“Wanna’ go for a walk and fight?” I asked Eric one Sunday morning. It was mid-pandemic, our business had hit several major speed bumps, and we had two teenagers living under our roof – one of whom was supposed to be away at college. Tempers were short and tensions were high.

Eric looked at me and sighed. “Okay,” he said.

For several months, Eric and I had been heading out on walks together, usually two-and-a-half miles down a favorite dirt road. Invariably, I was the one who suggested it and often our conversations deteriorated into disagreements, arguments, or stormy silence. Eric had come to dub them “walk and fights.” And yet, we kept taking those walks together.

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Some days we need to be reminded that less is more and that rest and recovery are as important as work and effort. But. Other days we need to be reminded that doing the work is essential to accomplishing the goals because meaningful accomplishments require meaningful work.

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What happened to September? I mean seriously. And I know it’s not just me, pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to shares the feeling that September went by so fast that it feels like it didn’t even happen!

Now, I know that there is a ton of research that tries to explain why time seems to go faster the older we get. Among the “explanations” I’ve heard . . .

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Let me start by saying … I am not a relationship expert. At all. But as Eric and I just celebrated (and by celebrated, I mean exchanged sweet cards and otherwise ignored it, ‘cause we aren’t great at celebrating things), our 26th anniversary it’s got me reflecting on what it takes to maintain a good relationship over the course of more than two decades. Here are three thoughts.

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I don’t recall where we were and I don’t recall what we were doing. I don’t remember how old I was, or whether this was during the decade in which I was practicing law in New York City, or the two decades I was raising kids while building businesses. Whenever it was, I have no doubt that I was busy. Probably too busy.

“The key to happiness,” my brilliant and insightful friend Lorelei said, “is being the right amount of busy.”

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When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle owned a summer home in a family-centric community on Fire Island. For those unfamiliar, Fire Island is a tiny barrier island off Long Island. Accessible by ferry, there are no cars permitted on the island. People rarely wear shoes. You can walk from the bay to the ocean in minutes and your shopping options, at least near their home, are limited to one general store, one alarmingly overpriced grocer and an ice cream shack. Oh, and a liquor store.

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I'm writing this sitting in an airport, waiting for a delayed flight, and thinking about the fact that two things can be true. I want to go and I don’t want to go. I want to spend time with my parents, whom I love, and I want to stay home with my daughter, whom I also love. I want adventure, but I want rest. I want to work, and I want a day off. I want to walk, and I want to lay on the couch and read a book. I feel sadness, and I also feel joy. Two things can be true.

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February is the shortest month of the year. A mere 28 days. And those days remain short and, in much of the country, cold and gray. For many, February is not easy. But maybe there is a different way to look at February. Maybe we can look at February not just as a month to be endured, but as a challenge to be accepted. 28 days. The shortest month of the year. Perhaps we can consider February a sprint, not a marathon.

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I remember one day vividly. I was feeling good and went into the gym excited to get back to my routine. I had one wrong move and my back said “heck no” to the specific workout I had planned. I was frustrated and angry and slammed out the door. But then I paused—literally paused mid-step—and asked myself “what can I do?”

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While you don’t have to wait for a birthday, a milestone, or a new year to set goals or make changes in your life, there is something about those moments that provide an opportunity for reflection, contemplation and planning. 

The start of a new year presents the perfect opportunity for that. Over the past decade, I’ve been working hard to align how I actually live with how I want to live. Turns out, that is more difficult than it sounds. Against the backdrop of society, media and other people’s expectations, developing clarity on what is truly most important to you and how you want to live your life is hard. And even once you’ve found that clarity, avoiding letting the daily whirlwind of life pull you far off course, well that’s hard too.

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For years, okay, decades, my New Year’s resolution would involve weight. Which seems ridiculous, because when I look back at photos from my 20s, well, though I’ve never been “skinny” and heaven knows I’ve never been tall, I was fine.. Looking at that one photo on a sailboat in Mexico when I was 24, I maybe was better than “fine.” But as a female living in a society fueled by media and marketing, I couldn’t help but chase an airbrushed ideal. I suppose being put on my first formal diet by a doctor when I was eight years old didn’t help.

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There’s a connection between physical challenge and mental resilience.

The first time you walk a 5k, climb a mountain, walk unaided to the mailbox, do one pushup or fifty, or complete a marathon, you discover that you are stronger than you were yesterday and can do more than you thought you could.
Seems to me that we readily accept that challenges can make us stronger physically. Yet we don’t think as much about how that strength translates from our bodies to our brains. But it does. How? Why? So many reasons. Here are two.

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Here’s the secret: balance, especially during the holidays, is impossible. There will be times you will be running around, battling crowds, baking cookies at 11:00 or wrapping gifts after midnight. The trick is to limit the craziness to that which you can manage, set appropriate expectations, remember what the holidays are truly about and embrace a little bit of holiday nuttiness. Here’s how.

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By day two, we knew we needed a new word. “Wow” just wasn’t going to cut it. And yet, as we turned each corner on our 11-mile hike through the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, no fewer than five of the ten women who comprised our group exclaimed “wow!” The vistas, the rock formations, the slot canyons, the determined plants growing out of the desert floor, the expansive brilliant blue of the sky. Wow.

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We tend to keep things pretty tidy around here. I’m not a big fan of “stuff” and clutter and, fortunately, neither is Eric. But despite our best efforts, things have a way of piling up and getting ahead of us. Take the kitchen cabinet next to the sink.

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I often think about things I need to do and how I want to feel in terms of a pretty simple energy equation: energy output + energy input = vitality. Mastering your personal three-step energy equation is key.

Step one is recognizing what is output. What depletes your energy and saps your strength? The goal is not necessarily to avoid these things because some of the most wonderful things in life and some of the most important work you do will likely require energy output. Consider hosting a big family Thanksgiving.

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Anyone who watches television, reads magazines or scrolls social media could reasonably assume that the key to health, happiness and longevity is taking 10,000 steps each day. It is typically what it takes to close the rings on your smartwatch and lets you check the box of a job well done on your to-do list.

Where did that 10,000 step-goal come from? Marketing, not medicine. In the 1960s, a Japanese company created a pedometer that they named Manpo-kei, which translates to “10,000 steps meter.” They marketed that device on the premise that 10,000 steps a day was the ideal number for health and wellness. Somehow, that idea spread and stuck.

Is it true? Is 10,000 daily steps the magic number?

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When I was young, my parents would occasionally go off on a weekend adventure, leaving me with one aunt or another. They would pack their toothbrushes and a change of clothes and head out with only a vague destination in mind. “We always find someplace interesting,” my mother would say. At the time, there were no cell phones, no internet and no GPS blinking from their dashboard. Occasionally, they would actually get lost, but somehow, they always managed to make it home by Sunday evening.

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I love what feels like a fresh start and a clean slate and the start of the month always feels that way to me. Here are three things I do to kick off the month.

1. I rewrite the ten things on my dream list. Yes, I have a list of ten things that I will have in my dream life. When I first developed the list, which took several weeks to get right, I realized that at least half of them were things I could have right away, just by changing my perspective or where I put my attention.

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I apologize in advance for asking you such a difficult question, but the first Key to Happiness is knowing what makes you happy. Now, before you throw up your hands in frustration and cry, “but I don’t know, that’s the problem,” I hear you. I know. Many of us have been so busy living, surviving, striving and driving that we’ve lost sight of the things that make us happy. Discovering -- and rediscovering -- those things will be a journey. But let’s begin with what you know already.

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