Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: Paris Fashion Week 2026, Naomi Campbell's tall trees catch a lot of wind, Diet drinks work as well as water for weight loss, major trial finds, and A glass of wine? No thank you.

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Paris Fashion Week 2026: Paris Was Doing the Most. Paris Fashion Week arrived with one simple message: please leave the ordinary at home. From September 28th to October 6th, the French capital turned into one giant runway, with Spring/Summer 2027 collections bringing drama, tailoring, fantasy and plenty of “Wait… where did she get that?” street style. The runways were serving fashion with a French accent—sharp tailoring, beautiful silhouettes, unexpected proportions and enough attitude to make even a coffee run look editorial. And then there was the street style. Parisian fashion girls stepped out looking effortlessly expensive, while editors, models and influencers turned sidewalks into their own personal catwalks. The real skill? Looking like you just threw something on when you clearly spent an hour making it look that way. For the Accra fashion girl, Paris offered plenty of inspiration. Think relaxed tailoring that can survive the Accra heat, oversized sunglasses for maximum main-character energy, statement bags, elegant neutrals and shoes that say “I have a meeting at 10 and cocktails at 7.” Of course, Ghanaian fashion girls already know the assignment: confidence first, outfit second. Whether it is a perfectly fitted kaba-inspired silhouette, bold African print, sleek trousers or a killer accessory, the Accra woman has never needed Paris to tell her how to make an entrance. Paris may have the Eiffel Tower, but Accra has Oxford Street, Cantonments and a fashion girl who refuses to overdress—because there is no such thing.

Paris Fashion Week 2026 proved once again: fashion is not just what happens on the runway. Sometimes, the real show starts when you step outside. Naomi Campbell's tall trees catch a lot of wind. Supermodel Naomi Campbell has managed to overturn a five-year ban on serving as a charity trustee that she said had “hurt deeply”. Two years ago, the Charity Commission, which regulates charities in England and Wales, found “multiple instances of misconduct and/or mismanagement” at the charity including using charity funds to pay for Campbell’s stay at a five-star hotel in Cannes, as well as spa treatments, room service and cigarettes. As a result, it imposed the ban on Campbell. In its current ruling, the tribunal confirmed there had been “serious misconduct and mismanagement,” but that the “failures in the management of the charity’s finances and the misuse of its funds” resulted from the conduct of the founder of the charity Bianka Hellmich, not from Naomi. These misconducts were “concealed” from the supermodel. Anyway, Campbell is not very good at choosing her acquaintances. She knew Epstein, of the famous Epstein files. Epstein was very good at getting business favours from rich business men by making under age girls available to them. The Epstein files mentioned Trump and he has been busy trying to keep things covered. Trump was in Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe Pageant, when Campbell lived there with a Russian business mogul. Campbell knew Trump. And Campbell knew Nina Keita, niece of Ivory Coast's president, who introduced Epstein to young women and local business leaders in Ivory Coast. It’s who you know, isn't it?

Diet drinks work as well as water for weight loss, major trial finds. A two-year clinical trial involving 493 adults with overweight or obesity found that diet soft drinks were essentially as effective as water for long-term weight loss and weight maintenance. Participants drinking beverages sweetened with aspartame, acesulfame-K, or sucralose lost a similar amount of weight to those drinking water, while both groups also saw improvements in waist size, body composition, and several metabolic measures. Professor Jo Harrold, Dean of Psychology at the University of Liverpool, led the peer-reviewed research with Professor Jason Halford, Professor of Biological Psychology & Health Behaviours at the University of Leeds.

A glass of wine? No thank you. In M.A.G nr. 46, 5th May 2023, I mentioned that most wines in Ghana have a lot of added sulfur in them, (Europe allows till 250 mg/ltr for white and rose, and 150 mg for reds) to avoid that wine starts to referment, which could even result in the cork popping out, like with Champagne, Prosecco and other sparkling wines. On the bottle it is mentioned: added sulfurs. Adding the sulfur stops any effort by the wine to start a 2nd life. Unfortunately this often leads to headache if you drink too much of it, that sort of nail in your head the next day. Call it a Chateau Migraine. But there is also urticaire (another word for hives is the itchy, raised red or skin-coloured bumps and welts on the skin). Recognize this? And on top of that there are all the other chemicals added to give the wine a constant taste; you didn't want to get something else than what you drank last time. And there are the left overs of pesticides, and for example South Africa is known to import pesticides that are forbidden in any other country, so much so that workers in the wine yards and fruit orchards sometimes go on strike because they don't want to be poisoned. And I dare to bet that our FDA does not check for these things. Cheers.

