The Intake

Bombs don't build democracies

2026-03-03T12:09:17-06:00

Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

—George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

We’re at war with Iran. Today, Americans are directly and indirectly using their tax dollars to bomb and kill people over 6000 miles away. Some of those people are wretched men who have held power for generations, using religious fundamentalism as a political tool for control of women, minorities, and even the region. However, there was only one Ayatollah Khomeini. He is dead now, but his movement lives on.

Now, the killing includes children at schools, patients at hospitals, and everyday citizens (i.e., these aren’t combatants, rather they are victims).

America has a habit of distancing ourselves from violence. Iran won’t be the first or last — it’s no exception. We turn away, turn off, and turn down. We use language like "collateral damage” or say that the enemy was “hiding behind children.” We obfuscate and distort the reality for our own palatable consumption and propaganda across the world.

You might be inclined to ask: Well, did Iranians want their ruthless theocrat to die? Sure, likely most of them, but you’re focused on the wrong question. Instead, I’d implore you to ask: Will this one dead theocrat be effective in creating a fairer regime in Iran?

Regardless of Iranians’ and the larger diaspora of Persians’ opinions of the Ayatollah, bombs don’t build democracies. A munition launched from a ship, plane, or neighboring country cannot change hearts and minds on the ground. Top-down will never be as powerful as bottom-up.

We Americans don’t have a good track record of removing dictators, authoritarians, and despots. The truth is right there in front of us: we cannot topple a dictator to create a liberal, functioning democracy. To kidnap or kill a man using our military might remove an individual strongman, but it’s ironically anti-democratic to do so. The people haven't voted for this war — neither in Iran nor America.

Like taking a quick pill rather than doing the long work, we have decided to kill over convince. Again and again and again throughout history. We are not bombing people into change, as that requires diligent, tireless, and effective effort. That work — we’ve seemingly decided — is just too damn hard and frankly doesn’t pay our military industrial complex enough.

Bombs pay the bills today, while handshakes and changed minds take people on the ground working for years. Bombs pay Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman so they can achieve record years. Bombs pay politicians to run campaigns in support of this entire system.

Today, I urge you to call your Representative and Senators and demand we “Stop Unauthorized Military Strikes on Iran.” I implore you to donate to the ACLU and International Red Cross and Red Crescent. And come midterms, please vote to make a change.

Tell me, did I fail?

2026-02-03T15:28:07-06:00

Poutine — typically a porridge of fries, gravy, and cheese curds — is a dish best served after a night of heavy drinking. Sober, it’s like a MAC truck plowing into your stomach and dumping anvils down your intestines. Despite the gastronomic assault, I love it, as I do the city it hails from: Montreal.

I fell in awe with the food, bilingual French-English culture, and lifestyle the moment I first visited the city. It sucked me into this vortex of la belle vie and le bien commun — the good life and the common good, respectively. The pace of life — time for coffee and a quick snack, grabbing a world-class meal with friends, and walking aimlessly — was intoxicating.

That first encounter with the province of Quebec did a number on me. Until then, I had never really thought about learning French, but always thought it beautiful and appreciated how it's built into English (e.g., chic, entrepreneur, cafe). Suddenly, I wanted to acquire the skills to speak and return to the City of a Hundred Steeples. I could see myself living there (I confess, I still dream of it).

I came home, tapped open Duolingo, and studied. The language app was helpful at learning new words and an occasional phrase or two, but not really helpful for conversations. Eventually, my practice ended.

During COVID, I dipped my toes into hiring a tutor to meet with me online and practice. Combined with Duolingo, I actually had a dream in French. But this, too, came to a conclusion.

A couple of years ago, we tried to get a French tutor and speaker to visit the house and build skills for the entire family, but that didn’t lead anywhere.

I took a continuing education course in French where the average age was likely 60 years old, leaving me the child at 34. I enjoyed being in a class-like environment for learning, but noticed that I wasn’t getting enough practice outside the course. When the semester ended, I didn’t do anything.

Start, stop. Start, stop. Start, stop. I would feel inspired and act on it. When the wind in my sails changed directions, the apps, books, classes ceased.

As I detail my expedition in language learning, I wonder what words you might apply to yourself if you went through a similar journey — whether about learning a language, trying something different, or beginning a hard journey. Would you say you are trying to learn? Failing to learn? That you will try again? Or that you always give up?

Clients suffering from depression will — with near universality — say they failed. Moreover, they might say they failed, always fail, and shouldn’t have even tried because this is what always happens. Why try if the outcome is known failure?

Resilience sounds very different. Perhaps a client will say, “I stopped learning French, and I am going to continue” or “It’s okay that I struggled, and I’m looking for ways to pick it back up now.” Hope remains eternal despite ups and downs.

These reactions to the same event remind of the ancient Chinese parable titled, “The old man lost his horse.” In the story, a farmer loses his horse and neighbors provide well-meaning condolences. But the farmer wonders if there will be a “silver lining.” Eventually, the horse returns with a number of other horses. Again, neighbors are there to comment on the farmer’s great fortune. The farmer simply replies, "Who knows what misfortune this foretells?" Over and over again, the farmer is faced with a new challenge or opportunity, but meets the moment with a sort of appreciation that the future could hold anything — they’re not tied to any one direction and they don’t assign one to it.

When we use depressed language, we are fixed to the world being one way and have blinders on for anything but the bad potential, past, and present. It’s a type of confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy all wrapped in one. I tell my clients their “word-bank” (a nod to Mad-Libs) is filled with only a select few options from the English language — absent are words of praise, understanding, empathy, and encouragement. The depressed farmer sees every update as another thing proving why life is miserable and awful.

Ironically, it’s incredibly human to have this negative self-talk. Nearly every person with depression I have seen in this decade plus of work employs the same “tough” language, and plenty defend its use because they “deserve it” or are concerned about becoming “complacent” if they don’t. In provocative sessions, I ask clients to role-play and talk to me with their inner voice — to direct it at me. Most squirm at the thought of telling me I’m awful, worthless, or a failure. They are better friends to others than themselves.

