76th letter from Mihai

Tue 27 Jan, 2026 Colmar, France

In 2018, a ground service agent with no flight training stole a plane from Seattle airport, did a barrel roll, flew for over an hour, and crashed it into a remote island.

It ended tragically.

I’m not interested in the spectacle of it. What struck me was the feeling underneath. That sense of being stuck, bored, frustrated, tired of waiting for life to change.

I don’t think most of us would ever do something that reckless or selfish. We’re not going to hijack a plane.

But I do recognize the feeling.

Life starts turning into a to-do list. Days repeat, a bit like Groundhog Day. You do what needs to be done while something inside tightens over time.

That’s the part I know.

I’ve learned that if I don’t practice aliveness, I start to close.

For a long time, I thought excitement was something you wait for. A new project, a big shift, a different season of life. Waiting felt reasonable, until I noticed the cost of it. Pressure builds and frustration looks for a way out.

That’s when I came back to something called the first alarm test.

When something really matters to you, you don’t need three alarms. You wake up on the first one.

One way I stay close to that is through what I call dream walks.

Most days, I walk the same short loop around the neighborhood. Ten or fifteen minutes, a route I know well enough that I don’t have to pay attention to it.

I don’t listen to anything. I walk and let my mind drift toward a life that feels alive, the people around me, the work, the rhythm. A life I would wake up for on the first alarm.

I’m not doing this because something is wrong. I know how fortunate I am to have a loving partner, a happy child, time, health, space to think. I’m grateful for that.

And still, I know there’s a version of me that feels more awake, more engaged, more myself.

These walks help me stay connected to that before frustration builds, before life has to shout to be heard.

If life has been feeling flat or overly managed, that's not something to fix. It’s your aliveness muscle that hasn’t been used in a while.

Take a short walk, without your phone or an agenda. Let yourself imagine what would wake you up on the first alarm.

That’s been enough for me, for now.

One dad figuring it out, same as you.
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P.S. These letters aren’t a broadcast, they’re a conversation. If something speaks to you, or even stirs you the wrong way, just hit reply. I read every message.

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