Lydia...

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Feelgood-böcker har under de senaste decennierna utvecklats till en av de mest populära genrerna inom skönlitteraturen. Med sina varma berättelser, färgstarka karaktärer och ofta hoppfulla slut erbjuder feelgood böcker en stunds avkoppling från vardagens krav. Men bakom de lättsamma omslagen finns en genre med långa litterära traditioner, som ständigt förändras i takt med samhället och läsarnas förväntningar.

Feelgood böckernas rötter kan spåras till äldre tiders romantiska romaner och vardagsskildringar, där relationer, personlig utveckling och människors livsöden stod i centrum. Redan under 1800-talet skrev författare som Jane Austen berättelser där kärlek, sociala förväntningar och individuella drömmar vävdes samman. Även om dessa romaner inte kallades feelgood på sin tid innehöll de flera av de berättargrepp som senare skulle bli kännetecknande för genren.

Under 1900-talet fortsatte litteraturen om kärlek, vänskap och familjerelationer att utvecklas. Författare som Rosamunde Pilcher och Maeve Binchy blev uppskattade för sina levande miljöbeskrivningar och skildringar av mänskliga relationer. Deras romaner förenade vardagliga konflikter med värme, humor och hopp, vilket bidrog till att lägga grunden för den moderna feelgood-litteraturen.

Ett betydelsefullt steg i genrens utveckling kom under 1990-talet, då den så kallade chick lit-litteraturen fick sitt stora genombrott. Helen Fieldings roman Bridget Jones dagbok, som gavs ut 1996, blev en internationell framgång och bidrog till att forma en ny typ av underhållningsroman. Här stod en modern kvinna i centrum, med karriärproblem, kärleksbekymmer och en ständig kamp för att få vardagen att gå ihop. Humorn och huvudpersonens mänskliga brister gjorde berättelsen lätt att känna igen sig i. Författare som Marian Keyes och Sophie Kinsella fortsatte att utveckla denna berättartradition och nådde en stor internationell publik.

Under 2000-talet började feelgood-litteraturen utvecklas till en bredare genre. Berättelserna behövde inte längre enbart kretsa kring romantiska relationer eller unga kvinnors vardagsliv. I stället fick teman som vänskap, familj, sorg, nystarter och personlig utveckling allt större utrymme. Små bokhandlar, kaféer, pensionat och pittoreska byar blev populära miljöer, inte minst genom författare som Jenny Colgan. Dessa platser fungerade ofta som en trygg bakgrund där huvudpersonerna kunde börja om och upptäcka nya möjligheter i livet.

I Sverige har feelgood-litteraturen vuxit kraftigt, särskilt under 2010-talet. Svenska författare har utvecklat genren genom att kombinera internationella influenser med miljöer och livssituationer som svenska läsare känner igen. Katarina Mazettis Grabben i graven bredvid, som utkom 1998, är ett tidigt exempel på en svensk relationsroman med den humor och värme som förknippas med feelgood. Senare har bland andra Emma Hamberg, Frida Skybäck och Camilla Davidsson bidragit till genrens popularitet med berättelser om kärlek, vänskap och människor som vågar förändra sina liv.

En viktig förklaring till feelgood-litteraturens framgång är dess förmåga att erbjuda både verklighetsflykt och igenkänning. Läsaren får möta människor som ställs inför svårigheter, men berättelserna präglas vanligtvis av en grundläggande optimism. Till skillnad från många andra litterära genrer ligger tyngdpunkten inte på mörker eller hopplöshet, utan på möjligheten att hitta lösningar, skapa nya relationer och gå vidare efter motgångar. Det betyder dock inte att feelgoodromaner saknar allvar. Tvärtom har moderna feelgoodförfattare blivit alltmer benägna att skildra ämnen som psykisk ohälsa, ensamhet, skilsmässor och förlust.

