Eight months ago, we asked the vet when we’d know it was time. She didn’t hesitate:
“When he has more bad days than good.”
I wanted specifics. A date. Confidence levels. Standard deviations. But that was all she gave us.
So I did what any reasonable person would do. I started feeding ChatGPT his entire medical history.
Stage 4 heart murmur. A mass on his adrenal gland invading his vena cava. Seven different pills every day. I logged it all. If the vet couldn’t give me a formula, I’d build one myself.
For eight months, it worked. More good days than bad.
ā-
Friday. Amy ran upstairs to get ready. I was trying to get the kids to play Mario Kart. Deefer threw up three times. Then he started throwing up his water. And he kept throwing it up.
Saturday morning we were at urgent care. Blood work, fluids, anti-nausea meds. They suggested an ultrasound, but MLK weekend made scheduling difficult. I said I’d bring him home and monitor him there, where he’d be comfortable.
I had ChatGPT. I had a plan.
I prepared a triage station in the kitchen. Blue pill bottles lined the countertop. Boiled chicken. Two kinds of broth at the ready.
By noon Sunday he was holding water, but he wouldn’t eat.
That’s okay. Anti-nausea cocktail. Pain meds. Hit him with gabapentin, cerenia, ondansetron.
He was drooling constantly. He’d never been a drooler.
ā-
That night he was barely able to rise to his feet. I picked him up, and put him on my lap. We watched The Last of Us. The episode where Bill asks his husband to euthanize him.
“Just give me one more good day,” Bill said.
Fucking HBO.
Deefer’s breathing was shallow, raspy. Then it settled. I picked him back up and brought him back to the kitchen. He took some water. I can still turn this around, I thought.
He had drooled straight through my sweat pants, through my boxers. It was clammy and cold.
ā-
Monday morning I came downstairs to our triage station. He was lying in the same spot. I checked the floor and his bed for throw up or piss. Nothing. Good sign. I gave him a rub. Checked his water bowlāhe hadn’t touched it.
I went to grab the bowl and slipped on a puddle of urine, hidden in shadow between beige tile and overhead light.
Then I picked him up and realized he was soaked.
I brought him upstairs to the tub. Washed him with the kids’ body wash, then back down to triage.
More pain meds. Nausea meds. Offer water. Offer food.
He kept the meds down. A sip of water. Still refused the food.
I called another emergency vet in New Jersey and scheduled an ultrasound.
ā-
“If you are independently wealthy, we could certainly try,” the vet said. “But even if we resolve all of this, there’s still the underlying adrenal gland tumor. His prognosis is not good.”
She paused.
“I’m so sorry.”
She left and I laid him on the couch. I called Amy.
I should have given her more time that morning, before I rushed out the door. A chance to say goodbye in person. She was his person. Hers first, then mine. I wish I had just slowed down.
We FaceTimed so she could say goodbye. Then I called my mom. Then my sister. Then Amy’s mom.
Everyone got their goodbye.
ā-
Amy reminded me to take photos and video. So I did.
I pulled his brush from my bagāI’d actually remembered itāand brushed his head, his ears, his belly. The hair came out clumpy from his ears, like loose threads.
I rubbed his paws, his back, felt all the cysts and bumps. Buried my face in his fur. Even old, his fur still smelled like puppy. But there was something else now, too. When he breathed, he smelled cold.
I picked him up, walked to the intercom.
I told them we were ready.
The vet came in with four vials. Milky white first. Then a clear one. Then a bright purple-pink one you could mistake for Calpol. Then one more clear one.
She told me his eyes might stay open the whole time.
They did. They stared at the wall. His heart slowed. The rise and fall of his chest stopped. She put the stethoscope to him and listened for the quiet. We listened together.
Deefer gave one last gasp, a cold breath escaping his mouth.
“He’s gone,” she said.
And so he was. My sweetest boy.
ā-
I stayed in the room. Went through the routine one more time, tried to remember how he liked his rubs. His back, his paws, his head. Took one last smell.
Then I buzzed, and a tech came in. He said he was sorry. He took Deefer.
