Practicing awareness.
TL;DR The short version, plus takeaways
I see life as a puzzle, not a chess match: no opponent, just pieces I try, set down, and come back to. Over seven years I picked up mindfulness, Toastmasters, West Coast Swing, Stoicism, and this blog, but the piece I kept avoiding was awareness. A friend's email didn't solve it, but it helped me start to see the picture.
- Building something beats outmaneuvering someone. A puzzle has no opponent.
- You can't place a piece you can't see. Awareness comes first.
- Hours spent researching the perfect setup can be a way of not publishing. Ship the writing, then fix the tools.
- Progress often means coming back tomorrow and trying the same piece again.
Today is a Friday. Morning, to be exact—9:19 AM, to be precise. Good. Starting the day by practicing awareness. I like it. Off to a great start.
I wrote the following post yesterday. I meant to publish it then, but I got in my own way. Instead of simply posting my second article, I spent hours researching the “best” way to build this blog in the age of AI—agentic workflows, ideal stacks, anything that might help a technical founder who isn’t quite a full software engineer.
I’ve known for a while that this is a trap. Yet I still do it. No more. Once the writing makes sense—and as I keep publishing over time—only then will I think harder about what the tools and systems should look like going forward.
Before I get to the post, I want to be clear about how I use AI. Everything I write on this blog begins with my own thoughts, experiences, and emotions.
I do use Claude, ChatGPT, and other tools to help me brainstorm, organize, and draw insights from the dozens of pieces I’ve already written.
I will clearly state when I’ve done this, and when the writing is 100% mine without tools.
Who knows—this may change in the future. Right now, this is what I enjoy. This is my workflow. If you don’t agree, this blog may not be of interest to you.
I wrote the above without any AI tools.
The post below draws from some of my recent writings. I refined it further myself.
The Puzzle
From my perspective, a lot of people treat life like a game of chess: opponents, strategy, winners and losers. I used to think that too. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not ignorant of real struggle or real problems. But chess never quite fit. The war energy. The zero-sum thinking. I don’t want to outmaneuver anyone. I want to build something.
So I started thinking about puzzles instead. A puzzle has pieces. Some days you find the right one and it clicks into place. Most days you don’t. You pick up a piece, try it, set it back down. No drama. No opponent. Just you and the picture you’re trying to make.
Seven years ago I started picking up pieces I didn’t even know were missing. Mindfulness. Toastmasters. West Coast Swing. Stoicism. New friendships. A blog I thought about for over a decade before I finally started. None of it happened fast. Puzzles don’t work that way.
The piece I kept avoiding was awareness. You can’t place what you can’t see. For a long time I couldn’t see the puzzle at all. I thought I was doing okay. The picture looked fine from where I was standing. It wasn’t.
Recently a friend sent me an email. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know somewhere deep down. But it laid it all out at a glance. Something clicked. Not a solution—just the beginning of being able to see.
That’s the thing about puzzles. You don’t always solve them in one sitting. You come back. You pick up a piece. You try it. Sometimes it fits. Sometimes you set it back down and try again tomorrow. The picture is still coming together. That’s okay.
We’re all in motion. We all have a story. Each of us is the main character in our own world. I can say with some confidence that your picture is coming together as well.