Under senare år har genren fortsatt att breddas. Traditionella kärlekshistorier samsas med berättelser om vänskap över generationsgränser, människor som lämnar storstaden för ett lugnare liv och huvudpersoner som försöker hitta sin plats i tillvaron. Även frågor om identitet, jämställdhet och livsval har blivit vanligare. Samtidigt har gränserna mellan feelgood och närliggande genrer som romance, historiska romaner och mysdeckare blivit alltmer flytande.

Digitaliseringen har också haft betydelse för feelgoodlitteraturens utveckling. Ljudböcker och strömningstjänster har gjort det möjligt att ta lyssna på feelgood böcker och roliga ljudböcker under promenader, bilresor och vardagssysslor. Sociala medier och digitala bokgemenskaper har dessutom skapat nya möjligheter för läsare att upptäcka författare, dela läsupplevelser och rekommendera favoritböcker. Genren har därmed fått en synlighet som sträcker sig långt utanför de traditionella bokhandlarna.

Feelgood-romanens utveckling visar hur en litterär tradition kan förnya sig utan att förlora sin grundläggande identitet. Från äldre tiders romantiska berättelser till dagens mångfacetterade romaner har behovet av hopp, gemenskap och igenkänning varit en återkommande drivkraft. Även om miljöerna, huvudpersonerna och samhällsfrågorna förändras finns en central tanke kvar: att litteraturen kan ge läsaren en känsla av värme och framtidstro.

I en värld som ofta präglas av osäkerhet och snabba förändringar fortsätter feelgood-boken att fylla en viktig funktion. Den erbjuder inte bara underhållning, utan också berättelser om människans förmåga att förändras, hitta gemenskap och skapa nya möjligheter. Kanske är det just denna kombination av verklighetsförankring och optimism som gör att feelgoodlitteraturen fortsätter att locka nya generationer av läsare.

9 September 2026

Phenomena at Yena's grandmother's house: a sort of misty aura spiraling around the light outside her grandmother's old room, deep organ sounds in the middle of the night coming from the same room (I thought of deep navy blues and royal velvet purples), six magpies fighting for persimmons from the tree outside Yena's bedroom window, intermittent construction sounds throughout the day in the distance (as Yena observed, they're only destruction sounds, not building), in the evenings—a father and a toddler winding down with a book while their cat does the same on its tree, nice end-of-cycle chimes from both the laundry machine and the microwave, spiral-shaped incense that makes mosquitos spiral in panic, when in bed at night—a ray from that same light outside Yena's grandmother's room shooting into the bedroom where we sleep (in an outwardly-expanding ring pattern, like the light bulb is blowing luminous yellow smoke rings).

The HMICFRS PEEL 2025-27 inspection report into Gloucestershire Constabulary landed recently, and frankly it makes for grim reading. I sit on the Police and Crime Panel, so I've been through it properly, and it raises serious questions about how our county is policed and who should be held to account.

What the Inspectors Found

The report grades the force's leadership and management, and its investigation of crime, as inadequate. Most other areas, including safeguarding, responding to the public, and neighbourhood policing, require improvement. Only one area has improved since the last inspection. Several have got worse.

Two formal causes of concern stand out.

On leadership and management: the force's operating model is hamstrung by financial constraints and poor IT. A £10.5 million request to the Minister of State for Policing for essential funding was refused outright. The force is raiding reserves to balance the books. Meanwhile morale is rock bottom, with only around a third of staff surveyed saying they'd recommend the constabulary as a place to work, and many unable to take the leave they're owed.

On investigating crime: serious criminal investigations have been handed to officers who simply haven't had the training. As of April 2026, just 13 of 68 constables in the criminal investigation department held the accredited qualification for investigating serious crime. Open crime files rose from around 7,900 to 9,600 in a year. Fewer victims see their case end in a charge than in comparable forces.

There are bright spots. Stop and search has improved dramatically, with 98.4 percent of searches showing reasonable grounds. Emergency call answering has got better too. And on one point, the report confirms what I and others have been banging on about for ages: Black people were five times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. But the overall picture is of a force that's under-resourced, overstretched, and struggling to deliver the basics for victims.

My Position on the Panel

I want to be constructive here. This isn't about kicking a force when it's down. It's about making sure the people of Gloucestershire get the police service they pay for and deserve.