I gathered my things, went to the front desk, paid my bill. It was $1,986.45. We got a $65.40 discount. I didn’t ask why.
I sat in my car. Cried.
When I got home, the kids asked about Deefer.
“Is Deefer dead?”
“Is he not coming home?”
They sat with me for a while.
Then Oliver asked: “Do you want to play Monopoly with me?”
Annabel asked: “Can we get a cat now?”
Life goes on.
ā-
That night we went through photos. All the way back. 4,084 days with our boy.
“I wish we could have given him a great meal,” she said. “A burger. A steak.”
I nodded.
“One more good day.”
But most times, you don’t know when to cash in that last good day. You don’t know it’s the last one until it’s gone.
Maybe better that way. Simpler.
Just give the people you loveāthe ones who love you backāmore good days than bad.
This is my friends & family newsletter. You probably signed up after reading one of my articles, a LinkedIn post, or after we met. You’ll get a new letter 1-2x per month.
Madeline Mei Jing Lee was born on November 26th, 2025.
We went to visit our family friends, Ali and Tommy, with your Mima. They’d just finished remodeling their house.
Ali opened her walk-in closet.
āTada,ā she said. Shoes lined the room floor to ceilingāManolo Blahnik pumps and Jimmy Choo and Louboutin heels, all on perfect display. I wear Hokas for every occasion, but somewhere The Corrs were playing. It left me breathless.
Later, Tommy took us to the basement, showed us his tool collection. Everything perfectly hung, tools stenciled to the pegboard so you’d know exactly where each one belonged. Everything in its place.
My dream house.
When we left, I asked your Mima: āDid they want kids?ā
āAli did,ā she said. āTommy didn’t. They nearly divorced over it, years ago.ā
āThen what?ā
She shrugged.
āThen they didnāt. Tommy got his way.ā
ā
Your grandad suggested a few names for you.
ē¾é² (Mei Wan): beautiful cloud
ē¾ę” (Mei Yee): beautiful and joyful
ē¾é (Mei Jing): beautiful and calm
We didn’t hesitate. Weāll take the calm one.
Your parents are optimists, Madeline. We wanted to conjure some stillness into your personality. This house runs on chaosāusually after dinner, before bed, the volume rising until someone cries. We were hoping you’d bring some balance.
So far, youāve held up your end of the bargain. Like you knew we needed it.
You’re also the last one. Which means there’s this tension: we know the most about parenting, but have the least time to do anything about it.
I can’t promise Louboutins or an orderly life. With four of you, Iām not even promising college. You all might flip for itāthe winner goes.
But I promise you this: you are born into a family that will show up for you. Everyone is cheering you on. Thereās so much love here, Madeline.
This is my friends & family newsletter. You probably signed up after reading one of my articles, a LinkedIn post, or after we met. You’ll get a monthly email.
It was only after Chris died last November that I finally got a reply from an old friend. Iāll call him āAlexā.
Oh god, I had not heard, and am so sorry, that’s devastating. Thank you for letting me knowā¦
Eight years of emailing Alex, with no response.Birthday messages. Life updates. The occasional “thinking of you, man.” I never got anything back.
It took a message about the motorcycle accident to break the radio silence.
It keeps me up sometimes. Because there were times I wasn’t a great friend. There were times (cringey, crawl-into-ball-and-die moments) where I chose convenience over loyalty, where I let him down. And I think maybe I earned the eight-year silent treatment.
But there were good moments too. Times I showed up when it mattered. I want to believe it balances out. Iām not sure it does.
The only move left: look at where you failed, and try to fail less. Look at where you succeeded, and do more of that.
That’s what these reflections are for. Once a year, once a month, every dayā¦ the frequency is a detail. But you have to look. Reflection is how you steer instead of drift.
This is a review of my 2025 and a public sharing of my 2026 goals.
At the end, I share why I do this and how I review the year.
To summarize: This helps me look back at what worked, what didn’t, and what I want to focus on in 2026.
