Tending to The Last 75 Days
Spending the end of the year in balance and kindness through 75 Grow
Do you guys get tired of me writing about the same thing over and over, month after month? I don’t tire of writing about it, but maybe that’s because it is what I’ve chosen to spend my professional life doing. I have and do still delight in finding out what makes up a person’s daily life, and what they wish it was instead. While the large existential questions of change are equally important, to me they are only equally important—not more important.
And so I write again and again about 75 Grow, and about focusing our attention just a bit more on things we can change versus things we cannot (or, we won’t see change anytime soon, though our efforts continue). I’ve found in my life and in my line of work that the mundane take up most of it—going to the grocery store, flossing, doing the dishes, going on a jog. They can be a source of annoyance, and at worst a source of overwhelm and then a grey sort of suffering. They will always be a little bit annoying, but they can also be a daily practice of creativity, problem-solving, devotion, and even joy. As a psychiatrist and therapist primarily working with people in care-giving roles (interpersonally and professionally), big insights are often the crown jewel in therapy. They are not the gilded crown’s frame. The quotidian done well—these are the background that are where the big insights and big purposes are painted on top of. Without the background, simple details, the large insights or big dreams often fail to come to fruition or to satisfy our desire for meaning.
I was recently interviewed to talk about 75GROW on Popsugar, which yes was a dream for my inner 16 year old who read all the beauty blogs. You can see the interview and the writer’s plan for 75GROW here. It is a joy in real life, in my own life, and in virtual life to see a framework that helps me help other people. It also becomes a self-sustaining cycle as I then get motivation and ideas from seeing how other people take the frame and make it theirs.
As we go into the final 75 days of 2025, including the slowing and darkening of winter, the glitter of holidays, and the eventual question a new year always poses, here’s five ideas about how spending these 75 days focusing on the three habits of movement, avoiding avoidance, and practicing creativity (M.A.P) might be useful (including my own intentions and hopes for what it will bring as I wind down the year).