Name the funding failure. The report is explicit that the constabulary faces extremely challenging financial circumstances, and that a direct request to government for investment in IT and infrastructure was refused. When the Panel scrutinises police performance, we must also scrutinise the government decisions that got us here. I'll be pressing for the Panel to put the funding context formally on record, and the PCC should be challenging ministers publicly with the evidence in this report.

Evidence, not assurances. HMICFRS has given the force six months to act on its recommendations. I want the Panel to get measurable progress reports against each one, with actual numbers: accredited investigators, open cases, neighbourhood officer abstraction. The reassurances we've had in the past were not enough.

Protect neighbourhood policing. Neighbourhood officers keep getting pulled away from their communities to plug gaps elsewhere, sometimes weekly. The report links this directly to weaker prevention and problem-solving. I want the force's own target of 85% of neighbourhood time spent on visible, community-focused work reported to the Panel every quarter, with someone senior, like the PCC, actually owning it.

Fairness and data integrity. Black people were five times more likely to be stopped and searched, and almost seven times more likely to have force used against them, compared with white people. Inspectors also found officers often don't ask people to self-define their ethnicity, meaning the force's own analysis may rest on inaccurate data. The inspectors were told that the external scrutiny panel does valuable work, though I've yet to see much evidence of that in what the Panel is shown about the Legitimacy Panel's activity. Scrutiny is only as good as the data behind it, as I raised at the last Panel meeting.

The Bigger Picture

I acknowledge, as the Chief Inspector did, that officers and staff are working under enormous strain. Most joined to serve their communities and are being let down by the conditions they work in. But sympathy isn't a substitute for standards. Victims of crime in Gloucestershire, particularly vulnerable victims, deserve better than unresolved cases and untrained investigators.

And as a Green, I'd add this:

The report shows exactly what happens when public services are hollowed out year after year. A police force that can't invest in its people, its systems or its communities can't keep people safe. The answer is proper resourcing rooted in prevention.

I'll be raising these issues at the Police and Crime Panel with what little agenda space we get to ask and I'll report back here.

Cllr Gareth Kitchen, Stroud District Council and Gloucestershire Police and Crime Panel

Harney County, Oregon

JOURNAL 9 octobre 2026

Je termine ma pause. On s'est fait du thé avec yôko et izumi On a essayé la nouvelle machine, mais il est moins bon que celui qu'on fait nous même. J'entends à côté la voix de hayame. J'aime bien cette fille elle est d'un seul arbre, sortie sans retouche. On peut compter sur elle elle se trouble jamais. Bien plus mature que moi et mon caractère explosif… Me calmerais-je un jour ? J'admire son humeur égale

Tom est venu avec un bouquet de fleurs blanches. Il est extrêmement gentil, mais vraiment pas doué, encore très lourd. Arriverai-je à faire une gazelle de cet hippopotame ? Honnêtement j'en doute. Je vais redescendre. Encore une heure minimum avant la douche.

#dojo

Taste torment in trickles draining teardrops' salty repair. A cadaver's mercy... The flintlock fluidly conducting despair. Crawl through the ashes. Crawl, scrape, and glean. Crawl and spin madness. Crawl for your queen.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved. ———

This morning's musical influence.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QVp0ZDBvmsY&is=97xUl49w5QdI_fkg

Our family car has been having problems for a little while. It used to be a robust little machine that we would use to travel with our son to appointments, or to drive back to my parents in Netherlands every once in a while. Recently, it has been having constant issues with both the battery and the engine. I did not own a car before, since with the Berlin public transport system it is generally not really needed. This also meant that this was the first time I was trying to get a car repair done here in Berlin.

I don't like calling places, and I definitely don't like calling places in German. It is not that I don't speak German on a good enough level, but still some confidence here is lacking to easily pick up the phone and make calls. So, I did try to find an alternative and see if there are any online places where I can book a car repair. It turns out there are, but a very select few with mostly bigger branches.

No need to name and shame here which one I did make an appointment with in the end, but I did eventually make an online appointment after some searching. My first appointment was a simple “what is this error code that is showing up on my dashboard” appointment. They read it out, said the battery was probably done, and that was it. Oh, you want to replace the battery? New appointment needed. I went online to check for a new appointment, and the first available one is only in 3 weeks. Great.

