I'm walking through the hills in LA right now, dictating notes for this into my phone as I ascend.
It’s the first Halloween weekend (yes, LA has multiple Halloween weekends, which is peak LA energy). Friends are in town, plans tonight, and I'm dictating this second consecutive daily email.
Inspired by Ben Bader's writing practice, I've committed to writing every day. And on day 2, I'm already thinking about all the times I haven't stuck to commitments.
The hundred-day challenges I abandoned after week one. The monthly content promises that fizzled. The early wakeup commitments. specific fitness commitments that became expensive mental real estate.
Here's what I've realized: every broken commitment extracts a tax on your self-belief.
Not because you're lazy or undisciplined—but because somewhere deep down, you start building evidence against yourself. You create a narrative: "I'm someone who doesn't finish things."
But yet I also think that's not the full story.
The excuses are always there. You're traveling, out of routine. You're tired. Or—and this is the one I face most—you're comfortable. You have money in investments. You have some of the things you want. So why push?
That comfort is exactly what pulls you away from the real point of creating anything: which is to express your soul, and to share with others. To honor the commitment you made to yourself when it actually mattered.
I think back to my first 100-day YouTube challenge almost a decade ago. There were nights I hadn't filmed anything. Nights I had every excuse to skip. But I showed up anyway.
That single commitment and having stuck to it built more confidence than any course, any book, any motivational video ever could. I still draw from that reservoir today, ten years later.
Don Miguel Ruiz calls it being "impeccable with your word" in The Four Agreements.
It's not about perfection but about the promises you make to yourself when no one else is watching.
So here's my take for today: Think big. Think long.
It's better to announce you're writing for 100 days and make it to 47 than to commit to 7 days and breeze through. Why? Because the 7 days never tested you. They never built the muscle of showing up when it's hard.
If you've broken commitments before, you're not alone. I have too. Multiple times. But I've also kept some that changed everything.
This is day 2 of this commitment.
Now I find myself thinking about Christ—about what happened after he died. His followers were driven to action. They wrote. Paul wrote letters to the Philippians, to towns scattered across the ancient world, carrying messages of love, belief, faith. The movement didn't end - it spread through the word.
There's something about loss that inspires us to share more deeply. To write. To speak. To create.
Tonight I'm heading out with friends. And with Ben's passing still fresh—someone so young, taken so suddenly—I'm reminded how precious this all is. It brings out something better in us, doesn't it? A tenderness, a certain gentle presence as we stand at the footsteps of power that taketh and giveth life so as to a plan we know not of.
In the face of that, Idk about you but I feel a pull to just be more kind, open and grateful for every person in my life and every moment I get with them.
I hope you do the same.
— Arlin
