Inspired By In March 2026

My Oura ring died last week, so I don’t know how I’m doing this week. I don’t know if I’m ready, or how I slept, or what my heart rate variability is.

Sleep

But I do know my sleep has been shitty ever since the war began. But, props to me —I am not scrolling Instagram anymore when I wake at 3 AM. Taking that cheap dopamine fix off my phone was a good move.

Instead, when I can’t sleep, I do Cognitive Shuffling. 

How to Do Cognitive Shuffling

• Pick a Word: Choose a 5-6 letter word, like “BEDTIME” or “RESTFUL”.
• Letter-by-Letter Association: Take the first letter (‘B’) and think of as many words as possible that start with ‘B’ (e.g., Bear, Banana, Boat).
• Visualize Each Word: Take a second or two to form a vivid mental image of each word, ensuring they are not emotionally charged.
• Move On: Once you run out of words for ‘B’, move to the next letter (‘E’) and repeat the process.
• Ignore Mistakes: If a thought becomes frustrating, let it go and return to the game. 

Why It Works

• Mimics Sleep Onset: It breaks the logical, planning thought patterns that keep you awake and simulates the random imagery that occurs just before falling asleep.
• Interrupts Overthinking: It provides a safe distraction from anxiety-filled ruminations.
• Reduces Alertness: It shifts the brain from a state of high alertness toward a relaxed, dreamy state.

I was skeptical, but it works. I never make it past the first letter before I am snoozing.

New Paintings

My friend Ellen’s husband was a prolific painter, and when he died, he left behind many paintings. Ellen invited me over to her house to look at them and take one if I liked. 

I was torn between two, so she said, “Take both!” So I did. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to have new art hanging in my rooms. 

Here they are:

The colors and the shapes make me so happy. They don’t have names, so I am calling the first one Pink Tree, and the other one Silos with Clouds. The artist is Wil Blais. 

Nikki

My dear friend Nikki has been gone all winter, leaving me bereft and grumbly on the Friday dog walk. But she returned this week for a few days, so we took ourselves to Sand Run Falls yesterday. 

The falls were definitely falling. We sat there and meditated for a while, letting the roar of the water drown out all mental chatter. I could have sat there for hours. 

Sand Run Falls

It’s nowhere near spring here, though. We’re still in the unlocking phase, but these popped today, so maybe we’re moving in the right direction.

The schizophrenic, bleak weather, the scary war, and doing taxes have made this month a trifecta of unhappiness for me, but I was heartened by a new newsletter from The New York Times that comes out every Wednesday.

It’s called The Good List. You can sign up for it here. You don’t have to have a subscription to the Times to get it in your inbox.

The Times culture editor, Melissa Kirsch, curates ideas intended to bring joy, delight, and meaning to your life. It’s making me want to create my own “Good List.” I’m trying to look for good things every day instead of trolling back through the month to find what inspired me. The bar is low. I’m looking for good things, not great things.That first sip of coffee in the morning, for example, or the linen-y smell of clean sheets. 

The Marble Deal

A few days ago, in the midst of all my misery about the world, the war, the weather, the taxes, I came across Warren Buffett’s “Marbles Thought Experiment.”

Here’s how it goes:

Every living person on earth is represented by a single marble in a huge jar. One of these marbles is you: your body, parents, health, country, time in history, talents, temperament, everything you were randomly born into.

Here’s The Deal: 

You can throw your marble into the jar, shake it up, and draw a new marble at random, then you must live that life instead, with no say in what you get.

Do you take the deal?

If you would NOT take that deal—if you’d rather keep your own marble than risk a random one—then you already have a blessed life, even if you still wish certain things were different.

G came home from work yesterday in a foul mood. I said, “Ready to throw your marble in the jar?”

“Nope,” she said, with zero hesitation. 

And there you have it, folks. A single crappy day instantly snapped into focus when confronted with the possibility of losing it.

Seen in the larger context of a whole life, that crappy, disappointing day was transformed into a pure miracle.

 How did we luck into this life? How do we deserve it? We don’t! It was just pure, unmitigated luck that brought us into this cushy life where we aren’t being displaced by a war, or starving, or being bombed.

I am the kind of person who needs to deploy these kinds of contextual reframes on the regular. Marbles. Yup. I am definitely keeping mine.