I probably should have taken that as a hint and find another garage, and god forbid even call one. However, I did book the new appointment in 3 weeks time to replace the battery, and showed up for it. Same procedure of dropping off the car, keys and hoping for the best. They did change the battery, which was in a bad state, and simply mentioned “Ah by the way that yellow engine light is still on”. I asked if the new battery could have fixed it, and he said “No”. “Well, I have a long drive coming up soon, what should I do?”, I asked. He responded “Ah well, you can book a new appointment online and we can take a look at it”.

When I book an appointment to fix a car, is it really asking too much for “fix the car” to include the obvious thing still broken in it? I'd expect a hands-on attitude: “Ah, this looks wrong, should we look into that?” Or at least call me first if it costs extra. Returning a still-broken car is a weird concept to me.

So what did I do in the end? Picked up the phone and called a nearby small garage with good reviews. Appointment on Monday, fingers crossed...

Je suis hospitalisé. Une dépression sévère qui m’a fait perdre tout espoir pendant plusieurs jours.

Aujourd’hui, je vais mieux. Les petits plaisirs recommencent à faire sens. Des projets recommencent à prendre forme.

Et durant ces longues journées d’hospitalisation, j’ai lu “Martin Eden“ de Jack London. Livre fabuleux. C’est d’ailleurs en partie grâce à lui que j’ai décidé d’écrire aujourd’hui sur ce blog.

Pour me permettre de garder une certaine discipline, d’affiner mon style et de garder une mémoire de mes réflexions. Je pense qu’il y a une forme de thérapie qui s’opère lorsqu’on arrive à poser des mots et à faire parler sa pensée.

Et cette discipline que s’est imposé Martin Eden vis-à-vis de la littérature m’a particulièrement inspiré.

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Revenons maintenant à Martin Eden.

Toute la dernière partie du livre m’a troublé. Martin atteint le succès. L’amour de sa vie revient vers lui. Il est reconnu pour son oeuvre. Mais malgré tout ça… il est profondément malheureux.

Et il est malheureux pour une raison simple : il s’est fourvoyé sur le monde qu’il souhaitait atteindre. Il s’est élevé grâce aux livres, pensant que cette éducation allait lui ouvrir les portes d’un monde lumineux, délicat, honorable.

Il découvre à la fin que c’est tout le contraire.

Cet univers qu’il réussit enfin à atteindre le méprise pour son talent, mais l’adule finalement lorsqu’il rencontre le succès. Martin ne voit là qu’une forme de superficialité qu’il n’arrive pas à supporter. À plusieurs reprises, il répète : ‘“J’avais fait mon travail“ Autrement dit, la personne qu’il était alors, lorsque tout le mode le méprisait, est la même personne qu’il est là aujourd’hui. À la différence qu’aujourd’hui, le succès frappe à sa porte et qu’une nuée de profiteurs cherchent maintenant à se saisir d’une parcelle de cette notoriété.

Toute cette mascarade lui donne la nausée.

Ce n’est pas le talent et l’effort qui font le mérite. C’est l’approbation de la plèbe.

Cette prise de conscience désole Martin et il préfère à la toute fin mourir, la vie n’ayant plus aucune saveur.

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Qu’est-ce que je retiens de cette lecture ?

1. Que l’amour de Ruth était conditionnée par les conventions et que Martin s’en est aperçu bien trop tard.

2. Que l’amour véritable est un amour qui cherche à porter l’être aimé vers ses aspirations les plus profondes.

3. Que la recherche d’une “situation“ est secondaire. Quand la flamme intérieure brûle, nul ne doit l’éteindre.

Qu’il ne faut pas se tromper de “jeu“. Tout au long du livre, Martin semble penser que les magasines sauront apprécier son talent. Que sa maîtrise de la littérature lui permettra de gagner le coeur de Ruth. Mais ce que ces gens apprécient avant tout, c’est l’aura, l’attractivité, cette capacité à faire vendre, quel que soit le talent qu’il possède. C’est cette subordination à cette convention sociale tacite et moribonde.

La leçon que j’en retire : avant de jouer à un “jeu” quelconque, s’assurer d’avoir bien compris les règles, les tenants et aboutissants. Au risque de se perdre et de se rendre compte bien trop tard qu’on est le dindon de la farce…

Today a couple other friends bailed on our plans to go to this one Chinese buffet that was having a deal, so instead it was just me and E. We decided to go get all you can eat sushi because the line was long to the other place and we ended up fucking devouring a shit ton. And I actually really enjoyed getting to hang out with her one on one. And then afterwards I came home and I played games with friends and had a wonderful time, we watched a MrBeast video and we went on so many different tangents. I left so hard my abs started cramping. And maybe that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day.

