#135: space for what's next

👋 Welcome to the 135th issue of Open Loops, a weekly newsletter on clarity, growth, and building a life that feels like yours.

My name is Reza and each week, I sift through 100+ books, articles, podcasts, and (way too many) tweets to bring you the best in this newsletter.

A very warm welcome to the 62 new readers who joined since last week, I’m grateful for your attention! 🙏

🎁 Check the very bottom of this issue for a new referral program I’m super excited about!

Growth doesn’t always look like progress.

Sometimes it looks like things falling apart.

You don’t see alignment from the inside. You see endings.

Projects that stall. People who drift away. Paths that stop making sense.

But stay with it long enough and you start to notice: life isn’t subtracting. It’s editing.

Every ending is a redirect. Every absence, a clearing.

The space that feels empty at first is where new momentum begins.

Life was never breaking down. It was building someone who could carry more.

When something leaves, don’t try to chase or replace it.

Give it space.

Because space is where the next chapter takes shape.

We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.

This is probably the most profound book I read and listened to (3x times so far) this year. I truly believe every single one of us are here on this earth to create and express our authentic selves in whatever shape or form feels true and authentic to us. This book is an organized set of reminders to stop thinking and start shipping.

If you have an idea you're excited about and you don't bring it to life, it's not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker.

This isn't because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea's time has come.

In this great unfolding, ideas and thoughts, themes and songs and other works of art exist in the aether and ripen on schedule, ready to find expression in the physical world.

It's not about knowing. It's all about feeling and noticing what's happening in your body. If it's exciting to you, it's likely that it'll be exciting to someone else.

The audience comes last in service to the audience. The audience wants the best thing. They don't get the best thing while you're trying to service them. They get the best thing when you're servicing yourself.

After caring for hundreds in their final moments, a nurse discovered seven truths about what truly matters in life.

1. I should have loved more and differently
2. I saved my joy for later and later never came
3. Forgiveness set me free more than oxygen did
4. The best things in life were free and I was too busy to notice
5. Regret is the heaviest thing to carry
6. Presence is the greatest gift you ca give
7. Peace comes when you stop pretending

Above all, don't lie to yourself.

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill—he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it, and so pass to genuine vindictiveness.