The first week of school is a whirlwind of activity and adjustment, getting used to a new routine while everything is upended. Yet, this year felt remarkably more calm.

A sign of things to come?

One can hope.

Well anxiousness to pick up a pen and write pulsated daily, my mind and spirit were focussed elsewhere. Rather than force the issue (which is something I’ve done), I let it be.

There is a time to sit and listen to the self, figuring out what it needs. Not just another bag of Doritos and Crystal Pepsi to accompany a movie in the buffer, but an actual direction of what our spirit is calling us to do.

In this case, I am feeling tugged towards a new mission, or perhaps and ignored one from years past. Not too sure what it is yet, but I do know when the spirit compels, it’s best to listen.

Otherwise, life will always feel unsettled.

I’ve already blocked out the troublesome parts of the first few years of my kids lives:

the lack of sleep, incessant wailing, teething, perpetual exhaustion, etc.

It was hard to appreciate the moments as they were happening, and even more difficult not to throw something at people who told me how much they missed those infant years. “Oh yeah? You miss it? Take mine and enjoy!”

Alas, those years are done and all that’s left are rose-coloured glasses.

As the first day of school rolls around, I see the post of parents dropping their kids off at post-secondary schools… some of whom I taught several years ago. How fast did that happen?

Fun note: I can’t watch the movie, “Father of the Bride.”

Back in my early twenties, despite not being (or wanting to be) in a relationship, or even the consideration of kids, I watched it and cried at the end. “I get what you’re feeling! I feel this!”

As a parent, I know I’ll be inconsolable if I watch it again.

Right now, I’m on the couch with my kids beside me while writing this in my writers pad. I’m going to put this pencil down now because I don’t want to miss this.

One of the great benefits of age is recognizing how little you know about anything. And since my brain is wired for massive dopamine hits over learning something new, I take solace in knowing I will always be learning until my last days here.

It also takes the pressure off to be certain about anything…

except pineapple on pizza—that’s garbage.

In the meantime, we do the best we can and build one more plank of knowledge into the ocean of infinity. And, of course, most important:

we stay humble, for most of us are tomorrow’s fools.

Study philosophy and you will undoubtedly come across Thales of Miletus, who is credited as the first philosopher in Greek tradition. He is famous for suggesting that everything is made of water (a school of thought known as Monism).

Others would come along and suggest the world is made of fire, air, earth or a combination of all four. Keep going through history and you still have that tradition of thinking: atoms, string theory, etc.

While scientists continue to probe further into the smallest pieces that construct our world, I continue to be plagued by another question:

What holds the universe together?

Is it God?
Weak and strong forces?
Love?

These suggestions are just as viable as everything being made of water, even if they don’t completely hold any ground.

After all, it continues a tradition of thinking that there’s something out there that unites us all, instead of breaking us apart.

A few days ago, the sun blasted a 150,000km solar prominence perpendicular to the Earth. Thankfully, it was away from us as these eruptions have the potential to do some serious harm to the planet.

66 million years ago, an asteroid struck the Yucatan peninsula and eradicated all of the dinosaurs.

We’ve had many near misses since then.

However, things in the universe act on a cosmic scale, thousands to billions of years, allowing us with our modern understanding of science to predict these events. Mostly.

They’re still way out of our control, so it doesn’t even matter. For instance, our sun will expand out five billion years from now and incinerate the planet. Until then, we are here.

And for the short time we are here, we get to experience everything the universe has to offer and the problems of today are mere blips for us to wade through until the beauty of tomorrow.

Armed with intellect, compassion and imagination, we have all the tools we need to face another day. No doubt, some days are brutually tough and their effects can last for years.

But, if we can keep in mind a cosmic perspective, of which we are bound, we can face tomorrow knowing there is more to see and experience. Our world, especially our species, is a fragile one, subject to the whims of whatever the stars may bring.

The best we can do is stop fighting against it and flow with it, enjoying the ride and whatever may come.

My first job was in a box factory. The place eventually turned into a warehouse, but making boxes gave me my first paycheque.

It was also my first exposure to co-workers who do nothing but complain. As a young person with their first job, I kept my mouth shut and kept to my work.

However, what is interesting is that every job I’ve held since then, those same co-workers have been there in different forms. They’re not complaining about unsafe working conditions or employers breaking labour laws—they’re complaining about the grind.

I periodically got sucked into that crowd despite my dad’s (still) great advice to “keep your work at work” and “nobody wants to hear you complain.”

Today there are a spectrum of complaints with unreasonable demands on one end and feeling the work is beneath people on the other.

The one end of unreasonable demands certainly needs addressing as employers sometimes forget they’re hiring people, not robots that can be programmed. Of course, this comes with its own complexities and as you venture into the swamp of what is actually unreasonable, things get tricky.

However, it’s the latter end of the spectrum to which I say,

You’re a small person with a big ego. Learn to do the grind.

I am not immune to the YouTube algorithm rabbit hole. While I do my best to get out of it when being sucked down, there’s been some great gems.

One shining gem was the discovery of a channel dedicated to the big philosophical questions of life.

Of the many wonderful videos on there, this one I’ve visited numerous times and show to my students every year.

In summary: if you had a big life decision before you and couldn’t decide the best course of action, would seeing the outcome of each decision be helpful?

Spoiler alert—the video ends on an ambiguous note.

It does, however, bring peace to the decisions I’ve made and put away anxieties of “What if?” The truth you come to understand is that every decision opens an array of branches that stretch out for eternity.

This is true for good choices (“I have two good options in front of me”) and bad (“I know this is bad, but where will it lead?”).

A bad decision will (almost) always end in a bad place and a good one will (usually) get you somewhere better. Never perfect.

No decision will ever lead to a perfect place and we may never be fully happy with each one, but the branches of each decision are too complex to regret the ones that are made.

The only regret you can have is not making one for yourself.

If you ask a thousand people what freedom means to them, you will most likely get a thousand slightly different answers.

Then there’s the next step, which is one of the pressing questions I ask in my moral philosophy course, “Are we really free?”

I doubt we’ll ever get a clear answer on that one.

After all, we’ve only been arguing about this for thousands of years.

And while we’ve migrated this conversation from personal autonomy to things like personal finance (“financial freedom goals”), what we’re really wrestling with is whether we have the freedom to just be.

Be who we are.
Be a fan of the Jays.
Be safe in knowing there’s a world tomorrow and you can face it.

All of this is internal.

If we can get freedom there, then we can affect what’s out here.

The best selling video game of all time was Tetris until Minecraft came along. It’s difficult to guess what the next big game will be, but I hope it will follow a similar vein.

Both games didn’t rely on gimmicks, shock value or ridiculous marketing.

They’re very low graphic games that rely on creativity, critical thinking and spatial reasoning. Minecraft elevates this further with imagination—the more you have, the more you can do.

These games are proof of one thing:

People want substance in what they do.

Even in our “mindless” entertainment.

Pushing limits is wonderful for motivational videos, athletic competitions and ideas, but we often fail to acknowledge the other end:

How much more can we take?

We are way more willing to push that limit rather than rein it in and give ourselves peace of mind.