Escape Velocity

The Friday Newsletter blasts off.

I can feel the old year’s gravity pulling back on me.

January—at least for me—always starts with a surge of optimism for the new year: the things I will accomplish, the things that will be different.

After about three weeks, though, the reality of winter starts to set in. Bad weather, school closures, mounting work responsibilities—I’m still facing a new year, but I can feel the weight of the old one telling me that things are still the same, that I am still the same, that the circumstances haven’t changed simply because the date at the bottom right corner of the screen did.

The only solution? To blast off stronger.

We have to believe that things can change, that if we make it through the doldrums of January, then 2022 will be different. We need to reach escape velocity. If we do, we’ll slip the surly bonds of last year and find something new out there.

Alright, enough half-baked poetics. This week has been a real pain in the butt, but guess what? It’s Friday, and this is The Action Cookb…