How Far You Have Come
Less to-do lists, more gardens.
I often think of myself as a to-do list. I have a long list of things I would like to get better at, a long list of things I’d like to accomplish. I think maybe that makes me constantly dwell on my deficits. It’s helpful sometimes, but generally not a great approach to thinking about my experiences. I have a notebook full of crossed-out daily to-do lists, but I never flip through the previous pages to see what’s been marked off — I only ever stare at the ones yet to be completed. That’s how I usually think of myself, too.
On a frigid day in December, Connor and I began a 20-hour drive back to our hometown for the holidays and a family wedding. Our roadtrip began in a Rivian at a prompt 4 AM. A hazy Manhattan was coming to life through the car windows. As we merged on the interstate, I looked out at twinkling city lights with familiar awe.
We drove across metropolitan bridges and then through a quiet, snowy Delaware. The heated seats were on high, coffee fit snuggly in the cupholders, and the radio was strumming songs we’ve always loved. Genevieve, our 10-year-old dog and the reason we opted to drive instead of fly, is asleep in the back (with her heated seat on too).
The journey back home felt parallel to the trip we took over a year ago, in the opposite direction.
A moving van full of the items we kept. The dog asleep next to us despite the metal rattling noise we never could fix for the entirety of the trip. Nothing but anticipation and question marks lay ahead. I’d never moved more than an hour from where I grew up, and I was wracked with fear that I wasn’t fit for the city.
In the passenger seat, I nervously reiterated the fears I had been ruminating on for months. I will not have any friends. I will likely fall into the subway tracks. I am setting my life back somehow, as I am not yet getting the picket fence. We will be so lonely. The 20-hour trip gave plenty of time for the ugly weeds of fear to sprout offspirng, and new, unthought-of anxieties.
Now, a year later, I am in a car with my family. I am calm. I am traveling back to my hometown as a visitor with a newfound confidence, faith, sense of self, and love. I feel very different. I’ve been told I seem very different.
There are seasons of moving trucks that rattle for 20 hours, and there are seasons of heated seats. Both have helped refine me.
Empty fields are painted in powdery snow through the passenger windows. Occasionally, I spot a snowed-in farmhouse in the distance. We listen to the “Wuthering Heights” audiobook contentedly as the hours tick by.
I’m trying to think of my life more as a garden and less as a list.
Some things grow, some things take time, some things look really rough but are nearly ripe for the harvest. It’s not all in bloom at the same time, and it is a lot of days of maintenance and toil before I see fruit. Mostly, I realize on this road trip that I need to step back a little and see how far we’ve come.
A to-do list provides instant gratification with the stroke of a highlighter mark, the joy of one less thing on the list. But it hardly leaves a lasting impact of gratitude or reflection. I want to look back on my life as if it is this plush, rich garden of experiences, soil that has been turned over and repurposed again and again — not a book full of crossed-off tasks. I want to shake out of measuring my life in accomplishments, and more so in the seasonality of the “produce” I am growing.
I’d like to be the person who asks how rich and wonderful I can get the tomato to taste, not how fast I can cut it off the vine.
Maybe there is a way to live more in tune with the hope of it all. I wonder if the oddities and whimsicality of a fleeting life can shape my perspective and cadence more than my calendar.
In a culture, and especially a January, of optimization, productivity, and achievement, when’s the last time I considered how much I’ve changed and overcome?
Certainly, journeying back to my hometown prompts this thought.
The land became flatter, the billboards weirder, the air more humid, and we finally pulled the car into a familiar driveway. Hugs and conversation ensued as we pulled the gifts out of the front of the car. We lock it, and it makes a tweet noise, which delights everyone standing there as an unexpected welcome.
Over the next few days, as I caught up with old friends and family, I kept noticing the same thing: people kept mentioning how different I seemed. More confident. Each time someone said it, I felt that strange mix of discomfort and gratitude. Had I really changed that much?
Maybe, like me, you’ve been so focused on the miles ahead that you haven’t noticed your own growth.
I can recall things that used to paralyze me, that now I walk right past.
I used to believe my biggest dreams were behind me; now I eagerly anticipate the future and giggle about it sometimes. This is unlike a disposition I maintained for years of my life.
If I truly paused and stopped looking at the miles I still have ahead of me, and just turned around for a second, I would see how far I’ve come.
Seeing what adversities I’ve worked through, losses I waded in, the distance between me and where I started should prompt a little tingly feeling amongst the exhaustion. Hope. Sure, there are miles and miles to go, but a brief reminder of the good that has come so far should give a boost for the journey up ahead.