Delightful morning. Spent the first few hours of the day sat on the new reading chair with a cup of coffee and a book by Ahmed Khaled Toufik on storytelling. I'm alternating between that and Boroughs' NAKED LUNCH. Tiger hopped on my lap and curled against my belly in silence.

I'm hoping to stick to a system of only two books at a time, one fiction and one non-fiction. Oddly enough, I find that I've been enjoying non-fiction far, far more lately. The more fiction I read, the more it becomes apparent that the bulk of it actually has very little to say.

Before A.I. slop, an onslaught of human slop has always been around.

Today will hopefully be the last day of podcast notes.

#journal

Most writers know what a notebook is. Fewer know what a commonplace book is.

Traditionally, a commonplace book was a personal repository of quotations, observations, anecdotes, reflections, and fragments gathered from reading and experience. It was not a diary and not a finished work. It was a place where ideas could be stored until their relationships became apparent.

Essayists have always been drawn to commonplace books because the essay itself rarely begins with an argument. More often it begins with an observation, a curiosity, a quotation, an encounter, or a question. The commonplace book preserves these beginnings.

In practice, a commonplace book is less concerned with subjects than with connections. A naturalist's observation, a line from a poet, a newspaper clipping, a memory from a walk, and a philosophical question may appear unrelated when recorded. Years later, they may reveal themselves as parts of the same inquiry.

The commonplace book can therefore be understood as the workshop of essayistic thought. Essays emerge from it, but it is not organized around completed essays. Instead, it preserves possibilities. It is a reservoir of unfinished thinking.

Digital tools have not diminished the value of the commonplace book. They have merely changed its form. Applications such as OneNote, Obsidian, Notion, and others allow modern writers to collect and connect fragments with a speed that earlier generations could scarcely imagine. Yet the underlying purpose remains the same: to preserve observations long enough for unexpected relationships to emerge. I have been using Onenote, stored on the cloud and accessible through multiple surfaces, for 23 years now.

A record of attention

The essayist's commonplace book is not a scrapbook of facts. It is a record of attention. It documents what repeatedly catches the eye, returns to the mind, and refuses to be forgotten. Over time, patterns form. Recurring questions appear. Themes announce themselves. The writer gradually discovers not only what they think, but what they are interested in thinking about. But I cannot give you a structure, that will arise from you own foci and patterns of attention, and will doubtless develop over time

Perhaps the most important distinction is this: an ordinary notebook records information. A commonplace book records potential. It is not merely an archive of what has been learned. It is an archive of what might one day be understood.

David Marshall Skerries

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Two sweep beneath a diamond sky. Two bathe in waters warmed from brisk. Two chase the ache from mirrored eye. Two languish in a darkening kiss. Two spell the other's limbs to quake. Two map pale flesh in lip-bound thrall. Two glut on notes that screech and sate. Two swim and soar where angels fall.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: When Your Thoughts Become Your Reality

The kitchen is quiet except for the refrigerator, and you have already checked the bank balance twice. The bill on the table is real. So is the date printed near the top. But somewhere between putting down your phone and turning off the light, your mind has carried you six months into the future. You are no longer thinking about how to pay one bill. You are imagining losing your home, disappointing your family, and having to explain to people how everything fell apart. Nothing new has happened in the room. The only thing that has changed is the story you are telling yourself. This is the private struggle behind what Jesus taught about overthinking and worry, and it deserves more than somebody telling you to calm down.

I think many of us are embarrassed by how far our minds can travel when we are frightened. We know a single unanswered question should not become a verdict on our whole lives, yet sometimes it does. We tell ourselves we are being realistic, or responsible, or prepared. And there is often a real concern underneath it all. That is why finding peace when the future feels uncertain cannot begin with pretending the trouble isn't there. It begins by being honest about the difference between the fact in front of us and the frightening conclusion we have added to it.

The fact may be that money is tight. The conclusion may be that you will never recover. The fact may be that someone you love is going through a difficult season. The conclusion may be that you have failed them and nothing will ever improve. We rarely notice the exact moment when one becomes the other. It happens quietly, while folding laundry, standing at a traffic light, or waiting for the house to settle at night. And because those thoughts arrive in our own voice, we give them an authority they have not earned.

