I turned 40 in September, and instead of it passing quietly like so many other years, this one demanded answers to questions I could no longer avoid. When did I outsource my agency to circumstance—or to the indecision and inaction of others? I had thought myself fluent in Jocko Willink’s brand of radical ownership, having read his book twice. And yet, here I was, mired in complacency, looking outward instead of inward.
It was the beginning of my reckoning—not collapse, but brutal self-confrontation. The kind that asks: What the fuck have I been doing? How long have I mistaken endurance for loyalty, or self-sacrifice for duty?
It was tempting to blame others, and for a while I did. But that didn’t help. Having spent years blaming and shaming myself, I knew I needed to try something different. I needed to stand in the mirror long enough to see where I had gone missing, and muster the courage to hold those parts of myself.
What I saw wasn’t weakness. It was a man brandishing his core wounds like weapons—mistaking heaviness for purpose. But weapons are useless when the war isn’t yours to fight. So I put them down: the proving, the performing, the addiction to responsibility disguised as control.
What came next was stillness, a quiet rebellion devoted to surrender. The kind of silence that echoes until all that’s left is a reflection you can’t unsee. And then came the inflection point—the choice to embrace the uncertainty of my becoming, or to worship the wound and repeat the patterns that keep me tethered to a comfortably numb version of myself.
I choose uncertainty. Because anything less than aliveness is just another form of death. And while I have never feared death, I do fear moving through this life not truly living.