On a warm evening recently I was talking with my neighbours over a beer. They’re final-year paramedic students, weeks away from graduating and stepping into the real world. There’s been a question floating around my head that I’ve had trouble defining until I sat down to write this post. It’s whether bravery can be taught. Not learned, but taught. I asked them if their course has changed them, and they all emphatically agreed, saying that they can keep a far cooler head under pressure, and feel comfortable running towards the chaos, vs away from it. …

During the summer last year, I was doing my annual big hike with a friend. We use these hikes to see more of the country, and inevitably the conversations end up covering every topic under the sun. That day, we’d been talking about communication. In the evening, tucked away in a little cabin near Glencoe, something was rolling around in my head that I couldn’t quite pin down. For the longest time, I’d told myself that I was open to feedback and hard conversations because I’d repeatedly said to people that I’m always happy to hear it. …

In May 2018, I stumbled upon Buster Benson’s site, where he discusses the Morning Pages idea and journaling for 750 words. The key idea is that you journal every day, and must write (at least) 750 words, or around 3 pages. I’d been journaling on and off in a paper journal for a year at that point, generally maxing out at one or two entries a month. Trying to bring a little more rigour to my approach was appealing, so I figured I’d give it a go for a week and see what happens. …