It is participation in an ongoing process.

The idea of arrival can quietly distort the way we see ourselves. If we believe there is a finished version of who we should already be, then every setback feels like failure. Every uncertainty feels like evidence that we are falling behind.

Yet formation never fully ends.

There is no final edition of you. There are seasons of life, periods of refinement, and moments that reshape the way you understand yourself and the world around you. Growth continues even when it is difficult to see.

Much of modern culture celebrates dramatic reinvention. We hear stories about the new city, the new career, the new identity, or the new narrative. These changes certainly happen, but lasting growth is often much less dramatic than we imagine.

More often, growth appears in small shifts that accumulate over time. You respond differently than you once did. You recover more quickly from disappointment. You become more patient with uncertainty. You listen more carefully. You react less impulsively.

No announcement marks these changes. There is no ceremony recognizing them. Yet they matter.

In many ways, the most significant changes in our lives happen quietly. They occur beneath the surface through repetition, reflection, and experience. Because they happen gradually, we often overlook them until we look back and realize we are not quite the same person we used to be.

Growth that depends on spectacle rarely lasts. Growth that depends on repetition becomes part of who we are.

Perhaps that is why patience matters so much. We do not become through a single breakthrough moment. We become through countless ordinary moments that slowly shape our thinking, our habits, and our responses.

You do not wait to become.

You practice becoming.

Daily.

Through interpretation.

Through repetition.

Through revision.

You are not meant to become someone else entirely. You are meant to refine. And refinement requires patience.

Perhaps one of the great surprises of life is that growth often becomes visible only in hindsight. We spend years wondering whether we are changing, only to discover that the person looking back is already different from the person who began the journey.

This essay is adapted from themes explored in my book What Matters: We Are the Sum of Small Moments.

Most Communication Breaks Down Quietly

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Most communication doesn’t break down in obvious ways.

It happens quietly.

A response that comes a little too quickly. A point made, but not fully understood. A conversation that ends without truly resolving anything.

Nothing dramatic.

Just a subtle sense that something was missed.

Over time, those moments accumulate.

Not because we don’t know how to communicate, but because we’re often reacting instead of noticing.

We hear, but don’t fully listen. We respond, but don’t always consider what’s underneath. We move the conversation forward—but not necessarily deeper.

I’ve come to think of communication less as a skill and more as a form of awareness in motion.

Not simply what we say.

But how present we are when we say it.

That shift, small as it sounds, changes a great deal.

I’ve expolored this ideas in several places

When You Start Noticing More, but Say “So What?”

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There’s a point where you start to notice more.

Not in a dramatic way.
Just in small moments.

A pause. A reaction. A thought you didn’t question before.

You see it more clearly than you used to.

And sometimes the first response is simple:

So what.

I’ve been thinking about that more lately.

For most of my life, my focus was on a career.
There was structure. Progress. A clear sense of what counted as success.

And in many ways, it worked.

But looking back, it feels less connected to who I think I was trying to become.

The years I’ve spent writing feel different. Closer, in some way, to something I had in mind but didn’t fully understand at the time.

Not more successful. Just more aligned.

What’s changed isn’t everything around me.

It’s the way I notice what’s already there.

Small moments are easier to see now. They don’t pass as quickly.

There’s more space around them.

But that creates a different kind of question.

If you notice more, what does that actually change?

You can have a moment of clarity.
An insight. A quiet realization that something could be adjusted.

And still walk right past it.

This is where the idea of reinvention shifts.

It’s not about breaking free from who you used to be in a dramatic way.

It’s about what you do with what you now see.

For a long time, growth felt like adding something.

A new direction. A new identity. A better version of yourself just ahead.

Now it feels different.

Less about adding. More about refining.

Maybe that’s what these small moments are for.

Not to impress anyone. Not to create visible change right away.

But to give you something quieter.

A chance to adjust.