Of course, there are things on the journey I still wish never happened at all.
Once I recognize and appreciate what the past provided, I no longer have to live in it. Don’t look back in anguish, don’t wreck because my eyes are on the rearview, I don’t live there. I lean into that feeling of hope, even if it’s just a tiny ounce, and re-focus on what’s ahead.
Hope is not a natural disposition; it is a muscle to strengthen. I’d argue it’s a weak muscle for many of us, but an absolutely essential-for-survival one. Many days, it feels far out of reach, but there are always small things I can do to keep it in grasp. I’ve learned a few things this year.
Writing is a gift. I write a little every day because the things in my head are too heavy to carry, and paper is a soft place to land. Sometimes I flip back through old entries from high school and see how I am a different person, yet very much the same girl. As I reflect on my old journals, I notice a few things that have seemed to shape this emerging mindset.
Here are some ways to live more like a gardener, and less like a taskmaster. I am planning on leaning into these more this year, and encourage you to do the same:
When you wake up in the morning, open your hands toward the sky. So often, I wake up with my hands in a fist, grasping to my own rigid expectations for a day that hasn’t even existed yet. Instead, practice turning them into open hands, ready to receive what the day could throw at you.
When you brew your tea or make your breakfast, be present and creative. Wait for it to steep. Turn the necessity into a creative expression and muse in your plating, flavors, etc. You have to eat anyway, so use the time to grow the garden, even just for a minute.
Use commute times and wait lines to water your soil. Listen to rich literature, tutorials, music, and discover new, exciting things that point you in the direction you want to go. (I made a playlist of some songs that feel hopeful, if you need a boost)
Move more thoughtfully through tasks — dry your hands all the way after you wash them.
Keep an ongoing list in your phone or in a notebook of moments you are grateful for. Capture tiny movie scenes of your life: the night card games flourished, when the rain fell perfectly, words someone said to you, your grandma’s birthday.
Focus on delighting someone else, even your cat. Take time to go out of your way to care for, surprise, and delight someone. Think homemade banana bread, a handwritten note, a surprise visit.
Be diligent about having small things to look forward to. I got excited when my friends Koheun & Justin (whom I met on a rooftop in South Korea) proposed we make something together: a printable Bingo card for 2026.
Instead of a rigid list of resolutions, you fill them with goals and ideas for the year. They'll be making one with their kids on their YouTube channel 'Odo Ichon,' and I love the idea of families doing this together.
I designed the cards in three color combos so you can match them to your home decor. I am eager to hear what you put on your Bingo card. You can print the PDF here:
I felt prompted today to encourage you that you’ve come farther than you think, you’re doing better than you think, and the best is yet to come.
I hope you get a Bingo this year.
(When you marry a filmmaker, all your trips look like little movies)
★ In one of the coolest pinch-me experiences of my life, I got to work with Rivian on telling this story. There are some secret, thoughtful things they embed in the design to better the user’s experience — it’s crazy, and dare I say, a bit whimsical, for a car brand. The sound the car makes when you lock it sounds like a bird. It is adorable. During the day, it tweets, and at night, if you lock the car, an owl hoots. You can also change all the interior light themes and colors, charges only take 30 minutes, the front of the car is a TRUNK, and there is a helpful pet mode for Genevieve. This experience made me realize the difference of a vehicle that is designed with the driver’s whole experience in mind. It was magical. If you ever have the chance to get behind the wheel of one, or lock it so you can hear the owl sound, I highly advise you jump on that opportunity!
Hoot! Hoot!
XO Jenna O.
FURTHER READING:
🐚 Read more thoughtfully created articles here
🪄 Shop all my favorite things
🍒 Let’s be internet friends, please! @ jennaisfeeling
🪄 Get more inspiration
This post is full of great thoughts. I love the part about being present while making tea, breakfast, etc. I recently read "The Hidden Art of Homemaking" (I think maybe you mentioned it in one of your posts somewhere? if so, thanks--I loved it :)) and have been trying to have "intentional" snack time since. It's kind of silly, but it's also kind of silly to not actually enjoy the parts of life we include for enjoyment's sake.
Anyway, thanks for the reminder in this and so many of your posts that there are so many ways to focus on so many different kinds of good in life.
Really well put on the garden vs to-do list framework. The part about not flipping back through completed tasks really landed for me bc I do the exact same thing. I only look at whats undone. The garden metaphor works better than achievement language becuase it acknowledges different seasons and natural rhythms instead of just measuring output.