My friend Chris passed on November 9, 2024, in a motorcycle accident. He was riding slowly out of a parking lot in Los Angeles. They think he hit something. He fell and died. Last week, I went back to New York for his memorial service.
One year to the day that Chris and I filled a 2006 Corolla with everything we owned and drove to Los Angeles, he came home with the tattoo gun.
This is a review of my 2024 and a public sharing of 2025 goals.
At the end, I share why I do this and my process for reviewing the year.
To summarize: This helps me look back at what worked, what didnāt, and what I want to focus on in 2025. I have to pause, reflect, and be honest about where Iām atāand where I want to go.
Make $50,000 in 2024 on the side, with only one product, one offer, two channels, with better processes and no hiring.
I missed the goal by more than 50%.
I also wrote this in last yearās goal setting:
Iāve been at this juncture before. Product in the can, on the verge of āfiguring outā this business. The biggest mistake I make at this point: I ignore the constraint. I focus too much on the routine (and having a āprocessā).Ā
I had way more success here. I focused on executing, and just solving the problem in front of me.
For example, the common mistake here is investing time to build a channel before testing the offer. I could have spent 6 months building an audience on TikTok before testing the offer again.
Itās not that TikTok is not a good channel or the wrong channel, but this would be the wrong sequence.
If you donāt have an audience, just direct sell. Youāll learn 10x faster direct selling an offer than wasting months (or even a year) building an audienceā¦ only to STILL have to validate whether theyād buy your offer.
Every iteration of LARJ taught me something new. Key milestones:
Create a compelling offer. A compelling offer is clearly defined, promises a specific outcome, and reduces as much friction as possible. Learn the problems people face, then share how youāll solve these problems, point by point.
Three cohorts completed. Each time the program improved, and each time I doubled the price.
Lean approach. I ran each cohort out of Notion, Zoom, and WhatsApp. I sold over LinkedIn and email messages, with a sales page I put on Notion. I didnāt even create a proper course until the end of the year, and still managed to sell about 10 units of just the course itself, without the cohort experience.
Why people buy. Customers buy for different reasons. Some want a process. Others want accountability. Others need a sounding board. You donāt need to be all things to all customers to give them great value or get them results.
Family
Last year I wrote:
The best thing you can do for your family is to give them the best version of yourself.
Thereās a corollary to this that Iām starting to wrap my head around:
The next best thing? Help them be the best version of themselves.Ā
Hereās an example: sometimes the kids want pancakes on a school day. If they ask me, thereās no way itās happening. Iām trying to shovel eggs into my face while carrying a baby and packing 3 lunches.
Aināt nobody got time for pancakes.
Amyās response?
Buttermilk or chocolate chip? How about both?
For years, I thought the path to becoming a better dad was to make the damn pancakes.
But as Amy worked the griddle, and I cleared the dish rack, changed Theodoreās diaper, and packed the kidās school bags, it dawned on me:
I donāt need to be the parent that makes the pancakes.
I can be the parent that makes the time and space so someone else can make the pancakes.
In other words: sometimes the best way to be a great father is to be a great husband.
Other family highlights:
Theodore. And a six-month paternity leave to spend with him. You can read his birthday letter here.
Oliver and Annabel. Watching them continue to grow closer together as siblings
Culture over rules. Culture is what a group of people do and donāt do. Thatās how weāve framed our expectations for the kids: this is how we behave in this family. Last week, Annabel reminded an adult to take off their shoes in our apartment. Something is sticking.
More tools in the toolbox. This means more ways to be a better parent. Which makes parenting easier, and more fun.
3 family weddings this year. I love weddings.
We spent the summer in Ireland. And spent a lot of time with family in Dublin and Cork.
Work-life balance works both ways. WLB can mean canceling the afternoon because Theodore came home sick with a fever. It can also mean working weekends. WLB cuts both ways. Thatās OK.
Always be investing in family relationships. You never get to stop investing in family. The corollary: Investment works both ways. Invest back into the people who invest in you.Ā
Friends & Network
In 2024, I said I wanted to deepen existing relationships with standing lunches, catch-up calls, and standing weekend hangouts.