To respond slightly differently. To speak more carefully. To notice where you’re still reacting out of habit instead of intention.

There isn’t always a visible result.

Sometimes nothing changes outwardly at all.

But something shifts in how you carry yourself through the next moment.

That may not feel like much.

But it’s not nothing.

Maybe the value isn’t in the moment itself.

It’s in what becomes possible because you saw it.

The Quiet Accuracy of Small Moments

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We tend to believe that the most important parts of life arrive clearly.

The big decisions.
The turning points.
The moments that feel like they should define everything.

But much of what shapes us does not arrive that way.

It happens in smaller moments,
the ones we almost overlook.

We are often moving inside a version of the “big picture.”

What we think our life is.
What we believe it should become.
What we’ve already explained to ourselves.

There is a kind of momentum to it.

We stay consistent.
We follow through.
We keep going.

But small moments interrupt that momentum.

Not in a dramatic way.
They don’t announce themselves.

They simply create a pause.

A shift in attention.
A brief step outside of what we’ve been maintaining.

And in that pause, something different happens.

We are not performing.
We are not explaining.
We are not trying to arrive anywhere.

We are just reacting.

This is where something becomes visible.

Not an answer.

But a signal.

What holds your attention without effort.
What feels right without needing to be justified.
What creates a tension you can’t easily dismiss.
What brings a quiet sense of ease.

These are small things.

But they are also precise.

So the question becomes:

Are we checking our direction against who we are?
Or are we noticing where our direction no longer fits?

A small moment doesn’t tell you what to do.

It doesn’t correct your path.

It simply shows you something you might not see otherwise.

The big picture tells you who you think you are.

Small moments show you how you actually experience being that person.

And when those two don’t match,
something important begins.

Not a decision.

Not a change.

Just awareness.

And over time, that awareness accumulates.

Not all at once.
Not in a single realization.

But gradually, through noticing, pausing, and recognizing what keeps appearing.

You’re not finding answers in these moments.

You’re noticing where your life is already responding to you.

Quietly. Without explanation.

If you begin to pay attention to that,
you may not change everything at once.

But you may begin to see more clearly
what has been there all along.

When You Feel Too Small to Matter

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(A reflection for the What Matters series)

There are times when the world feels like it’s shifting too fast to steady—when institutions we trusted seem fragile, and good people quietly wonder whether anything they do still matters.

It’s easy to feel powerless. You can vote, write, speak, reach out and still watch the world tilt toward noise, anger, or indifference. Eventually, a familiar thought appears: I’m just one person. But that sentence has never told the whole story.

Change rarely begins with power. It begins with conscience. Every conversation grounded in honesty. Every moment of restraint when others rush to react. Every sentence that clarifies rather than inflames.

These are small acts, often unnoticed. But they are also the hinges on which history quietly turns.

You don’t have to fix everything. You only have to remain the kind of person who still believes clarity, kindness, and truth are worth defending—not through volume, but through example.

Influence isn’t always visible. But it is cumulative. The quiet work of integrity spreads in ways the loudest voices never see.

So write. Speak. Listen.

Hold to your values even when you doubt their reach. Because in a world that feels out of control, how we act and communicate may be the only kind of control that truly matters.

If this post caught your interest see these below

The Unseen Influence of Integrity

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We often think influence means visibility, followers, recognition, and measurable reach.
But the truth is, the most lasting influence rarely comes from those in the spotlight.

Integrity works quietly.
It’s the calm correction that never makes a headline, the private apology that heals more than it hurts, the choice to stay honest when no one would know otherwise.

You may never see the full effect of doing the right thing.
Still, each moment of decency builds something larger, a shared sense of trust that outlives our names or posts or positions.

What we model in silence becomes the example others follow without even realizing it.
The child who watches patiently. The friend who notices restraint. The colleague who remembers your fairness when it’s their turn to decide.

Integrity’s influence is cumulative, not performative.
It doesn’t ask to be noticed; it simply endures.