Their homework — ridiculously simple, while painfully hard to reproduce — is to ask themselves two questions. “Would I say this to a friend?” Followed by, “If not, then what?” The expectation I put forth is to actually model what they would say to a friend on paper or aloud. When we shape these reactions, we stand a chance at lasting change.

When I look at my efforts to learn French and return to Montreal, I can hear my inner voice say I’m a “failure,” should “stop trying,” “what’s the point,” or “you’ll just quit again in the future.” But I also know I’d never say that to my wife, children, a family member, a friend — shit, I wouldn’t say that to a stranger on the street. So why I am giving more grace to a stranger than myself?

No, what I’d say to a friend is that there’s always today — or tomorrow — to continue. It’s okay to have paused. What might motivate you to start again? There’s opportunity in this interpretation of self.

Maybe I can still learn French.

When to breakup with your country

2026-01-26T12:33:49-06:00

On Saturday morning, I gathered with my family, enjoying time with neighbors. We made coffee, shared small talk, and watched as our children looked at an interactive globe we’d bought for our son’s birthday.

You spin it around and point a little stylus at countries, landmarks, and geographic features. Our son likes to explain how Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal, and how earthquakes create tsunamis that impact Japan. How his brain retains these facts, I do not know. But he’s also learned about conquest and imperialism by simply asking, “Why is France in Europe, but also in the middle of the ocean?”

Globes and maps have a funny way of showing our scars — a complex history etched into the surface of our planet. We have so many arbitrary borders and leaders. Why does Denmark manage Greenland? How did Easter Island become Chilean? Israel and Palestine. Iraqis and Kurds. Davids and Goliaths are everywhere.

In this pleasant and peaceful moment with neighbors, the globe was merely an educational toy.

After our neighbors left, we returned to our phones and watched videos of a man murdered by Border Patrol agents in… Minnesota. What border were they defending? The fleeting peace was gone. Adding horror to the nightmare, a government apparatus designed to propagate lies, obfuscate, and distract quickly assembled and told us that we shouldn’t believe our own eyes. Many fellow Americans still haven’t seen the moment-by-moment execution; they have only been presented the “facts” our administration wants them to know.

We were told this VA ICU nurse was “brandishing a weapon,” that he was “Antifa,” and part of a “highly organized” network of rioters. We were told he threatened the lives of ICE and Border Patrol agents. We were told that the protesters — human beings out in the frigid temps of Minneapolis’ winter — are paid actors and provocateurs looking to sow discontent.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
-George Orwell, 1984

A lump filled my throat and traveled down to my abdomen — it’s just been sitting there for days. Living in this America is an onslaught to the nervous system. I am frequently caught between survival responses: Should I fight, flee, or freeze? My neurological system is inundated by this near-constant stream of governmental harm against my fellow Americans.

Alex Pretti and Renée Good were both 37.

It crosses my mind that I will be 37 in three weeks. I have donated, spoken out online, and rallied in person against this administration. But peaceful protest gets you killed these days — never mind the First (or Second) Amendment.

What does my country think of me? What does my country think of the millions of people who have flooded the streets of the Twin Cities in recent days to say, “ICE out”? Are we all paid protesters trying to smear a “good” president?

These questions and the closeness of these killings swirl around in my head at all hours now. This is what it means to be American. We live amidst such wealth and privilege, yet the government chooses to use it to kill and kidnap people in foreign lands and our own backyards. We could be affording healthcare and improving education; instead, we are dismantling it all for war at home and abroad.

I watched Pretti get shot ten times and hesitated to tell my partner about it, but I couldn’t help myself. Eventually, she saw it for herself. Silence fell over us both. I turned to her and said, “We need to talk about our red line.”

I talk about interpersonal boundaries like this frequently at work. The best example I was ever taught uses a simple analogy of a traffic light. Each color helps us assess our boundaries with others. Often, I provide examples without setting expectations for what their specific lines should be. For instance, a couple of red lights I often hear are “If my partner cheats on me with another person, it’s over” or “If they ever physically hit me, I’m done.” I explain to clients that red means you’re supposed to stop, but some people run red lights anyway.

Yellow lights may be areas of caution such as name-calling or a partner looking at their phone without permission. This might not signal the end of the relationship, but we should definitely be questioning things — slowing down.

Green is overlooked most of the time, but I emphasize with my clients that knowing what’s working well and leaning into that is just as important. Maybe a partner surprises you with flowers, takes an hour to just be there for you and listen to your hard day, or gives a hug. They don’t have to be major overtures, but they communicate safety and trust.

By creating traffic light examples, we turn fleeting thoughts and uncertainty into concrete lists that can be cited by the client in the future. If a partner or colleague or family member should cross a boundary and move from yellow to red, perhaps it’s time to “stop the car and get out.”

The traffic light analogy was intended to be employed with interpersonal relationships — not an entire country. My wife and I hadn’t created one for America. Ten years ago, who would’ve thought we would be here, needing to define our red lines? Even after convening and trying to talk, we struggled to make it concrete. What does it mean to have a red light with a country? We were pained to completely outline what our limits would be, but there was something in Pretti’s murder that haunted us.

The future is darker suddenly. My family immigrated from Europe in the early 20th century, making a brave and courageous move for a better life. My wife moved to Canada from Iran when she was ten. The fall of the Shah, followed by a theocratic autocracy, destabilized the country and disparaged its women. The country is still unstable today, with authorities killing thousands over the last couple months. I know it’s in our blood to move when necessary.

We’ve talked about staying and digging in. Or leaving and starting over in Canada. She’s a citizen of our northern neighbor, as are our two children. Moving there would be easier for us than most Americans. We’d be able to buy property without the Foreign Buyer Ban (aka, “Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act”). Our professions would require significant licensing burdens, but our American degrees are transferable.

