Remember when you bought your car?
Not the paperwork part. The part after. You’d park it somewhere — the grocery store, the office lot, your own driveway — and you’d look back at it as you walked away. Admiring the lines. The shine. The fact that it was yours.
Nobody teaches you to do that. You just do it. Because for a little while, that car isn’t transportation. It’s proof. Proof that you worked for something and got it.
Then one day, you don’t look back. You just get out and walk away.
When did that happen? Can you even remember?
The Driveway
When Jodi and I finished building our home, I had a ritual I never planned and never talked about. I’d pull out of the driveway, stop at the end, and look back at it. Just stare at it.
I can’t believe I live there.
Not in a bragging way. In a genuinely stunned way. Like I needed to remind myself it was real. Like if I didn’t look, some part of me might forget that the house standing there was something we built — every decision, every year of work that made it possible.
Same thing with my office. Four thousand square feet of renovated warehouse in Cleveland. Some mornings I’d get there early, before anyone else, when the sun was just coming up and the light poured through those industrial windows. And I’d just stand there. Not working. Witnessing. Remembering what it took to get there.
Then, at some point — and I couldn’t tell you the date, because this is the kind of thing that never announces itself — I stopped.
I’d pull out of the driveway without a glance back. I’d walk into the office thinking about the first meeting instead of the fact that I was standing inside something I once only dreamed about. The house became the place I live. The office became the place I work.
The extraordinary became ordinary.
Not because it changed. Because I did.
It Gets Worse
Here’s the part that should actually scare you: this doesn’t just happen with things.
Think about when you first met your spouse. The way your face changed when they walked into a room. The way just looking at them felt like an event.
When did that stop?
Think about when your kids were born. The awe of watching them sleep. The wonder at their tiny fingers. The way you’d stare at them like they were the most miraculous thing you’d ever witnessed — because they were.
When did that become routine?
The beauty didn’t leave. Your spouse is still the person you fell in love with. Your kids are still miracles walking around your house. The spectacular is still spectacular.
You just stopped seeing it.
We get comfortable. We get busy. We get distracted by the next thing we’re chasing, and we forget to appreciate the things we already caught. We spend years working toward something, finally get it, and immediately shift focus to the next goal without ever really having what we just earned.
That’s not ambition. That’s a disease.
The Reset
I catch myself doing this constantly. Pulling out of that same driveway without a glance back. Walking into the office without pausing. Looking at Jodi like she’s just… there. Like her presence in my life is a given instead of a gift.
And every time I catch it, I force a reset.
I make myself look. Really look. I stand in the doorway of my kids’ rooms and watch them for a minute, remembering what it felt like when they were small and everything about them amazed me. I look at Jodi the way I did when we first started dating — when just being near her felt like winning something. I pull out of the driveway and glance back at what we built.
It costs nothing. It takes seconds. And it changes everything about how the rest of the day feels.
Because the things and people in your life that once took your breath away? They still can. But you have to choose to see them. You have to fight the comfort that comes with familiarity. You have to actively resist the gravitational pull toward taking everything for granted.
Never get so focused on what you’re building that you forget to appreciate what you’ve already built.
The spectacular is still there.
You just have to remember to look.
So here’s your assignment, and it’s due today: pick one thing — or one person — you’ve stopped seeing. Look at it the way you did the first time. Then come back and tell me what you saw.