TEST POST: THE THINGS WE CARRY FORWARD
The difference between learning something and actually changing because of it.
I've been thinking about the difference between learning something and actually changing because of it.
Most of what we encounter just passes through. We nod along, we agree, maybe we even take notes. But then we go back to how we were.
The things that stick—the ones that shift how we see or act—those are rarer than we think.
It’s easy to get distracted.
There's a moment I keep coming back to from a few years ago. I was in a meeting, explaining why a project had stalled. I had good reasons. Valid reasons. But halfway through, I realized I was performing an explanation, not actually being honest about what happened.
The truth was simpler and harder to say: I had deprioritized it because other things felt more urgent. Not because they were more important—because they were louder.
That realization didn't fix the project. But it changed how I started thinking about my own patterns. The gap between what I say matters and where my attention actually goes.
We all have these gaps. Places where our intentions and our actions don't quite line up. Not out of bad faith, but because we're human, and life is full of noise, and it's easier to react than to choose.
A few things I've noticed about closing those gaps:
Awareness doesn't equal change. Knowing you do something isn't the same as doing it differently. The shift happens when you catch yourself in the moment, not just in reflection afterward.
Start smaller than you think. Big intentions collapse under their own weight. One deliberate choice, repeated, builds momentum better than a sweeping commitment that fades by Thursday.
The pattern reveals the priority. If you keep saying something matters but never make time for it, that's information. Maybe it doesn't matter as much as you thought. Or maybe you need to confront what's actually in the way.
I'm not suggesting perfection or some rigid alignment between values and action. That's exhausting and probably impossible.
But I do think it's worth asking, once in a while: What am I carrying forward? And is it what I want to carry?
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Glad you’re here.
Arun