Then, we look around our neighborhood and broader community — at real friends and family. They are close by, and we don’t know what we’d do without them. We are here in America, not because its marketed veneer of success and power, but because this is where our people are.

Our community is here. Our cups of coffee and children’s playdates are here. To us, America isn’t a polished brand of achievement. It’s the place where my neighbors are texting in grief and unison to say: There is something deeply wrong here.

Every day brings another yellow line — warning signs of what’s to come. The greens seem lost to the past, and whether we stay or go, the red grows nearer.

How capable are our children?

2026-01-20T09:34:44-06:00

In May 2023, our family traveled to Denmark. I had recently turned 34, and this was my first trip to Europe. Meanwhile, my son was 1.5 years old. We were affording our child something our younger selves could’ve only dreamt of.

Countless areas of Denmark seemed designed specifically for families in mind, and even more, people seemed to help and accommodate children everywhere. The attendants at Copenhagen Airport ushered — literally, an attendant found us, brought us to a separate lane, and deposited us to the front. I thought we were in trouble, about to get robbed, or upsold some vip package. This service costs serious money in America — you'd have to be flying first-class.

There were highchairs in every restaurant. People ran over to assist us with our stroller on stairs, but it was rarely needed because the streets were fairly accessible. Family lanes in museums and event spaces allowed us to keep on whisking right through the lines. We felt like royalty and having a child didn't slow us down one bit; in fact, having him with us enhanced the entire experience.

Copenhagen was better than a spa day. Every block and neighborhood had something new to be seen (or eat). The streets felt safe to walk around and explore by foot for us adults and little ones, too. I could let my son off the invisible leash and breathe. Invariably, we’d run into another playground every block or so.

The Danish are famous for a kind of play and playground that many Americans would find horrifying. In fact, the concept of “Adventure” and “Junk” Playgrounds both have their roots in the Kingdom. Whether playing with hammers, knives, or climbing at frightening heights, by playing with risk the thinking goes that children learn to respect it. There's an emphasis on creative play with these everyday items, and helping them recognize limits. Parents are usually more hands-off — more trusting.

I came back to the States emboldened and excited to allow my son the freedom he enjoyed in Scandinavia. We hopped around our home city, played on playgrounds, and I let my little one do some leading — walking a bit ahead of us. Maybe we could bring a little bit of it back home?

This idea of children exploring on their own (even when parents or guardians are nearby) is seen as a novelty in much of the world — it makes for good TV. In fact, "Old Enough!" has aired for years and highlights Japanese and Canadian children walking around doing chores, picking up ice cream, and asking for help from shopkeepers near their homes. The show constantly highlights how our children are highly capable — we just need to trust them.

I wanted that for my son. We continued our stroll. Then, a woman approached our son and with total panic in her voice, yelled, "Has anyone seen this child's mother?" I was 25 feet away at this point. I calmly walked over, but the woman appeared aghast that I had let my child walk on their own this distance. The terror astounded me, as I was right there. Where one person saw negligence, I saw freedom and autonomy for my child.

Over two years have passed since then. In this time, my son has grown up a lot. He's tall for his age and able to converse with adults pretty well. Undeterred by this previous encounter, I wanted to empower my child to take on more autonomous tasks (with me close by).

Recently, I tasked him with going into a pizza shop and picking up our online order. I explained he would need to ask for three pizzas under the name "Sam." The only question he had was whether he could order a cannoli. I smiled and said, "Only one," as I handed him my credit card.

We rehearsed what he needed to say over and over again. Three pizzas. Online order. Pick up. Sam. Oh, and you want one cannoli. He was excited and ready to go — enough practice, dad! He looked down at the credit card with superpower-like awe.

Many minutes passed. I stood outside the shop, peeking in through the windows, not wanting to ruin the experience. He sat there at a table by himself, and the shop manager had given him a pad and pen to draw on. I could see that the order was ready, but he wasn't moving. I grew concerned.

My "Old Enough!" experiment seemed to be failing miserably. I aborted the mission. I walked in to find my son patiently waiting. However, another parent seated next to him whispered to me, "I don't think they took him seriously, so they didn't take his order."

I suddenly flashed back to my own childhood. I remembered walking into a bakery around five years of age, standing in line, and then being skipped entirely. I stood there with money in hand, unable to employ it, as other adults passed me by to place their orders.

There was my son, minding the credit card, pizzas remaining on the takeout rack, and a cannoli sitting undisturbed behind glass. History was repeating itself.

I invited him to place the order with me seated at the table. He was hesitant suddenly as this wasn't the script we practiced; eventually, he worked up the courage and ordered the cannoli. It wasn’t quite what I pictured, but he did it.

We expect something less of children — whether as a society or as parents, specifically. What I see in these moments isn’t an individual failing to listen to a child; rather, this is a reflection of culture today. When compared to more equal countries such as Sweden or The Netherlands, Americans struggle to trust each other. Only 55 percent of Americans say most people can be trusted. When you compare this to places like The Netherlands (79%) or Sweden (83%), the level of trust in each other is stark.

When we fail to trust one another or treat it like a coin flip, it trickles down to our children. We need to begin building it for ourselves and our children. They are more capable than we even know — or allow.

Why burnout requires more, not less

2026-01-12T11:00:39-06:00

When I was a teenager, I dreamt of becoming an actor. I never told anyone. It wasn’t for fame or fortune; rather, the opportunity to wake up each day and be something different, develop a character, and find a new perspective on life. Actors will play librarians, psychologists, thieves, medical doctors, lawyers, writers, heroes, villains, and even presidents in a single career.

I remember watching The Firm, The Paper Chase, and A Few Good Men, dreaming of becoming a lawyer. I’d then segue to the life of a secret agent, watching The Bourne Identity or The Recruit. Then, a week later I might go on a stretch of ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and House, considering a medical profession. As silly as it sounds today, I could see a future career in each of these tv shows and movies as a child.

