Good morning. Today is Thursday, April 30th. And I had planned this week to do part three of how to think about the future.

But alas, I had to take a knee. And I don't mean an artificial knee. I mean take a knee as in take a break because reality caught up with me a bit this week,

as it probably does to many of you at times.

So I'm going to put that analysis to next week.

The last few weeks I've been in reflective mode shedding my skin, perhaps shedding multiple skins.

And part of this is I've been working too hard, four years with twice weekly content, juggling a lot of commitments, always on with meetings and presentations

and paying attention to world events, which are not minor at this point.

But a big part of my pause this week was because I had a conversation Monday morning that kind of reframed everything

for me.

A bit of a bit of a splash of cold water lightning strike for me.

A close friend of mine, actually, my meditation coach lives in Beirut, Lebanon,

and has been living through daily bombing periodically for years, but definitely daily recently.

She's hosting two families in her small apartment. She has lost friends in the last

week to murder her words. She lost her family farm with like a thousand-year-old olive trees

to occupation last year. So instead of doing our normal meditation routine this week,

we just talked about what's happening in Lebanon and her thoughts and her experience.

And I want to get her on the podcast and she just won't and I understand all the reasons why.

So I'm just going to share a little bit of her story because I think in many ways it's a microcosm for our times.

I'm going to do. our times. She described to me what it's actually like to hear the bombs come down in the distance

and the way that the mind anticipates where the next bomb might fall,

but having no way of knowing where.

And so that means her body and the people staying with her and presumably everyone

...