Centering
The Lord has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
What justice have you helped make happen?
When have you loved as God loves?
How are you walking humbly with God, or when did you recognize you are God’s image in the world?
Ponder
The empathy of instructions
It’s difficult to write directions.
A user interface, a map or a recipe all require empathy.
That’s because the person writing it knows something the reader doesn’t. In fact, that’s the only reason to do it.
But because instructions exist to bridge this gap, we benefit by understanding and focusing on the gap. The instructions aren’t there to remind you of how to do something. They serve to help someone who doesn’t know, learn.
Here’s a useful way to begin:
Assume less.
Yes, the person reading your recipe knows what a knife is, but do they know you keep your mustard in the food cabinet, not the fridge?
List every step you could imagine, and then list some more.
Once the overdone, step-by-step instructions exist, begin removing them. The interface for your induction cooktop probably doesn’t benefit from having icons so obscure they’re meaningless, but it also doesn’t need every step for boiling water enunciated in capital letters.
In my experience in reading instructions, it’s easier for the user to skip over steps that are too complete than it is to try to guess what the person writing the directions had in mind.
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Seth Godin, January 20, 2026
Respond
What have I learned about myself in challenging times?
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The Daily Question, grateful.org. January 25, 2026.
I’m beginning to do more writing over on my Substack site. I plan to cross publish with the idea that eventually, this site will probably be archived. I haven’t made plans for that yet. Thank you for reading.
We live in an “attention economy” now. Be intentional.
The cool mornings of early fall accompany that first cup of coffee, while the straggling hummingbirds dart and dance at the feeder after sunup. These first mornings of the fall remind me to embrace change and savor silence.
If I could post a message on a billboard for thousands of people would see, what would it say?
That was the question awaiting me on September 26th. Each morning, I receive a prompt from grateful.org (formerly gratefulness.org) in my inbox. I recommend the site and subscribing to “The Daily Question.”
When you think about it, a billboard is the OG of social media. Non-digital billboards can’t be deleted quickly, but they also aren’t forever. It can be seen from some distance, but it passes quickly.
My immediate response to the question was a movie reference. The film, “Oh, God Book II,” featured a young girl who was asked by God, played by George Burns, to come up with something to share with the public. She came up with the message, “Think God.” The original film, “Oh, God” presses some theological buttons even today.
A billboard message?
Given the embrace of our course, grievance driven culture of the moment, I thought of a Jimmy Buffett song, “Were You Born an A-hole?” Earlier this year, a colleague said that when they leave the house each morning they remind themselves to, “Don’t be an a-hole today.”
The film, “The Truman Show” has a line, “How will it end?”
All of the world’s religions promotes a version of “The Golden Rule” in their cannon of practice.
A talk radio show I listen to likes to say, “Angry is over.” But the observed evidence contradicts.
It would be interesting to post,
“Which future do you want to inhabit? Star Wars or Star Trek?”
Kinky Friedman would close political speeches with, “May the god of your choice/choosing bless you.”
In the film, “Head of State,” Chris Rock’s character, Mays Gilliam, says, “God bless American and everybody else. The whole world.”
The last lyrics of Pink Floyd’s “Two Suns in the Sunset” resonates with me.
”Ashes and diamonds.
Foe and Friend.
Were were all equal in the end.”
Your turn.