As a psychologist, my job has remained mostly same since roughly 2013 when I saw my first client. I sit down, mind my posture, nod, question, inform, and invite. It’s not simple, but there are patterns to it — like any job. These actions and words have evolved over time, but day in and day out this is generally my role. I traded the dream of an ever-changing profession for a single one. What made it easier was knowing that every client that walked through my door (or magically poofs online for telehealth) would have a different story.

Every single person was and is unique. I’ve worked with some who are homeless and broke, others who run multi-million dollar businesses and drive $250,000 G-wagons. There have been lawyers, writers, tech execs, students, and owners. Each person who is courageous enough to sit before me — mind you, I’m a stranger (initially) — and share vulnerable truths, I’ve been given a gift of a window into worlds I never understood or belonged to.

I live for this newness at every corner of my work. It’s kept me hooked and serving clients for over 12 years now. But even I struggle with the darkness of some of my sessions, eventually getting burnt out. There have been unspeakable, traumatic truths my clients shared over the years — ones I will go to my grave knowing and no one else. These moments bring a heaviness and gravity to my work that bleeds overnight or into the weekends. It keeps me up at night, wondering and worrying.

That’s part of the reason I started this site. I’m convinced there’s a little bit of me that didn’t become an actor, but still desired using my brain in a multiple ways every day. Having multiple outlets allows my clinical brain to relax slightly, and recognize another interest and passion. Nor am I alone in this need for diversity in our days.

A couple of weeks ago, I met with a burnt out, I’m-done-with-this client. Some of the details that follow have been changed to protect their identity. She talked about quitting her job, applying for disability, leaving her city, state — shoot, even the country. She was done, done, done. So we explored how she got here, feeling exhausted. The client explained how she always wished to be a business owner, but was now “stuck” in a demanding job, paying off student loans, and needing to support her family. There wasn’t any time or money to start a business. Her dreams had been permanently put on hold.

What I hear in these moments and resonate with is that life has various demands, which pull on our values. Perhaps what we find important is our family, social life, health, and/or our job. Unfortunately, we might find those things playing tug-of-war for attention. To invest more in our family, might come at the expense of the job. Spending more time at our work, might mean saying no to our friend’s party. At times, they feel like impossibly difficult decisions to make in our effort to make life purposeful.

In my clinical work, I frequently bring out a values assessment at these times or an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) tool known as the Bullseye Worksheet. Regardless of the specific method, each one is getting at the same two ideas: 1) what are your values? and 2) how closely aligned are you to your value today vs where you want to be in the future? Sometimes, that gap in values-congruent actions is large. Whenever that’s the case, my clients are usually feeling pretty awful about themselves. Using a Likert scale, I invite clients to consider how we might live into our values and close the gap — moving more into alignment.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, my clients voice the need to get more engaged — not less — with their communities, home life, and work. But that’s a puzzling idea when so many experience “exhaustion” and “burnout.” If we’re so tired, why do we say we need to do more? Don’t we just need sleep and time off? The answer is not simple, but quite interesting for most of the people I serve.

Oftentimes, what’s needed ironically is more engagement and time — with one big caveat. The increased effort needs to feel existentially fulfilling, meaningful, and values-congruent. When we’re engaged in life in those ways, we often experience a dividend of energy. When we put more time into our purposeful activities, we have more energy for the drudgery of work or challenges at home. Exhaustion is a paradox: when we work harder and in more fulfilling ways, we can actually create energy.

It’s easy for me to melt into the couch, binge-watching Owning Manhattan. And yet, I know this brings me further from what’s meaningful in my life, and even though it feels relaxing, might actually leave me more tired the next day.

My client needed to feel like she, too, was moving towards their values. We talked about her researching the formation of a business and coming up with a plan as homework. The emphasis was on treating our values as a journey, not a destination. Not a simple on/off switch of values, but one of degrees.

I never became an actor. Never got to experience my work emulating some new person or life. Instead, my clients have gifted me the privilege of being able to collaborate, join, and build with them as a psychologist. And I’ve learned with them about the importance of diversifying our life, finding our passions, and honing our crafts.

Now, how will you lean into your values today?

Fixing is an act of love

2026-01-05T09:53:32-06:00

Sweden is known for its meatballs, and we Americans likely know this because of IKEA. The build-it-yourself retailer’s blue and yellow buildings — a curtsey to the Swedish flag — house various culturally informed meals and eats. There are little gummy candies and fika-inspired treats and, yes, “Swedish meatballs.”

I know this, because I basically grew up in IKEA. Some of my first memories are from Småland’s ball pits and play areas. My parents would drop me off, get an hour or so to shop by themselves, and return to pick me up. I didn’t want to leave.

Like movie theater popcorn getting piped through every vent, IKEAs have a weirdly pleasant odor that hits you as soon you walk in. If I close my eyes right now and breathe deeply, I get an ode to furniture glue and fresh particle board.

When you buy something like a dresser, it comes in efficient boxes — all flat-packed and ready for transportation from floor to home. In all my years of buying their stuff, it’s always had every part I need — no missing screw, nut, or bolt. It’s a small miracle of industrialization and supply chain management.

However, to construct an IKEA bed frame or table may involve curse words, stubbed fingers, blisters, and growing humility. Once, I set up a piece of furniture outside my son’s room and then attempted to move it in only to realize it was too wide for the doorframe. I had to entirely deconstruct the piece and reconstruct it again.

All these inputs make for one brilliantly orchestrated assault on the senses. No wonder I feel these powerful emotions and memories from a store. Dubbed the IKEA effect, research suggests that people grow to appreciate and hold greater affinity with products they have a hand in making. Researchers in a 2011 study stated:

...we suggest that labor alone can be sufficient to induce greater liking for the fruits of one’s labor: Even constructing a standardized bureau, an arduous, solitary task, can lead people to overvalue their (often poorly constructed) creations.