Jesus addressed this human habit long before there were bank applications or late-night messages. In Matthew 6:27, He asked, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” It is such a plain question that we can miss how deeply it reaches. He was not mocking people who were afraid. Earlier in the same teaching, He spoke about food, clothing, and the needs of ordinary life. He understood that people had genuine reasons to be concerned. What He challenged was the belief that carrying those concerns endlessly in our minds somehow makes us more capable of surviving them.

I have noticed that worry can feel strangely like loyalty. A mother worries because she loves her child. A husband worries because he wants to protect his family. Someone looking for work worries because the people depending on them matter. The concern comes from a decent place, and that makes it hard to set down. We may even feel guilty when we laugh at dinner or enjoy a quiet morning, as though being peaceful for an hour means we have stopped caring. But love does not become more sincere when it exhausts us. Responsibility does not become more effective when it keeps us awake.

There is a gentleness in the question Jesus asked that I don't want to lose. He invites us to examine what fear is asking us to carry. Not everything we feel is something we must obey. A thought can deserve our attention without deserving our trust. When that bill is waiting on the kitchen table, it still needs to be dealt with. There may be a call to make, a payment plan to request, or an uncomfortable conversation to have. Those are real steps. The imagined collapse of an entire future is not one of them.

And perhaps the first bit of relief is not a sudden answer or a miraculous change in circumstances. Perhaps it is sitting back down at that same table, seeing the bill for exactly what it is, and refusing to let one difficult page tell you the ending of your life.

Chapter 2: The Silence You Keep Trying to Interpret

A parent sends a message to a grown child on a Tuesday afternoon. Nothing dramatic, just a question about how the week is going. By dinner, there is no reply. The phone stays on the counter while the parent prepares a meal, but it is checked between nearly every task. By evening, the silence has acquired a meaning. Maybe the child is pulling away. Maybe something was said at the last family gathering that caused offense. Maybe the relationship is changing, and nobody has the courage to say so. The next morning, a reply arrives: “Sorry, long day at work. I'm okay.” A whole night of fear was built around an ordinary delay.

This is one reason overthinking can be so hard to recognize. It often begins with love. We worry about people because their lives matter to us. We remember their disappointments, notice changes in their voices, and want to protect them from making painful mistakes. That kind of attention can be beautiful. But somewhere along the way, concern can become a belief that we must anticipate every difficulty for another person. We start listening for trouble even when nothing has been said, and we interpret every gap in communication as a warning.

The trouble is that other people have inner lives we cannot see. They are tired sometimes. They are distracted. They need privacy. They may be working through questions they are not ready to discuss. When we fill those unknown spaces with our fears, we can begin responding to an imagined version of the person instead of the real one. A simple call becomes an interrogation. A kind question carries an accusation beneath it. We ask whether everything is all right, but the other person hears that we have already decided something must be wrong.

There is an encounter in Mark chapter 10 that has stayed with me for a different reason. A wealthy young man approached Jesus, wanting to know what he should do to inherit eternal life. Jesus spoke to him about what he lacked and invited him to follow. The young man went away grieving because he had great possessions. Mark tells us that Jesus looked at him and loved him. That detail matters to me. Jesus cared deeply about the man, told him the truth, and still allowed him to make a decision Jesus did not choose for him.

I don't think that story means we should stand aside when someone is in danger or refuse to help people who need us. It means that loving someone does not give us ownership of every decision they make. Jesus did not turn love into pressure. He spoke honestly and left room for a human response. That can be a difficult example to follow, especially when we believe we can see a mistake coming and desperately want to prevent it.

There are practical ways to make room for that difference. If someone has not answered, you can send one caring message rather than six anxious ones. If a relationship feels strained, you can ask a direct question and be willing to hear an answer you did not expect. If someone you love is making a choice you disagree with, you can explain your concern without rehearsing the argument in your head for days. None of these actions guarantees the outcome you want. They do give the relationship a better chance than fear-driven assumptions.

And there will be times when a conversation genuinely reveals a problem. Perhaps a son is struggling and has been afraid to say so. Perhaps a friend is hurt. Perhaps a family member needs more help than anyone realized. In those moments, the hours we spent guessing still cannot replace the work of listening. We have to meet the actual person in front of us, not the worst possibility we prepared ourselves to face.