So keep choosing honesty when shortcuts tempt you.
Keep showing kindness when cynicism feels easier.
Keep believing that quiet integrity changes more than visible outrage ever could.

Because in the end, what we sustain through our character, even when unseen, becomes the real foundation on which everything else stands

Everything Comes Down to Small Moments

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When I think about What Matters, I always return to the truth that everything comes down to small moments.

Decisions are made in small moments. Even when we expect them to lead to big results, they begin with small steps, tiny shifts that slowly change our direction.

That’s what this book is about: slowing down enough to notice the moments that matter, the ones that quietly shape who we become.
What Matters is not about quick fixes or grand philosophies—it’s about presence, connection, and the choices that guide us through change.

Sometimes the smallest moments leave the biggest mark. Which ones have shaped your story?

We often look back and realize that the turning points in our lives weren’t the dramatic milestones we expected, but the simple choices made in quiet moments—a conversation, a decision to try, a pause before moving forward. Those are the moments that shift the course of a day, and eventually, the course of a life.

“The turning points in life often begin as quiet, ordinary moments that slowly change everything.”

This reflection is inspired by themes explored in my book What Matters, which looks more closely at how small moments shape who we become.

Why I Wrote The Human Factor (And Why It Needed to Evolve)

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A reflection on why the book was written twice—and what changed along the way.

We spend years chasing jobs, titles, and expectations without pausing to ask the simplest question: who am I, really? When I first wrote The Human Factor, my aim wasn’t to offer career advice in the usual sense, but to explore how self-understanding shapes the choices we make about work, identity, and direction. Over time, those questions deepened, and the book needed to deepen with them.

We spend years chasing jobs, titles, and expectations without pausing to ask the simplest question:

Who am I, really?

When I first wrote The Human Factor: How Finding Your Dream Job Starts by Getting to Know Yourself, my goal was to help readers understand that meaningful work begins with self-awareness. It wasn’t about résumés or interviews — it was about knowing your values, your strengths, and what truly matters before stepping into any opportunity.

That book opened conversations with readers around the world. But over time, I realized the message needed to go beyond job searches and career choices.
Work is more than landing a position. It’s part of a larger story — one rooted in purpose, identity, and the life we’re trying to build.

That realization led to the expanded edition:

The Human Factor: Discover Yourself, Clarify Your Purpose, Create Work That Matters.

This new version builds on the original but widens the lens:

• From job seekers → to anyone navigating change, transition, or reinvention

• From tactics → to a reflective framework: Discover → Clarify → Create

• From “finding work” → to creating a life and work grounded in meaning

If you take away one idea from this page, let it be this:

Before chasing opportunities, clarify what matters most to you.
Write down three values you refuse to compromise — in work or life.
That small act can shift the way you see your choices, your direction, and yourself.

This section will feature reflections, insights, and behind-the-scenes notes connected to The Human Factor. My hope is that it becomes more than a book page, a space for ongoing discovery about what makes our work, and our lives, meaningful.

If you’re curious about how this thinking ultimately took shape, you can explore the finished book here: The Human Factor.

Does the Soul Live On After Death? Reflections on Philosophy, Science, and Faith

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This reflection was first shared in 2018. I have revisited it with a shorter, updated version because the question still resonates today: Does the soul survive death?

Does the Soul Survive Death?

For centuries, people have asked whether the soul lives on after the body dies. Is it separate from our flesh, or is it woven into who we are? Some call it the “seat” of character and emotion, though that may be more metaphor than fact.

Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle wrote about the soul, and in modern times, historian Will Durant also reflected on it. Durant believed life was filled with vitality, yet he doubted the soul could survive the body’s death. His conclusion reflected a deterministic view, even though he valued individuality, free will, and the universe’s drive to create life.

Today, science points to new possibilities. Mathematicians and string theorists suggest our reality may include many more dimensions than the four we know. If so, the soul may not end with death, but continue in ways we cannot yet see.