I did OK on this in the first half of the year. It was less of a focus in the back half after Theodore was born and we went to Ireland for the summer.
My good friend, Chris, passed in a motorcycle accident before Thanksgiving this year. We moved to Los Angeles together. We got our first apartment together, waited tables together, got started in Hollywood together. I always thought weād have the chance to run it back down memory lane. Now heās gone.
These things are the reminder you need: life is short. Make time for friends.
Career
At Persefoni, I built one of the first free carbon accounting tools. Any person or business could create an account and calculate their carbon footprint, even if they didnāt know anything about carbon emissions. I loved being deep in the trenches in climate tech, and working on this with smart, passionate people. I came into the industry with zero knowledge and learned a lot.
I phoned in the first half of the year, though. My motivation was low. One part because I was looking forward to paternity leave, one part internal factors at the company. I checked the box but my heart was into it.
Coming out of paternity leave, I started interviewing for my next role. Then realized now was the time to build under my name. More on that below.
Health
In 2024 I fixed my hip and glute pain. The root cause was my feet. Getting better shoes, getting insoles, and regular stretching did the trick.
I continued to train BJJ and weight train. I always find my way back to consistency, after Theodore, an injury that kept me out of training for 3 months, and extended travel. Without working out with a trainer, I still struggle with intensity.
Money
I used to work with a financial advisor. There was an exercise where we had to list out dream assets. Top of my list: get a minivan. #dreambig We bought our minivan in 2024. It feels like a luxury every long drive we take.
Weāre back to a 25/25/50 savings, investing, and spending rate.
I switched from Kubera to a Monarch for day-to-day and net worth tracking. Iām loving the app.
Leisure/Travel
We spent the summer in Ireland. Saw the Taylor Swift Eras tour and the All Ireland semi-final in Croke Park. Oliver got really into soccer, and we saw old friends.
I went to Vegas for my cousinās bachelor party.
I wanted to take trips to Budapest and Nashville, neither of which happened this year.
šŗļø2025 Planning
My 2025 theme:
Take risks under your name.Ā
h/t Naval Ravikant
Summary:
Grow RLOS to $100K business. Build a pipeline for consulting. Invest in family. Build community. Consistency in health. Downpayment banked for a house. Organize our business finances.Ā
Remote Life OS
Iām moving RLOS off the back burner. Itās on the main. Itās time to give this an honest go.
The revenue goal is $100,000. I think Iāve said this in past updates, but it feels simultaneously ambitious and sandbagging. Time will tell which.
The core of Remote Life OS will revolve around my cohort-based course, the Land A Remote Job (LARJ) program. Iāll launch three 30-day sprints. Iāll continue to offer a coaching and self-paced tier.
ConsultingĀ
Consulting has been a part of my career portfolio since 2021. I help experts build million-dollar courses.
This yearās challenge: balancing RLOS with consulting. I want RLOS to be the main focus. Consulting is just a hedge, a way to make my monthly nut while Iām building RLOS.
I think I could make the math work so I could focus ONLY on RLOS, but Iām naturally risk-averse and thatās only increased with each car seat in my minivan.
But it doesnāt always work that way.
My ideal: Iād consult for 15-20 hours per week, and have enough pipeline where Iām not chasing work. Thatās enough to replace my w2 income. Then I can spend the rest of my time on RLOS.
Family
I want to be involved with the kidsā extracurriculars: this will probably take the shape of coaching BJJ or soccer for them.
I want to continue investing in family, scheduling it ahead of time so that it happens. That includes more date nights with Amy.
Iām going to take more pictures.
Finally, I also want to be less petty. Earlier, I said:
Invest in those who invest in you.Ā
The corollary to that is:
Take in that data. Be realistic. But donāt be petty. Pettiness is poison. Life is too short.Ā
Friends & Network
Keep building relationships here in Philadelphia. Re-start soft networking in a sustainable way. Pro tip: upgrading my Calendly account and having different calendars for catch-ups, work, etc. makes this really easy.