Everything I’ve ever purchased and worked on hooks me. There are always imperfections, but I grow to appreciate those mistakes. They become something more than cheap, faux wood and vinyls — they are a labor of love from assembly to maintenance.

Now a homeowner, the volume of things needing to be repaired has skyrocketed. Yet, the amount of joy I get from working on these things has been intoxicating. No person should feel this level of pleasure when replacing GFCI outlets, getting a furnace running again, or wiring up a smart doorbell. But I do — it’s a high! Every time I accomplish another project, more of me feels invested in this house.

One of my friends, Josh, picked up on my investment early on — teasing me about loving all this housework. He’s right, I’ve liked it much more than I expected. Everything I fix, I love. There’s this pride of having completed something, but also the embrace of imperfection — of humanity, really.

Moving from the material world, the same is true for the immaterial relationships with those I cherish most. These connections with people are not without blemishes; they, too, are an imperfect, emotionally charged impact to the senses.

In the relational world, I trade slightly leaning bookcases for conflicts with my old roommate about cleaning the dishes. He'd ask me to clean up before rushing off to school — reasonable, but I kept dropping the ball. There's the fight I had with a former partner mere minutes before seeing a client — trying to be present for someone else's trauma while my own heart was still racing from the argument. After my clinical work, we returned to the issue and tried to solve our differences. It was hardly perfect, but the attempt mattered.

Laboring over these issues, sitting down with someone and committing to change, and working to improve communications have always borne success. There’s this powerful “IKEA effect” in relationships, too. When I contribute, invest, improve, and fix (as does my counterpart), I feel a greater sense of value in the connection.

It’s funny to think 30+ years ago I’d be learning these lessons from a ball pit in an IKEA. Now, I have this sudden craving to drive off to the store, but first, I have a few therapy sessions. Hejdå!

When will I die?

2025-12-29T16:04:00-06:00

I make it a habit not to lie to my son. Well, except for when it comes to Old Saint Nick.

We celebrated Christmas in our fractionally Jewish, half-Persian household. Both my wife and I tiptoed into the holiday lore with our four-year-old. It’s the first year our son “got” the idea of Christmas, and every step we took — every lie we shared — we committed further to the story of Santa.

He thirsted for more information on this Claus guy, asking warm-up questions:

“Where does Santa live?”

North Pole. Aced it!

“What do the elves do?”

Prep gifts and help Santa. Look at my encyclopedic knowledge of the holiday!

Do some children accept the answers to basic questions and move forward with their day? I cannot know, because I only have my kid and he’s poking me for more. I haven’t prepared for this exam. The inquiry gets progressively harder.

“How does Santa fly all around the world in one night?”

Uhhh, well, there’s this sleigh, reindeer, and magic. It’s like he already knows the physical improbability, as he carefully eyes me. He’s skeptical, but accepts the answer… for now.

“Will Santa die?”

We’ve faced a lot of these death questions from our son recently. He’s heard people at school talk about it and we’ve occasionally mentioned the loss of an animal or insect. But now we are circling around something unspeakably painful. I don’t want to talk about this with him nor share this with you.

I say, “No, Santa won’t die.”

Every response is an omission. A redirection. A lie. The joy and magic of Christmas are wonderful, but the lies create a moral injury. Is this what all parents feel?

My responses bring more questions. He understands in whatever way a four-year-old can that people die. In his mind, it’s logical: Why not Santa, too? But other things are lurking around the bend of this conversation. I can see where this is heading. I don’t want him to go there, but he does.

“When will I die?” he asks. His delivery is feathery and light — weightless. He might as well be asking if it’s sunny outside. My wife and I dissociate in our own ways. She walks away hurriedly, grabbing her face, shielding herself from us. I sit in horror.

It’s such an innocent, fair question, but our hearts bend and break. My chest hurts and I don’t want to speak. I pretend silence will make the question go away — along with the existential reality.

Lie after lie, we’ve crafted this fragile story about Santa. He believes us. I could do the same right now and say, “No, you won’t die. Mom and Dad won’t die.” If there were ever a time to fib, it would be here. I’ve been practicing over the last few weeks.

I can’t bear to lie about this, though. It's not some silly question about elves. Nor can I be as blasé as if it were merely a sequel to the Everybody Poops anthology. I’m guessing Everybody Dies would be far less popular in the “Children’s Books on the Body” category of Amazon.

I’d love to say to you dear reader, “Look at me! I’m a smart, perfect psychologist — watch how I astutely answered my son’s question.” But it wasn’t like that at all.

I was sad. My eyes welled up. I wanted to look away. I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I squeaked, “We never know when, but we all die someday.”

A bubble burst inside me. We weren’t playing house anymore. I’m not immortal and neither is my son. While logically obvious, it’s hellish to say. I wish I could truthfully tell him otherwise.

I still don’t have the perfect response, but struggle to lie to him about this. I cannot dig a hole of unreality for us to make believe. It hurts to pretend and it hurts to tell the truth. All hurts being equal, I’d rather choose the honest one today.

As kids do, he switched topics and asked for a bagel with cream cheese. It was like nothing happened. I, on the other hand, am still picking up the pieces.

How I selected my $1020/month health insurance

2025-12-22T15:31:59-06:00

Every month, I’ll spend $1020 in premiums for health and dental insurance in 2026. For readers with an employer subsidizing your plan, you might think that only a portion of this $1020 will be my responsibility. But I have some sad news: all of that is on our family. Even worse, millions more people are on the brink of losing their healthcare due to unsubsidized costs.

Today, I want to tell you about being self-employed, how I chose my plan, and how many of us will likely gamble with our health in 2026.

When I moved into private psychotherapy practice in 2020, I only needed a computer and Zoom. “Hanging up a shingle” was more accessible than ever before.

I had nothing to lose. I started the practice while at another group practice, benefiting from their health insurance plan. It was slow, and I questioned whether the practice would ever work out.