My faith leads me to that conclusion. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe the soul separates from the body at death and is later reunited in resurrection. What we learn, practice, and become in this life, our values, character, and spirit, carry forward. That makes the way we live today not just important, but eternal.

Why I Wrote What Matters

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This book’s title—What Matters: We Are the Sum of Small Moments- marks a natural pause for me as the author of fifteen books. It’s a moment to look back and ask a deeper question: what have I really been writing about all along?

In many ways, my books have been a long-form attempt to answer that very question: what matters? The answers have changed over time, just as I’ve changed. But through it all, the writing has been rooted in a deep curiosity about identity, growth, and the people who shape our stories.

Most of my books have focused on the self—self-reflection, self-awareness, and personal responsibility. But over time, I’ve come to realize that relationships are inseparable from this work. They’re not just something we have; they’re part of who we become. Relationships open the door to reinvention. They teach us about boundaries, purpose, love, and resilience. They challenge our assumptions and offer us mirrors—sometimes flattering, sometimes not—of how we show up in the world.

Two of my earlier works—Embrace Life's Randomness and Why Life Stories Change—both wrestle with the tension between what happens to us and how we interpret it. They explore how we respond to uncertainty, whether we see ourselves as agents of change or passengers of fate, and how we create meaning from moments we never expected.

Those books raised questions I still think about:

• Can we live by a steady personal code even in a chaotic world?

• Are we defined more by what we choose—or by what we endure?

I wrote about things like the law of attraction not as prescriptions, but as ways to consider how attitude and attention might influence what shows up in our lives. I invited readers to notice how beliefs—about self, about purpose, about possibility—can shape not just outcomes, but experience.

At the heart of all these ideas is one truth: we grow by engaging, not retreating. By staying present in uncertainty. By reflecting on pain without letting it define us. By making the most of the good, the bad, the tragic, and the beautiful—because all of it matters.

Over time, I noticed that a short reflection I had quietly posted on my website began drawing more attention than nearly anything else I’d written. It wasn’t elaborate. It wasn’t even mine originally. But it struck a chord, and it stayed with people. I kept hearing from readers who said it gave them peace, clarity, or a new way of understanding their relationships. And honestly, it did the same for me.

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

That line captures the essence of reflection. We often think our life story is fixed—written in ink. But the truth is, every time we look back, we revise a little. We’re never the same person telling the story twice.

Our experiences change us. So do the people who enter our lives, the books we read, and the questions we begin to ask. In that sense, our identity is not static—it’s a living narrative, shaped by memory, perspective, and interpretation.

Over the years, I’ve told my own story many times. Sometimes in front of audiences. Sometimes across a table. Each time, the details shift slightly. I emphasize something new. I soften another part. And I realize, again, that growth isn’t about erasing who we were—it’s about understanding ourselves with more compassion.

Through it all, I’ve often returned to a simple truth: the people who enter our lives do so with purpose. Some arrive briefly, offering comfort, laughter, or guidance during a particular season. Others stay longer, helping us learn lessons that shape our resilience. And a few remain across a lifetime, leaving a mark that becomes part of who we are.

What matters most is not how long someone stays, but the imprint they leave—the clarity, the strength, or the joy they bring in that moment. Sometimes their presence is obvious; sometimes it’s only in hindsight that we recognize how deeply we were changed.

When I think about my own story, I realize that every relationship has been both a mirror and a teacher. People show us who we are, and sometimes who we are becoming. They remind us that growth isn’t something we do alone. We are shaped—quietly, profoundly—by connection.

That’s why this book is framed around reflection, presence, and reinvention. Because in the end, the people and moments that matter most are not measured by time, but by the meaning they create

Gratitude Before Happiness: When Meaning Leads, Joy Follows →

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Gratitude often comes before happiness—not the fleeting kind, but the kind rooted in purpose. It shows up when appreciation turns outward and inspires us to help others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
“The purpose of life is not to be happy: it is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

That view challenges our modern idea of happiness. In its older, nobler sense, happiness wasn’t about ease or comfort—it was about self-fulfillment, about living well and with purpose.

Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle questioned whether Emerson was quoted accurately, but his own reflections echoed the same spirit. Carlyle warned against shallow happiness and spoke instead of blessedness—a spiritual fulfillment that comes from rising above self-interest.
He called it “the happiness of heroes”—a deeper joy that comes when we stop chasing happiness directly and begin living for something greater.

This is a timely idea. Consider the line:
“Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”

That quote reminds us that the pursuit of “more” rarely satisfies. The insatiability of greed may only confirm that true happiness isn’t found in what we acquire, but in what we give.

Rather than asking, “What makes me happy?”
It might be more useful to ask, “What makes my life feel meaningful or aligned?”

Happiness often follows.

Rather than asking, “What makes me happy?” It might be more useful to ask, “What makes my life feel meaningful or aligned?” That shift—from chasing happiness to noticing meaning—is where gratitude plays a quiet but powerful role.

Gratitude isn't just a pleasant feeling; it's a practice that reorients us toward what’s already working, already valuable, already enough. When we pause to appreciate what we have, we stop waiting for life to deliver something else before we feel fulfilled. This presence, this awareness, grounds us in what matters. It opens us to energy, clarity, and connection. Even in the midst of challenges, the ability to feel thankful restores a sense of strength and perspective.

Gratitude reminds us that joy is often not in the pursuit of more, but in the recognition of enough. And from that recognition flows the kind of inspiration that leads to deeper conversations, kinder actions, and a richer, more grounded life.

The Eternal Question: Is Our Soul Truly Immortal? →

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"Is Our Soul Eternal? Exploring Heaven and the Universe"

Introduction

Is our soul eternal? How can we know for sure? For centuries, parents have advised their children with a familiar promise: “Be good, son, if you want to go to heaven.” But what does it mean to be good? Is it about our actions, our thoughts, or something deeper?

Attitude vs. Action: The Promise of Heaven

The advice to "be good" often centers on maintaining a positive attitude—a smile in the face of adversity. But does simply being positive guarantee a place in heaven? Is goodness a matter of attitude, or does it require action, integrity, and compassion?

Parents may say, “Be good, son, and you will go to heaven,” but this raises profound questions. Does the value of what we learn or the help we offer to others matter? Does our willingness to help reflect our growth, or is it solely because others need assistance?

Kipling's Wisdom: The Promise of Manhood

Rudyard Kipling offered his son a different kind of promise in his poem “IF”:

“Yours is the Earth and everything in it,
And, what is more, you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Kipling's promise was about becoming a man—a concept of maturity, strength, and integrity. But unlike the promise of heaven, this was something that could be achieved through character and resilience. The father promising heaven offers something he cannot prove or deliver.

The Question of the Soul's Eternity

If the soul is eternal, what does that mean for us? Do our actions and experiences matter in an eternal context? Some religions teach that the soul returns after death and reunites with a resurrected body, while others suggest the soul may exist without the body, experiencing a spiritual existence.

Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle have long pondered the existence of the soul, each offering insights that continue to influence the debate. In the 20th century, philosopher Will Durant suggested that the soul is an integral part of human existence, though he was skeptical of its survival beyond death.

Durant's Doubt and the Essence of the Soul

Will Durant, a great admirer of life and knowledge, struggled with the concept of the soul's immortality. Despite his passion for exploring human history in his monumental work "The Story of Civilization," he leaned toward the idea that the soul dies with the body.

Yet, Durant’s reflections are compelling because they reveal a tension between his love of life and his doubt. He saw life as a river—a flow of experience from an unknown beginning to an abrupt end. But what if the river doesn’t end? What if it continues in another form?

