Evening, dads.
Last week I told you the reset still counts at 40 percent. This week it had to count from the road.
Work sent me to Chicago Thursday through Saturday. The parent-teacher conferences got handled Wednesday, before I rolled out. My wife held the home front the rest of the way. If you have a partner who picks up your share without making you pay for it in guilt, you already know what that is worth. Say so out loud. I did.
Here is what I learned this week, and it is not the lesson I wanted: the reset is not a place. It is not my kitchen table on a Sunday night. It is twenty honest minutes wherever you are, with whatever week you actually had, not the one you planned in October.
The reset, road version
Same five moves as last week. This is what they looked like away from home:
- Schedule first. The week after a trip is where trips do their real damage. Mine is already on the calendar: work, the kids’ stuff, and two things for the business I am building that I will not move. Nothing else gets a claim until those are standing.
- One money look. Three days of travel spending, checked once, honestly, no pretending the gas station counts as groceries.
- One gear check. Mine was literal this week: warm layers in Chicago wind that felt like the low 30s, even when the forecast said high 40s. Dress for what it feels like, not what the app says. That rule works for more than weather.
- One thing for the house. Delayed, not deleted. It is waiting for me at home, and it gets done this week, one step.
- One thing that is just yours. Mine was rest. Not a workout, not a project. A dad who keeps redlining on the road is not tough, he is just borrowing from next week.
The read this week
If you missed it, start where Letter #1 pointed you: the piece on why the workout is not about the workout, and what a heart scare did to my excuses. It is still the truest thing on this site, and this week, resting on purpose in a hotel room instead of grinding, I had to live it instead of just write it.
This week’s one move
Do your reset where you are, with the week you actually had. Hotel room, truck cab, kitchen table at midnight. Twenty minutes. Five moves. The week is coming either way, and it does not care where you were standing when you met it. Meet it standing anyway.
See you next Sunday.
Joshua
Second Shift Dad