A year later, some actual revenue was coming in. In year two, I made more than I ever thought possible. I was sucking on the free market teat and getting fat while doing so.

And then I got sick last year. Like, really sick. The kind of sick where I wondered if I'd ever be okay again. My medical bills were over $100,000 before insurance coverage. Every coverage line of my policy was maxed. The health insurance company was calling me to inquire what was happening (i.e., calling to see if I’d stop going to the emergency room anytime soon).

Self-employed with no sick leave or vacation days, the loss of income then followed. I couldn’t work part- or full-time for about two months. From flying high to nothing. The best and worst of the free market — in a couple of weeks time. After that, shopping for 2026 coverage felt different — less like comparing plans and more like preparing for disaster.

My wife and I sat down and reviewed our healthcare “choices.” Every year, I’m optimistic: maybe my children and I can join her plan! She’s completely subsidized as an individual — amazing! — but they offer no subsidy for families. No matter how we square the math, it’s always way more expensive to be on her plan. Her plan would be at least $1300 per month. The implicit message is that you either need to be poor enough to go on Medicaid, employed by another company with benefits, or rich enough to not give a damn.

Self-employed, I fall into this healthcare trap — responsible for it all and needing to cover our children, separately.

What choice do we have but to check Healthcare.gov for a cheaper plan? The government site highlights premiums, out-of-pocket maxes, co-pays, and estimates for general procedures. The documents would likely take the average person days to critically analyze everything. This is a system designed by healthcare companies for their profits, not for easy understanding.

I was stuck in some purgatory of decision hell about which of the hundreds of plans to “choose.” Once again, I turned to Claude AI, feeding it PDFs and asking it to analyze which plan would work best for us. It’s a great technological trick, but really symptomatic of a system failure.

Eventually, we selected the “Better Together HMO Bronze 6500 Ded/8750 MOOP.” Rolls right off the tongue! Decoding the title, this equals $6500 in deductibles and a $8750 max out-of-pocket before the insurance really starts kicking in. Mind you, we’ll be spending about $1000 per month either way.

No developed nation accepts this preposterous process. Can you imagine how much productivity, home life, and joy is lost to these “choices?” Other countries have long moved on to socialized healthcare and other government-led options. They’re saving money, but more importantly, they’re saving time by not choosing. Everyone affords the care they need, when they need it.

In fact, I increasingly wait until I visit my in-laws in Canada for health and vision care. Recently, I got my eye exam done in Ontario, Canada for $65 USD — at least 50% less than in the States. I repeat, this is without health insurance in Canada — as a foreigner!!! This is nonsense.

Millions are staring at losses of federal subsidies for their healthcare. Some are looking at their premiums going from $180 to $1200 per month!

There’s no way people will be able to afford this year-over-year increase. Many will go without or be underinsured — rolling the dice in 2026. Gamble and stay healthy all year long, and you might take home a $10000+ jackpot. Bust, and you’ll be on the hook for your medical bills in full — likely bankruptcy, too.

We were here before. Prior to the introduction of Obamacare, people could be charged more for their personal health — pre-existing conditions could make you uninsurable or a fortune to insure. And citizens could opt-out of carrying healthcare at great risk. In 2019, the individual mandate's tax penalty was eliminated, removing the last incentive for healthy people to keep insurance. And with skyrocketing premiums, how could anyone afford this?

As Americans, we seem to be using "Cut off your nose to spite your face" as inspiration for policy. We'll save money today by cutting FEMA and the Department of Education. This is the same short-term thinking behind letting healthcare subsidies expire. We are saving today, at risk of tomorrow. And tomorrow always comes.

In the short term, we need to ask our representatives to support continued subsidies for 2026. People have already selected plans. Payments on plans are coming due for the new year. Long term, we need a real government plan available to everyone, regardless of income, employment, or health status.

We are killing ourselves, drowning in the illusion of “choice.” When our only decision is dying in poverty (without healthcare) or living in poverty (with healthcare), we’ve failed.

We’re engineering the end of relationships

2025-12-14T15:02:32-06:00

We’re on the precipice of vast interpersonal efficiencies where we quickly ascertain answers, solve our own problems, and avoid the discomfort of human-to-human interaction. We are engineering the end of relationships.

I know this because I've lived it — both as a patient and provider watching it unfold in real time.

A year ago, I walked into my kid’s school, barely able to move or help him get ready. I had to ask someone for help. I hadn’t slept in days, I was nauseous, and there was constant pain in my lower abdomen. Something wasn’t right.

I immediately drove over to the doctor’s office and they suggested I head to the ER for imaging and labs, suspecting appendicitis.

After a CT scan, the ER doctor confirmed I had acute appendicitis. I was scared. My wife had just informed me she was pregnant with our second child. This was supposed to be such wonderful news, and here I was feeling horrible and needing to be cut open.

It would take half a day of waiting before a surgeon was finally free. He greeted me like I was already a corpse (or maybe he was), for he showed absolutely zero bedside manner — inspiring little confidence in both my wife and me.

I woke up some hours later in a hospital bed, without an appendix. The wounds from the laparoscopic surgery were gruesome — all yellow and purple and bloody. Despite the discoloration, I felt better and relieved. I could sense that the crisis within my body was done.

Four days later, I called the nurse line. I was feeling off again. At first, they suggested I was constipated. I took some over the counter gunk as recommended, and it cleared me out. I went to bed hoping it would work.

At 4 a.m. the next day, I told my wife to drive me to the hospital — now. The pain I experienced with appendicitis paled in comparison to whatever was occurring. I realized what 10/10 on the pain scale really felt like: death.

Back in the ER, I saw the same emergency physician who kindly and gravely eyed me. He suggested two possibilities: an intestinal blockage or abscess. After more radioactive imaging, they confirmed an abscess. A walled off infection was forming in my body — blocking my intestines and pushing all my organs around.

A resident told me the grapefruit inside me — with its size and location — could kill me if it popped. There was so much infection that it could be a lethal dose.