Stretch goal: host work and networking events in Philly.
Health
Focus on consistency: BJJ 2x per week, weight train 3x per week. Start incorporating cardio, not sure how yet.
Iām not going to worry about intensity. Iām not going to compete in any tournaments.
Money
I want to have enough saved for a house downpayment this year. Iām estimating a purchase price of $800,000, which means $160,000 down.
Iāll sell my crypto holdings and keep up automatic investments to get there.
I also need to get Amyās and my business finances in order, for tax and investment efficiencies.
Leisure/Travel
Spring: Visit my brother and his wife when they have their first baby. Celebrate Theodoreās first birthday. Host a karaoke party for my birthday.
Summer: Oliverās birthday, wedding in Denver, maybe a trip to Dublin, family trip to the Poconos
Autumn: Annabelās birthday, Nashville trip
Misc: keep playing chess, reading, watching movies
šFun StuffĀ
I watched 38 movies this year, same as last year.
Random standouts: Wicked, It’s What’s Inside, The Substance, Dune 2, Hit Man, Snack Shack, My Old Ass.
Wicked and Dune 2 I loved the most.
Itās Whatās Inside and Snack Shack were surprise hits.
I read 18 books this year. Last year I read 14.
Some gems in no particular order: Demon Copperhead, Dune, Chain Gang All Stars, Service, The Poisonwood Bible, Later, Presumed Innocent.
š¤Why do this at all?
Why document it? Two reasons
First, the Bill Gates quote sums it up:
āMost people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.ā
Weāre capable of great things. They just take time.
Second, Having joy, treating things joyfully in what’s considered mundane.
To gain greater enjoyment from your experiences, try practicing anticipation and reminiscence. Both are forms of savoringāways to convert positive experiences into positive emotions
We can also savor an experience after it happensāa savoring style called reminiscence. We reminisce by reliving an experience in our mind, looking back through photos of an experience, or talking about it with a friend or a loved one.
In other words: there’s joy in looking back.
āŖļøHow I Review My Year
My process:
1. Review and retrospective on the last year.
I review:
Photos
Google photos
Swarm check-ins
Instagram
Google Calendar
Then, I review my notes on Roam. I put these in six buckets: Long-term projects, Career, Relationships, Health, Finances, and Leisure. For each bucket, I think about: (1) What went well (2) What could be improved.
2. Plan the next year.
I review notes about (1) my long-term goals and (2) my Perfect Tuesday. These are my North Star metrics as I plan what I want to accomplish in the new year. (I cover long-term goals, including specific $ I plan to earn, here.)
Finally, I keep the following in mind:
āPlans are worthless, but planning is everything.ā – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Success is measured by inputs and intention, not blindly following a set path.
I’m now on TikTok! Big thanks to my friend Aakash for the push. It’s more fun than I thought it’d be. You can follow me here.
The next cohort of the Land A Remote Job program starts October 5th. Itās group coaching for ambitious professionals looking to land their next remote role. Past clients have landed jobs at meta, hims & hers, Samsung, Harryās, and more. Learn more here.
I saw her on the DART, en route to the Aviva. A brown-haired girl in a red bow and Taylor friendship bracelets. Her aunt was sitting next to her. She was probably the one who punched in her debit card number on the Ticketmaster site, who grimaced when she saw a 37% fee per ticket, to move some 1s and 0s from the server farm in Charleston, West Virginia to her flat in Inchicore.
But she did it anyway. Because she wasnāt just buying the concert. It was for the months of excitement. The anticipation. The lifetime of memories bought and paid for.
Thatās where the value exchange happened.
We donāt have that thing yet, AB, you and I. I think weāll find it, though.
Whatās new with you? Iād love to hear about it. Hit “reply” or DM me here.
š§ An Immigrant Mentality
Iām often asked what personal finance books Iād recommend.
I donāt open with this to show off how (incredibly!) financially savvy I am, or humble brag about signal how (very) often people flock to me for advice. I think recommendations require context. Especially when it comes to money.
