It was my birthday last week. I turned 47.
It's not a dramatic birthday. I don't feel much different than I did at 27. I hope I feel the same at 67 and 87.
Hudson, my 10-year-old son, told me this joke:
"Don't worry about the past, you can't change it. Don't worry about the future, you can't control it. Don't worry about the present, I didn't get you one."
He was hung up on the punchline, which was a good one. I was reflecting on the setup.
Last week I wrote about never feeling behind. How opening your inbox on a Monday morning and seeing overdue tasks, compliance trainings, missed appointments, and random robot-generated guilt can sap your energy before the day even starts.
I'm experimenting with a system to help me feel less behind at work and at home. It has helped. Not because it magically completes everything for me, but because it gives the open loops somewhere to live.
But the purpose of one68.ai is not to pack the most work into the 168 hours we have every week.
It is not to become more efficient at answering emails. It is not to optimize every minute. It is not to become a productivity robot.
The purpose is to minimize the paper cuts that stop us from actually living our lives.
I want to claim more of those 168 hours for myself. For my family. For my friends. For hobbies. For passions. For the things I say matter, but somehow keep pushing to the side.
A system is only valuable if it gives you more of your life back.
The thing I kept thinking about this week
And this week, the part of my life I kept thinking about was friendship.
My dad told me after high school that ten years down the road, I'd probably still talk to one of my friends regularly. I thought he was insane. I talked to those guys every day. They were my family.
He was 100% right.
My high school friends and I all went our separate ways. Which is great. That's life. People grow, move, build families, start careers, become different versions of themselves. My college friends went separate ways too, but a few of us stayed very close. Some of us still talk almost every day. I value those friendships. The daily texts, WhatsApp jokes, and random conversations make life better.
But I realized something this week. Talking every day is not the same as being together. A group chat is great. Sitting around a fire with someone you love is different.
My buddy Mike and I were riffing — what if we created a weekend for friends to get together and actually connect? Not just golf and beers, though I love both. Something more intentional. Friday to Sunday. A ritual built around growth, connection, and building. Then Darren and I started talking about the same thing. This is needed — a weekend to reconnect. Emotionally, spiritually, physically.
Think Burning Man in your buddy's backyard, except instead of a giant wooden sculpture, you build a raised bed garden and a questionable-but-hopefully-safe homemade hot tub.
We're going to try it next weekend
We'll start by planting a raised bed garden. That feels right. Symbolic, but not too cheesy. We are literally planting seeds, while also talking about the seeds we want to plant in our lives. Then we're going to build a galvanized steel hot tub.
I've spent probably 30 hours researching this, which is both ridiculous and my favorite thing I did last week. But I think we can build something awesome for around $500. A stock tank, a pump, some hoses, a propane heater, and hopefully enough common sense to not create a backyard disaster.
And we'll learn some cool skills in the meantime. How to plant a garden. How to make it sustainable. How to move water from a pool into a galvanized tub. How to build something useful with our hands.
Most of all, I'm looking forward to spending time with my friends. If we create something cool that we can share with other friends, even better. But the goal is not to build the next Burning Man.
The goal is to spend a weekend with my brother. To plant something. To build something.
To sit around a fire.
To be here now.