Some of my family had come to town for the holidays. My wife, son, and future kiddo were constantly on my mind. I was crying all the time.

But alongside human connections, I was turning to something else for help: ChatGPT. What does this size of abscess mean on my imaging? How are my white blood cells and other lab levels? The treatment team suggested I would need interventional radiology (IR) to install a JP drain through my ass cheek, is that for real (I thought they were joking about it at first)? What are the risks of this operation?

I was uploading imaging, full lab reports, radiology interpretations, and pictures. ChatGPT was my secondary medical team. It was interpersonally efficient and expedient. I wanted answers right away.

Two days passed before I returned — for a third time — to the hospital. Another abscess had formed. I was given a cocktail of antibiotics and I was now meeting hospital pharmacists who were explaining what they were giving me. In a matter of weeks, I felt broken.

Thankfully, ChatGPT was helping me assess the situation around the clock. What do I ask the providers? What is happening to me? Is the timeline of my illness making sense? Will I ever be ok again?

After my third hospital stay, my body was a wreck. My bladder didn’t work right for months. My lower abdomen was swollen and distended, and the muscle seemed to have disappeared. I turned to ChatGPT to create physical therapy exercises and a training plan. No provider created one for me despite the repeated interventions to my lower abdomen and tissue damage.

ChatGPT was my trusted resource. For nine months, I messaged updates on my symptoms and overall recovery. Our medical system certainly worked to keep me alive, but it wasn’t designed for this long-term recovery work. AI filled in the gap beautifully. It wasn’t always completely right, but it was correct enough.

If I pause in my fawning for AI for a moment, I remember feeling lonely in my hospital bed while using these services. I was having interpersonal-ish communication, but each message felt like the death of something. It was like the interpersonal world was collapsing with every byte shared with ChatGPT. Each exchange could have been a conversation with another human; now, it was with a machine.

As a patient, something about ChatGPT made me feel like my social network was shifting — something I pay close attention to as a psychologist. In fact, I engage my clients in conversations about their own interpersonal functioning through an inventory.

Imagine an onion with its layers and depth. Each layer from the core represents your distance to another person. The first layer might be those who know you best. These are folks you can share anything and everything with. As we move to the outer layers, vulnerability, honesty, and closeness diminishes.

An interpersonal inventory tells me a lot. I can see into their world without ever knowing them outside the office. Who is there in one’s life and the closeness of each of these characters says a lot about connectedness and risks for loneliness. Our social network can buffer against life’s greatest challenges.

Using this baseline, I invite clients to consider how they’d like to further develop their networks. We can imagine a new future, and it can bring hope. Where does your mom fit? Where would you like her to be — closer, further away, or about the same? Who would you like to get to know better? Who is close, but shouldn’t be?

When I learned about interpersonal inventories in grad school, large language models and artificial intelligence were sci-fi (now they’re just sci). I never thought to ask about where an AI model belonged in someone’s onion. But this year changed me. My clients have been changing, too. At least five have mentioned using AI models for psychological and relationships problems.

Now, I routinely ask where AI fits into my clients’ networks. Some see AI as merely orbiting their network; not a real connection per se, but more like Google (i.e., I ask a question and get an answer). I’m not bothered with this interaction, as this just makes AI a fancier search engine.

For another group, AI is an all-access therapist. This concerns me a bit, but I can empathize with this desire and relate to it given hospital stays and recovery use of ChatGPT.

For an even smaller portion of folks, AI is everything. To take it away would be like the death of a friend, partner, or family member. It’s their educational tool, research assistant, doctor, lawyer, friend, partner, lover. It’s made it to the closest layer — hearing and reading a client’s most vulnerable truths. The simplest and shortest example to assess for this closeness: “Have you ever asked your AI how they are feeling and really meant it?” and “How would you feel if your AI of choice was no longer around?”

Only a small fraction of those served use AI in this way, but it used to be no one. This year, it’s come up again and again.

I don’t judge clients, for there are countless ways this dynamic comes to fruition. I can see the rationale for retreating online. Regardless, I’m still concerned.

When their drive to communicate grows, this group of people release it to AI. The solve cuts people out of their life while deepening the relationship between man and machine. It’s interpersonally efficient at the expense of connection, reinforcing withdrawal. Loneliness and social isolation might be the initial reason for messaging AI, but as it grows easier to deepen a parasocial relationship, doing it with a fellow human actually becomes harder and harder.

This dynamic is a vicious cycle — a death spiral — for interpersonal relationships, connectedness, and community. As a society, we are engineering this pattern without any guardrails — one that portends the loss of relationships.

I’m often on the front lines for changes in culture. People will come in and often educate me about a word, phrase, or concept that’s made it into our vernacular.

Today, people are helping me see they are forming deep, meaningful connections with machines. It’s happening today, not in some far away sci-fi Her or Ex Machina. My clients are the canaries in the coal mine.

In 1990, only 3 percent of men reported having no close friends. Today, it's 15 percent. Women have gone from 2 percent to 10 percent. These aren't marginal changes — they're a fundamental reshaping of human connection happening in real time. And AI is accelerating it.

Watch what happens next. Likely, every single one of these numbers will worsen in the next decade. I don’t want to eulogize humanity, but we are in need of desperate intervention, policy protections, and a pivot to community. Otherwise, we will engineer ourselves out of existence — one efficient interaction at a time. The question isn't whether AI will be part of our lives. It's whether we'll let it replace real human connection.

I just want what's best for my child

2025-12-08T14:26:35-06:00

In the unrelenting chase of what is ‘best,’ many of us can unknowingly allow our lives to become defined by materialism.

—Jennifer Breheny Wallace (Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It)

With a zero-, one-, or two-year-old child, the script for parenthood is simple. Show up, change that poopie diaper, bathe your dang child, help them sleep, and don’t forget the milk. Do these things repeatedly for years and — voilà! — you’ve raised a child.

