HeyJaredOld Man Talks
Self-honesty over self-help. For people done pretending the easier version of themselves is enough.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 27, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Aug 5, 2026
Latest issues
The Answer Arrived Too Soon (opens the original)
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A Small Thing I NoticedA friend text-canceled dinner.“I’m sorry. Something came up. Can we do it another night?”I typed: No worries. Sent it.Twenty minutes later, I realized I was disappointed.Not angry. Not deeply hurt. Just disappointed.I had been looking forward to seeing them.It made me wonder how often our answers arrive before our feelings do.The Answer Arrived Too SoonWe are remarkably good at giving the appropriate answer.Someone asks how we’re doing. “Good.”Som
The Audience in Our Head (opens the original)
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A Small Thing I’ve Been Thinking AboutWe spend a surprising amount of our lives explaining things to people who aren’t there.Why we said no. Why we changed our minds. Why we took that job. Why we didn’t. Why we like what we like. Why we don’t want what we’re supposed to want.Sometimes nobody has asked.We explain anyway.The Life We ExplainI have spent a fair amount of my life making decisions with an imaginary person standing nearby. Not literally. Although sometimes I think that would have been
What We Stop Noticing (opens the original)
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A Small Thing I NoticedThere are things in our lives we once thought we’d be grateful to have.Now we walk past them without looking.Not because they became less important.We just got used to them.I think getting older has something to do with learning to look again.The Things We Stop SeeingThere is a strange trick life plays on us. It gives us something we’ve wanted for a long time, lets us enjoy it for a while, and then quietly moves it into the background.A person we once couldn’t wait to see
The Roads We Didn’t Take (opens the original)
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Every once in a while,usually when we’re not looking for it,an old possibility comes back to us.A town we almost moved to.A job we didn’t take.Someone we might have married.A road we turned away from.We don’t necessarily regret the life we chose.We’re just curious about the lives we didn’t.Wrong TurnI missed the road coming home from town.I almost turned back, then saw it running between two fields.There was an old barn, a pond, a house with a red door.A woman stood outside, calling her dog home
What Are We Saving Our Lives For? (opens the original)
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We spend a surprising amount of our lives waiting for our “real” life to begin.For the right time. The right circumstances. The right version of ourselves.But, if we’re lucky, something happens that makes us wonder:What if this is the time we have? Not the time we were promised. Not the time we were saving.Just this.What Are We Saving Our Lives For?We are very good at saving things.Money. Photographs. Old letters. Good dishes. A bottle of wine. A shirt we haven’t worn in years because we’re wait
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