A weekly invitation to transform from the inside out.
Happy Seed-Day!
Here's an idea (The Seed), a way to go deeper (The Soil), and a journal prompt (The Root) to explore.
I. The Seed
Every day, life throws ingredients into your pot. News. Noise. Other people's urgency.
Live unguarded, and you become the stew. Swirling in whatever gets thrown in.
But you were never the stew. You are the chef. You taste. You adjust. You decide what goes in the pot.
Transformation is not becoming someone new. It is remembering who is holding the spoon.
II. The Soil
This week, one idea with two doors. Walk through either.
Read: Love After Love, a short poem by Derek Walcott. It is about the day you finally greet the self you set aside to please everyone else, and welcome them back to the table. It ends: Sit. Feast on your life.
Watch: Groundhog Day (1993). A man is trapped reliving the same day, at the mercy of it, until he stops reacting to the day and starts choosing who to be inside it. The day never changes. He does.
Then sit with this: the pot never decides the meal. The cook does.
III. The Root
Where in my life am I "the stew," swirling in whatever gets thrown in? Where am I already "the chef"?
If I stepped fully into the chef's role for one week, what is the first ingredient I would take out of the pot?
Until next week,
Jay Sueno
PS - There is a longer, more personal letter behind this one. The Long Paddle is my weekly writing on business, family, health, and building a life in Siargao. This week's is about a slow season, two kinds of fishermen, and what we cut so we could keep building. It is free at jaysueno.substack.com.
