Pull-ups are an activity I’ve wanted to be good at for a long time, however the truth is I hate them. I’ve tried to work them into my exercise rotation many times but they’ve never stuck. For as long as I can remember I’ve despised doing them, probably because I’ve got a runner’s body with toothpicks for arms.

Well, 2026 is the year I will get better at pull-ups. A few days ago I bought a pull-up bar and hung it from the door frame of my office. I chose this location because it’s unavoidable as I pass through this threshhold numerous times a day. I wanted an undeniable way to establish muscle memory and create a habbit.

For the past few days, each time I enter and leave, I do as many pull-ups as I can. Entering in the morning, pullups. Grabbing a refill of coffee, pullups. Hitting the head, pullups. Leaving for the evening…you get the picture.

It started on Monday when I could not complete just one good-form rep. Today is Thursday and I just completed five pull-ups as I entered the room to sit down and write this, which feels like a small milestone. My goal now is to progress to the point of being able to do ten perfect-form pull-ups.

I’m not sharing this to humble brag, although I am proud of the progress. I’m sharing as an acknowledgement that the human body and mind are amazing things. All I needed was the persistent reminder to keep trying. Repitition and consistency are the enablers of rapid growth and progress. I’ve known this, but it’s interesting to see tactile results so clearly in just a few days.

I’ve only ever owned one belt. It’s an unremarkable belt. Brown leather, about two inches wide with a weighty, minimal brass buckle. I wear it with everything. Brown pants, black pants, blue jeans, whatever. I even have a couple pairs of shorts with belt loops and I wear it with them.

I used to be a bit heavier. When I started running a lot about 10 years ago, the weight poured off and I ran out of holes on the belt. Instead of getting a new one, I just punched a couple more holes into the worn leather and kept on wearing it. I’m not sure why I didn’t go get a new belt. I just didn’t think to.

Getting dressed yesterday it dawned on me that I can’t remember when or where this belt entered my life. I have absolutely no recollection of acquiring it. If I had to guess, it’s probably a belt my mother purchased for me during one of her back-to-school outfitting sessions when I was a teen. So, middle school school probably.

Definitely longer than my kids have been around. Longer than I’ve known my wife.

It’s a versatile belt. My style has evolved over the decades from adolescent punk rocker to middle-aged professional and this belt has ridden my hips the whole way. It serves casual and formal situations alike.

I think about this belt sometimes when I’m standing in a store surrounded by things that are designed to be replaced. There’s something radical about an object that refuses obsolescence by simply continuing to work.

This belt has disappeared into total utility, earning the right to become invisible yet so integrated into my life. I forget it’s there, but can’t imagine a life without it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about attention. My attention, primarily, but also our collective attention and where we direct it in the world.

Like time, attention is a finite resource. But unlike time, we can never run out of attention. There is a never-ending supply until we breathe our last breath. The rub with attention, however, is that even though we have an unending supply, we can only ever fully dedicate it to one thing at one time. This creates a distinctly different scarcity from time. Where time has a scarcity of depletion, attention has a scarcity of distribution.

In every moment, we make attention-allocation decisions. These decisions require active engagement with the world around us. Our reality. You can’t save attention for later. You can’t bank it or invest it or set it aside. You can only practice directing it more intentionally in each moment.

Our world is now designed to make these decisions of direction for us. The notification that pulls us away from conversation. The infinite scrolling that captures twenty minutes we didn’t intend to give. The autoplay that queues up the next video before we’ve processed the current one.

Our world has evolved to be hungry for attention. It’s the capital of our modern times. It wants to train our attention into patterns. It wants to colonize the practice of attention itself, to make fragmentation feel normal.

What if we approached attention differently? Not as a resource to be managed or extracted, but as a practice to be cultivated? What if we chose the here and now over the distant and digital? What would change if our attention was not an opportunity to monetize, but an opportunity to be fully here in this moment?

Being fully present means making intentional choices about where attention goes. Let’s choose to pay attention to the things that help us become fully-present participants in our shared reality.

Things feel heavy right now. The headlines are grim, the discourse is toxic, and each day seems to bring fresh reasons for despair.

I try to stay optimistic underneath it all. It’s hard. But here’s what I’ve come to realize: optimism isn’t some fluffy feeling I can summon by thinking happy thoughts. It’s a decision. A daily choice to notice what’s actually happening around me.

The real world is still functioning and there is good happening within it. People are still fixing bikes, making coffee, helping their neighbors, creating things with their hands. The static of everyday life – messy, imperfect, beautifully human – keeps crackling along.

You want to know where hope lives? It’s in the fact that someone still grows the tomatoes you buy. That baristas remember how regulars take their coffee. That strangers still help push cars out of snow. That construction workers show up every day to build things that last.

I’m paying attention to the small stuff that works. Noticing the crossing guard who waves at kids every morning. The postal worker who knows which packages need careful handling. The mechanic who just fixed my Jeep for a fair price and didn’t try to screw me over.

Most people are decent. Most systems, despite their flaws, still function. Most problems get solved by people showing up and doing the work, quietly, without fanfare.

We can’t ignore the big problems. But we must remember that they exist alongside a million small things that are going exactly right. The world isn’t broken – it’s complicated. And complicated includes both the disasters and the daily miracles.

Over the past few years, I’ve developed an essential daily practice I call the Elemental Hour. The idea is simple – I commit at least one hour each day to being outdoors, regardless of weather or circumstance. No phone. No music or podcasts. No technology. Just me and whatever elements nature decides to serve up that day.

Sometimes I run. Sometimes I bike. Often, I simply walk. And some days I might just sit on the grass in my backyard, watching clouds drift or rain fall. The only condition that blocks me from the Elemental Hour is active lightning – a concession to safety that I’ve only had to invoke a handful of times.

This daily hour began as an experiment during a particularly screen-heavy period of work and has become an essential part of my wellbeing. It represents a small grounding, a deliberate step away from a technology-infused world. It creates a space where my attention isn’t fragmented by notifications, where success isn’t measured in metrics, and where presence isn’t mediated through a screen.

I can feel the benefits. Physically, my body moves in ways that feel natural and intuitive. Mentally, my thoughts have room to untangle themselves. And the practice has reconnected me with a direct, unfiltered experience of the world around me.

I think there’s something transformative about feeling rain on my face. About the absolute frozen bones after an hour sitting still in sub-zero windchill. About noticing the subtle transition of seasons. About navigating by landmarks and intuition.

When you’re standing in a downpour or navigating a snowy trail, the present moment demands your full attention. The future (how much longer will this last?) and the past (why didn’t I check the forecast?) become irrelevant. There is only now – this moment of being fully alive in the natural world.