A Reflection of 2024

I find myself walking through a mist. Dark shapes surround me—trees, stone figures. Buddha statues. It is quiet. Profoundly quiet. Yet not lifeless. There’s a pulse, a presence. It is dawn—the first light after utter darkness.

I am in Plum Village, the mindfulness practice center founded by the Zen Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh. It lies outside the town of Thénac, in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. Despite its serene countryside setting—rolling hills, vineyards, and silent forests—I have only ever visited it in winter. In the thick fogs and deep quiet of that season.

I’ve been here several times, but one visit stands out. It was during a period of burnout, a mental breakdown so severe I could barely function. I couldn’t do anything; I could only lie in bed. Back then, I met Thích Nhất Hạnh himself. His quiet, profound presence and the practices I learned at Plum Village became a lifeline. They guided me back toward the light after the darkness, helping me see dawn and rise again. It wasn’t a sudden transformation but a slow, steady return through the simplest of things.

It was the rituals—small, deliberate acts of being present—that brought me back. Daily walks where each step became a meditation. Moments of silence that softened the noise in my mind. Cooking together, where chopping vegetables became a practice of care. Cleaning together, where even the mundane took on a sense of purpose.

These small daily practices anchored me, each one a gentle reminder of what it means to truly live. To be present. To be connected. To breathe, even in the face of chaos

Back then, I struggled to understand the point of learning these practices. Ultimately, I thought, it didn’t really matter if I could meditate or practice mindfulness at Plum Village. After all, it’s almost impossible not to practice mindfulness there—when everyone around you is fully immersed in it, living it moment by moment.

The real challenge wasn’t in sitting on a cushion surrounded by like-minded practitioners. The real challenge was taking it home. Bringing meditation, conscious living, and mindfulness into the chaos of the real world. How was I supposed to do that?

Over the past years, I’ve been consistently failing at it. Again and again, I’ve found myself unable to integrate these practices into daily life. Unable to sustain the rhythm of mindfulness amidst the noise and busyness of everything else.

The past few years have been a whirlwind—a blur of startup life, constant travel, and relentless focus on career and fundraising. Jumping between continents, never settling anywhere, building a life centered around fleeting relationships that required little commitment. Then came the children. The career break—or stop, or whatever it was—all of that. Moving countries. Portugal. Rethinking life. Being back in Denmark. Figuring it out. Doing. Being. Trying to make sense of it all. The chaos had slowly returned.

But in the effort to make sense, it often felt as though the very meaning I was searching for slipped away, like sand through my fingers—or fog, intangible and fleeting. I’ve felt an ache to find grounding, a base, a bannister, to grasp something tangible, to hold it close and understand the world around me. Yet every time I thought I was closer to clarity, it evaporated.

Struggling to find signal amidst the noise, drowning in distractions. The theft of focus. My own inability to create, to be. The wars. The politics that I struggle to find any sense in. The nature falling apart. The extreme polarisation of opinions. Despite the theoretical sense of agency I believe I should have, I feel I have none. Instead, I am captive to my habits—consumption, eating, doing—all of it eroding my sense of self. Habits that, little by little, seem to be chipping away at my being. I question the values that drive us, the reasons behind our choices, and the systems we so readily participate in. So much of it seems utterly insane, as though we are moving through life on autopilot, driven by patterns and norms that no longer serve us—or perhaps never did. Why do we do the things we do? What are we really striving for? And how do we rediscover a deeper sense of purpose amid the madness? If there is any of all.

As an answer to it all, I came across some wisdom from the late Gary Snyder the other day:

"All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the religious institutions originally worked with: reality. Reality-insight says … master the twenty-four hours. Do it well, without self-pity. It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One move is not better than another, each can be quite boring, and they both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms. Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick—don't let yourself think these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape from so that we may do our ‘practice’ which will put us on a ‘path’—it is our path.”