š„” The Way It Works
I started waiting tables when I was 14. It was my uncleās restaurant, at the top of the hill, off the Rensselaer exit in East Greenbush. Today the sign out front reads Asian Tea House. Before that, it was called Yipās. Most of my family did a tour of duty there: aunts, uncles, my parents and siblings.
I was 17 when I started training my brother, Jon. We taught by shadowing/shadow back. He followed me first, watching as I took orders, refilled glasses, and dropped off checks tucked beneath sugar cookies containing pithy quotes and useful Chinese expressions like ābus station.ā
Then I followed him. He covered my station and I stepped in to help with calling out orders in Cantonese or getting tea while he took orders. Later, it got busy, so I assigned him to one table off my station.
Afterward, his customers left him a $5 tip. He was delighted. 2 of those bought you a pork lo mein dinner combo, which included fried rice, egg roll, and soup. 8 bought you a new Playstation game. He started to pocket it when I stopped him.
āYou’re still training, so you donāt get tips yet,ā I said. I took the bill.Ā Ā
āBut I worked that table. You didnāt do anything,ā he said.Ā
I didnāt like his tone. āLook, youāll get your own station soon. I trained for 3 months and never got tips. Thatās just how it is.ā I thought I was giving him a lesson.
It wasnāt until years later I realized he was giving me one:
Money is not equal.
To me, that was another bill Iād add to my haul for the night.
To him, it was the first dollar he earned. He sweated for it. He fished it off the table, wiped the sauce of it, and imagined what he might buy with it.
Before his older brother took it from him and stashed it away where it immediately became unrecognizable from all the other Abes and Andrews, it meant something to him.
Thatās the way it works, I told him.
Which was true.
But it didnāt have to be.
š«Proud To Object
Amy saved up ā¬12,000 before moving to Los Angeles. This was in 2012. At first, she planned on renting her own apartment, in a half-baked plan to feign appearances. We quickly discarded that idea. She was already moving 5,142 miles for us. We might as well go all in.
It took her 18 months to scrape that money together, between summer camp, teaching a correspondence course, and bartending. At first, we thought she was rich. Then we split the security deposit and the first monthās rent. She bought a car (a ’92 Corolla, with a busted AC and a passenger door that didnāt open. But still.) She started commuting 80 miles a day for an unpaid internship. Pretty soon, most of the nut was gone.
We tried slowing the burn. We ate at home a lot. If we did eat out, it was 50% off takeout from the Thai restaurant I worked at, or the $7 carry-out special from Papa John’s. We stopped buying stuff. For Christmas, we gifted everyone homemade coasters made of Scrabble tiles.
We split the rent equally, which seemed āfairā in the unnuanced definition of the word. I was too naive to know better. She was too proud to object.
Fair isnāt one person has 3-years to build a life in LA and the other gets 3 weeks, then splitting things 50/50. Fair isnāt about each person contributing equal parts to the household. Fair isnāt about the count: dishes, diapers, dollars.
What is fair?Ā
Itās contributing meaningfully, to the best of your abilities, as you both work towards a common goal.
Fair is being on the same team.
š«A Wild Place
The richest day of my life was breaking $100,000 in compensation.
I was 27 years old. I never thought Iād make that kind of money. I only needed to work two full-time to do it. I remember thinking, why would I ever need to make more money than this?
When I told my friend Scott about this, he laughed. āThen you have kids and a family, and you realize thatās not quite true.ā He was right.
I have another friend who made a couple of million during the crypto hype train of ā17. He bought 30 BTC at $300 and a bunch of ETH at $7. He invested in a bunch of ICOs, too. Most of which went to zero. A few, though, yielded somewhere north of a 20x return.
He didnāt get out at the peak. Wasnāt far from it, though.
This friend is the one who gave me my education on start-up equity, FMV and strike prices, and how much money could be made against 5-10x multiples for a Saas business. He opened my eyes to how many levels there were to this money thing.
But to be honest, it still seems fugazi. Made up. Existing only as 0s and 1s, an ephemeral effervescence. Thatās an immigrant mentality. If you canāt touch it, if you canāt shove it under a mattress, it doesnāt exist.
