A few days recently where I found myself unable to think through a problem that was, objectively, pretty straightforward. The thinking was just muddled. In both cases, all it took was a good night of sleep and a run to clear it.
This got me thinking about resets — and how they work like fractals.
At the start of the year, after a real break, most of us come back with unusual clarity. What matters, what doesn’t – health, family, etc.
Then the day-to-day sets in, the noise accumulates, and that clarity slowly fades.
But it’s not just annual. The same thing happens at the start of a quarter, a week, a day. And then the pattern repeats.
The act of living — processing signals, good and bad, all day long — is an exercise in getting our heads muddled.
Our job is to keep finding the rituals that clear it.
A Learning a Day 