And then I realized—it was never about taking the practices home. It was never about trying to replicate the meditation sessions or the yoga routines from Plum Village. It was never about trying to separate "real life" from "mindfulness practice." It has always been about daring to love the simple things and embracing them as the essence of life itself.

We need to be fully involved in life, in the world, to reclaim that agency, to make something tangible out of the fog that so often seems to slip through our fingers.

Today, many of us, or at least I, live what I’d call an outsourced life. We outsource childcare, food preparation, even our connections to one another. We fill our days with conveniences: ordering takeout instead of cooking, scrolling on our phones instead of truly connecting, delegating emotional labor to someone else while we chase the illusion of "freedom." These choices promise ease, but they distance us from what makes life real, meaningful, and whole.

Take parenting, for example. Parenting is not always fun. In fact, most of the time it’s not. If you’ve ever woken up every hour of the night to soothe a baby or had a toddler wide awake at 1 AM and 3 AM, you know the true meaning of sleep deprivation. Parenting taught me what it means to feel completely emotionally drained, to be so tired you can't think straight—or think at all. It’s those evenings when you’re utterly spent but still present, still giving, that redefine your understanding of resilience.

These moments—when you’re physically exhausted, mentally spent, but still showing up—aren’t distractions from life. They are life.

It’s not just parenting, either. It’s partnership. It’s those long conversations after a hard day, sharing the load, showing up for each other, building a life together moment by moment. It’s family—creating rituals, finding beauty in shared chaos, and showing up even when it’s messy and hard. It’s easy to opt out of these things. instead of having the hard conversations.. I mean, it is easy to look away, to not listen. To divorce. I mean, these days it seems that sticking together is becoming more an exception than a norm. And honestly, it’s easy to understand why. But what is the point of it all if you do? It is in the struggle, the work, that meaning is born.

Leaning into reality instead of avoiding it—cooking the meal instead of ordering in, even if it’s just something simple. Joining the bedtime routine, even when you’re tired. Cleaning up the mess, listening when someone needs to talk, being present in the unremarkable moments. Answering the friend. Inviting over for dinner, even if it is significantly easier not to do it. Creating and realising a project. A dream. Doing the work. Each of these acts, repetitive and ordinary as they might seem, creates love and connection. They build a life that is rich and whole.

In the end, it circles back to what Thích Nhất Hạnh taught me at Plum Village. Mindfulness and conscious living aren’t about what happens in a monastery; they’re about how we live in the world. These moments—the small, repetitive acts of daily life—are the real practice. They are the path.

What an odd, relieving, and yet heavy realization to carry.

Yesterday, we spent New Year’s Eve working at a bar. It felt surreal. The last time I worked a shift like this was over 14 years ago when I was hustling to pay off a significant debt. Back then, my days were filled with 12-hour shifts that left me completely physically exhausted. But the exhaustion came with a sense of grounding, even clarity—my sleep was deep and undisturbed. It was grueling work, and anyone who's worked in a kitchen knows what I mean.

Fast forward to yesterday.

We were (and still are) on a Danish island, with no concrete plans, just the quiet of the season and a vague sense of possibility. We happened to know one of the local restaurants, owned by another entrepreneurial couple with two small children, and asked if they needed an extra hand—or two. They did. So from 9 PM to 1 AM, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We served dishes, cleared tables, made drinks, and did what needed to be done. By the time the clock struck midnight, we found ourselves welcoming the new year with a group of strangers who, through the shared experience of work, no longer felt like strangers at all.

This year, we greeted the New Year by working. By doing the work. By practicing. And as I reflect on that, I hope this becomes the theme for the year ahead: doing the work to reclaim agency, piece by piece. Because in the end, I’m realizing that this is what it means to be truly present in life. To be implicated is to embrace the fullness of life instead of shying away from it. To prepare the meal instead of ordering in, no matter how simple. To be present for bedtime routines, to listen even when exhaustion creeps in, to tidy the mess instead of longing for it to disappear.

So for this year, may we find the courage to embrace it all—the simple, the messy, and the real - and do the work required to be fully implicated in life.

Happy New Year !