The challenge is holding both these ideas simultaneously in your head as truths: 1/ grateful for what you have, and 2/ ambition for more.
That second part is equally important as the first, because while itās true that money doesnāt solve all problems, it does solve money problems. And there are always money problems, evolving and transmuting like a time-lapse video on the nature channel.
Recessions, workforce reductions, family emergencies, 2am decisions, drink, drugs, calories, terrorists, crashes, diseaseā¦ we canāt know which weāll face. However, we can be certain of some combination in our future.
The world is a wild place.
š Here are my 4 favorite books to help you navigate the wilderness:
1/ I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi – My go-to recommendation for someone starting their financial journey. Ramit keeps it real with no-nonsense advice that sets you up for financial success. This is where you learn all the blocking and tackling (e.g. credit cards, getting out of debt, which savings account to open, etc.)
2/ Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel – This book is a perfect follow-up to Ramitās, diving into why we handle money the way we do. It’s super insightful about the weird ways our brains work when it comes to money and risk, showing you how to make better financial decisions. If IWTYTBR is the block and tackling, then this is the mental game of personal finance.
3/ The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco – I didnāt love this the first time I read it. It gave me āRich Dad Poor Dadā vibes. But on the second and third reads, the ideas here changed how I think about diversifying income sources.
4/ Quit Like A Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung – This oneās got a strong FIRE vibe (Financial Independence, Retire Early), which might not be for everyoneās. But even if retiring early isnāt your goal, it’s packed with straightforward tips on how taxes work with different investments. Useful as you dive deeper into exploring how you want to design an investment portfolio.
šThe generosity of strangers — via tips — paid off my student loan, and got me through tough years in LA. So I have conflicted feelings of the pervasiveness of tipping culture today (do I want to tip 25%, 22%, or 18%)? Two podcasts that do a great deep dive on it: Shit You Didnāt Learn At School and The Daily.
āļø About 80% of our flights to Ireland have been covered with credit card rewards. I think playing the game is worth it — if you play it carefully. Hereās a great breakdown on what that means.
š„¤Diet Pepsi by Addison Rae was the song of my Brat summer.
š Barbara Kingsolver wrote The Poisonwood Bible, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Then she wrote Demon Copperhead, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Both are fantastic. Every other paragraph is poetry.
šIf Books Could Kill did their takedown of Jonthan Haidtās The Anxious Generation. Strong recommend, especially if you have children. Tl;dr they make the case that Haidt cherry picks data, has an agenda against social media, but doesnāt actually care about the well being of teens, and uses the fact we all come in with the bias that constant social media usage is probably not great for kids — but doesnāt do the research to back up his case.
āļøI’ve started playing chess again. I love playing on chess.comās app, they make it super easy to learn the game and play some quick matches. If you play, let me know your handle!
The day we were leaving Los Angeles was the first time you ran away.
We had just finished stuffing 5 years’ worth of our lives into the Civic when we caught a glimpse of your butt caught beneath the gate. Then you were gone.
A heart-racing, sweaty 15 minutes later, we found you in a carport on Jasmine Ave. You were sitting, waiting. You were smiling.
The next time 4 years later. It was our first day moving into the house at 1 Cypress in Albany. I don’t remember what happened. I took you off the leash. You were there. Then you weren’t. We stalked through the pines, across manicured lawns and kiddie pools half-filled. You were smiling when we found you, again.
You did it again this summer, the day before we dropped you off at the sitters so we could go to Ireland for the summer.
It’s like you know change is coming. And you need another sip of adventure before it happens. One more last show of rebellion, one final solo amble.
In the last 10 years, your teeth have gone from good to atrocious. The heart murmur (which I thought was a joke at first – how do dogs get heart murmurs?) has progressed to a grade 3, meaning it’s easily heard with a stethoscope. Your patience has thinned to filament width, inversely proportional to the number of humans we call your siblings.
But I love that you still have your sense of adventure. I love that you still wander.