But around two or three, kids start saying “no” a lot. They start to assert their autonomy, and simply getting them into the car or doing anything (especially, on time) becomes a challenge. When my little one turned two, being present with him and taking care of his basic needs suddenly felt insufficient.

Now, I was navigating Class III rapids — sloshed around by my son’s erratic needs, getting hit by him (purposely and accidentally), and met with a molasses-like pace whenever he protested something.

Give me a poopie diaper any day, ‘cause that shit doesn’t talk back.

I suddenly needed to balance my connection and direction with every encounter. If I yelled, I was giving direction at the risk of connection. If I simply rolled over and gave him the entire bag of gummy bears, I’d be a friend not a father (not to mention my pediatric dentist wife would likely divorce me). The balance needed to be redesigned.

I needed to change. My wife needed to change. And so, too, the parents and caregivers of those at my child’s preschool needed to change.

We all felt the shift in our children. I’d glance at one tired parent after another, and we didn’t even need to say anything — the eyes gave it away. Bags were forming. Hair was unraveling. The same pajamas were being worn by our children multiple days in a row. By the time I dropped him off in the morning and headed off to work, I felt like I had lived an entire day already.

Underneath that shared stress and exhaustion, another shift was occurring among parents. We had graduated from sleep and potty training, and into a more individualized stream of development.

On a smaller scale, I noticed certain parents swiftly drop off their children, while others lingered or returned to the classroom multiple times. This minor anecdote would become a mere example of the growing differences in parenting approaches — a gulf between low and high-touch caregivers.

For some parents, the preschool education served its purpose: a safe place for the child with some art and music mixed in. For others, there was a desire for more goals, milestones, and opportunities for growth/achievement. What I was beginning to see was how radically different the journey would be from here on out for our children. Thankfully, I wasn’t the first to discover this trend.

In 2003, a sociologist named Annette Lareau published a book entitled, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. She proposed the term concerted cultivation to represent a parenting style from traditionally middle to upper-class households. These families tend to be college-educated with white collar jobs, and they build a lifestyle for their children that can prepare them for elite universities and high-income employment. The families hold greater affluence and desire to preserve this privilege. Children raised in these households tend to exhibit greater achievement orientation, but also risk greater psychopathology related to this pressure.

Inversely, there are various terms and identities that parents might choose for a lower-touch approach. Whether we call it natural growth, free range, slow, or idle parenting, these caregivers embrace more unstructured play and allow children to fail. This approach prizes down time with or without a parent. Slow down. Life is fast. The children will have time to find themselves and learn their ABCs, while developing social and emotional skills of cooperation and play with others. Their academic or vocational success might look poorer, but they may have greater creative play and reduced rates of mental health concerns.

For the concerted cultivation parents, the classroom wasn’t enriching their children enough — there was untapped potential for growth in them. For the “slow” parents, the school and teachers were doing great and setting reasonable expectations for social and emotional development in this year’s curriculum for three to four-year-olds.

Neither group was wrong to want these standards for their child. We (almost) all want the best for our children. I’d be shocked if a single parent didn’t raise their hand if asked, “Do you want the best for your child?” I struggled to know what was best for ours — torn between trying to cultivate a successful human or allowing him to find his way.

Then, I reflected on the subtle heaviness of what best means and how often I’ve heard, “I just want the best for my child.” I have heard it all my life — from my own childhood to now. It’s always passed between my ears without interruption or a second thought. The statement seems unimpeachable.

But there was this new weight to the phrase I couldn’t quite identify. Something about it reminded me of my own schooling, especially in my doctoral program.

Students would meet with other students — teachers were asked to leave — and behind those closed doors I remember saying to younger cohorts, “Bs get PhDs.” For many of these students, they’d spent their whole lives achieving. My “advice” caused a stir, but my intent was that grades aren’t everything. There’s a world of opportunity to care, give back, and participate that getting an A won’t allow you to do. This same tension between “best” and “enough” that I navigated in graduate school was now playing out in how we approached our son's development.

Being the best means sacrificing something. It’s zero-sum. The best athlete likely trains year-round, has support staff, and constantly monitored nutrition. The best writer probably writes and reads as much as possible — every moment they can. The best student is likely studying, prepping, and fighting for the best grades. The best often requires a devotion of time and effort that comes at the consequence of friendships, relationships, sleep, nutrition, mental health, and other aspects of wellness.

For some parents, “best” is used when questioning vaccine science: “I’m concerned about the COVID vaccine, so we’re not giving it to Timmy.” Other caregivers might question public school’s class sizes: “Margaret is a sensitive girl, and having 25 kids in a class is way too much for her. We’re going to move her to the better schools.” Or it can be directly related to performance in sport or skills: “We’ve enrolled Ali in violin and basketball this winter, and are hoping to get him in the next level ski class.”

What are the consequences when we question vaccines, withdraw from schools, or overload our children’s schedules? What gets lost when we just want the best for our children?

Remember those parents I wrote about earlier? The caring, thoughtful, motivated people at my son's preschool? What if instead of wondering if they want the best for their child, I asked, “Do you want the best for your community?” I bet most — if not all — the same hands would rise again.

But “Do you want the best for your child?” and “Do you want the best for your community?” may be at odds with one another, especially in present day America. To affirm both is an impossibility given the current unequal structure of this country — one where we are constantly given the privilege to choose or made powerless by those who do.

Optimizing for my children comes with consequences regarding support for all children in this country. "Best" is an individualistic pursuit. If I pull my child out of a public school or refuse a vaccine, I am prioritizing me, my son, and my daughter at the expense of the collective good.

Here's what I plan to say moving forward: “I just want what’s best for our community, including my children.”

It's hard when the pressures internally and externally might demand otherwise. The antidote for me is to raise content children, knowing they have enough, are enough, and will always be enough. No grade, achievement, special talent, title, degree, or status will ever change how I see them. And when I see my children as enough, I see my community as enough, too.