The Dimensions of Existence

Modern science offers new perspectives. Mathematician Theodor Kaluza proposed a concept of multiple dimensions beyond the three spatial ones we experience. String theorists have since expanded this idea, suggesting that our reality may include ten or even eleven dimensions. Could our souls exist in these other dimensions, continuing beyond physical death?

Seeing life metaphorically as a river may be poetic, but it assumes a starting point and an end. What if life is part of a larger, continuous flow that we only partially understand?

My Perspective on Eternity

I believe the soul continues after death and is eternal. This conclusion is not just influenced by the thoughts of great thinkers like Durant or the possibilities of string theory but also by my religious beliefs.

To me, the soul is more than a byproduct of consciousness—it is the essence of who we are, a spark of awareness that continues to learn, grow, and experience beyond the limitations of the physical world. Whether viewed through the lens of philosophy, religion, or science, the soul remains one of the greatest mysteries of existence.

Final Thoughts

In a world that measures so much by what we can see and touch, the question of the soul challenges us to consider something beyond the physical. Whether we believe in an eternal soul or not, the journey to understand it pushes us to explore the depths of our own humanity.

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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The Bosque del Apache: Birds, Photographers, and a Moment in Flight →

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The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, located about two hours south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a haven for migratory birds and those who travel to see them. You reach it by driving to Socorro, then another 11 miles to the small town of San Antonio, where an 8-mile loop road follows the Rio Grande and winds through the heart of the refuge.

"Bosque del Apache" translates to "Woods of the Apache." The word bosque, borrowed from Spanish, refers to the lush forest habitat flanking the river on both sides—a rich environment that draws more than 350 bird species each year.

But the real spectacle is in winter, when tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, and Ross’s Geese arrive. These vast flocks are the stars of the refuge, and their synchronized movement is unforgettable.

Sandhill Cranes are tall, elegant birds with long necks and legs. They mate for life, typically raise one or two chicks, and migrate together. In the winter, they come from places like Canada, Montana, and Utah—bringing their young along to teach them the migratory route and begin passing down instinct and independence.

The best time to witness this migration is between November and late February, particularly at sunrise and sunset, when the birds roost on the water and take off or return in massive waves. It’s during these golden hours that the refuge becomes a stage—and the sky, a canvas.

We spent a couple of days at Bosque del Apache during one of those late fall seasons. A friend had told us, “Be there when the birds take off in the morning. You’ll know it’s time when one rises—and then the sky fills.” We hoped for that moment, the one where thousands take flight at once in a breathtaking burst.

It didn’t happen quite that way.

Instead of one unified takeoff, the birds lifted in smaller, staggered groups, peeling into the air as if by instinct, not drama. But it was no less remarkable.

Lining the road that morning were rows of serious photographers—big cameras, bigger lenses, and long tripods planted firmly in the dirt. Canon and Nikon gear, some worth thousands, pointed at the waking sky. Many wore camouflage. Some wore quiet focus.

“Photography is an austere and blazing poetry of the real.”
– Ansel Adams

Mixed among them were first-timers and amateurs, some with point-and-shoots, others—like us—with iPhones and hope. We didn’t quite fit in with the high-end crowd, so we gravitated toward small clusters of fellow observers: people who were simply there to watch.

In a way, the photographers moved like the birds. One would shift position, and suddenly a half-dozen followed. A silent choreography of long lenses and padded gear.

We noticed something else, too. It was mostly men who handled the heavy-duty equipment. The women arrived later, often gathering in their own quiet clusters, content to observe.

That day, we were among the first to arrive—before sunrise, before the color hit the sky. And when the light broke, the scene unfolded: thousands of birds, rising mist, the murmurs of shutter clicks, and the quiet awe of strangers watching together.

In the end, it wasn’t just the birds that left a lasting impression. It was the people—the way we all gathered, waited, and watched. Different lenses, different perspectives—but united by the same wonder.

“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.”
– Eudora Welty