What I take from Jesus here is not a command to care less. It is permission to love someone without pretending I can live their life for them. I can offer my presence, my honesty, and my help. I can pray for wisdom before I speak. But I cannot make uncertainty disappear by watching a phone, rewriting a conversation, or imagining every road another person might take. Sometimes trust begins with giving someone enough room to tell us what is true.

Chapter 3: When Yesterday Refuses to Let You Move Forward

The mistake is already in the email when you notice it. You are at work, opening the document you sent the day before, and there it is: a number that should have been checked again. For a moment you just stare at the screen. Then your mind begins gathering evidence against you. You remember another mistake from last year, an awkward meeting, a time somebody questioned your judgment. By lunch, you are no longer dealing with one incorrect number. You are quietly asking yourself whether you have ever been as capable as people think you are.

There is a particular kind of overthinking that turns backward instead of forward. Rather than imagining disasters that might happen, it takes something that already happened and makes you live through it again and again. You remember what you said at a family gathering. You think of the impatient way you spoke to someone who needed kindness. You wonder whether a different decision years ago would have given your family an easier life. The past becomes a place you visit so often that it begins to feel more real than the room you are sitting in.

I don't want to dismiss regret. Sometimes regret is telling us the truth. We did speak harshly. We should have been more careful. We neglected something important. An honest conscience is a gift because it gives us an opportunity to change. But when we keep replaying the same moment without making anything right, regret has stopped guiding us. It has become another way of standing still. We can become so focused on proving how sorry we are that we never get around to doing what sorrow is supposed to lead us toward.

That brings me to Zacchaeus, a man Jesus encountered in Luke chapter 19. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector, someone whose work made him deeply unpopular. He climbed a tree to see Jesus passing by, perhaps never expecting to be noticed. But Jesus stopped, looked up, called him by name, and told him that He would stay at his house. The crowd complained because Jesus was going to be a guest of a man they considered a sinner.

I find that encounter remarkable because Jesus didn't require Zacchaeus to spend the day making speeches about how terrible he was. His willingness to receive Jesus led to something concrete. Zacchaeus said he would give half his possessions to the poor and repay fourfold anyone he had cheated. Those are not vague feelings of remorse. They are costly decisions about how to live differently. Jesus responded by speaking of salvation coming to that house. The story gives us a picture of mercy that does not ignore wrongdoing and repentance that does not remain trapped in shame.

Think about what that could mean for the person sitting in front of the computer with the incorrect number. The useful next step is to tell the right person, correct the document, and deal with any consequences honestly. It may be uncomfortable. It may affect how others see you for a while. But the hours you spend calling yourself a failure do not correct a single digit. They only make it harder to bring your full attention to the responsibility in front of you.

The same truth reaches into more personal places. If you hurt someone, a sincere apology may matter more than another week of rehearsing why you did it. If you have neglected a relationship, your presence today may matter more than a private promise that you will never make another mistake. And if the damage cannot be repaired the way you wish, you can still learn to be a more thoughtful person because of what happened. The person you were on your worst day does not have to dictate every decision you make from this one onward.

Of course, there are situations we cannot settle with a corrected email or an apology. Some people will not forgive us. Some losses remain losses. I would never tell you that trusting Jesus removes consequences or gives us the right to demand a second chance from someone we hurt. What faith can give us is the courage to face the truth without surrendering our whole identity to it. We can admit what happened, accept what belongs to us, and still believe that God has more for us to learn and more good for us to do.

I think that is where the question Jesus asked about worry finally becomes very personal. What is this thought adding to the life I am living? If it is helping me see the truth, make amends, or choose more wisely, I need to listen. If it is simply making me relive the same fear or shame, I can stop treating it as a duty. I can turn my attention toward the person who needs me, the work that remains, and the opportunities for kindness that are still here.

There may be an open document on your screen, a difficult conversation you have been avoiding, or an old memory that still changes how you see yourself. You do not have to pretend any of it is easy. You can begin with something smaller and more honest: face what is true, do what love and responsibility require, and let the rest of the story remain unwritten. Jesus never asked us to punish ourselves into becoming better people. He called people into a different way of living, and that invitation still stands when we have spent far too long fighting inside our own minds.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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