Let me start with a disclaimer: Everything on this site may be wrong.
Not morally wrong. Not maliciously wrong. Just… incomplete. Provisional. Filtered through one muddled Midwestern brain that has been right about some things, embarrassingly wrong about others, and is still revising the manuscript.
The Sevenelles are not commandments.
They are not a system.
They are not a self-help program.
They are seven verbs that have quietly stalked me for decades.
Live. Love. Learn. Laugh. Labor. Leave. Legacy.
That’s it.
Seven L’s. Easy to remember. An intriguing challenge to execute.
LIVE – Make the Most of Your Time
You are not immortal. Your calendar is lying to you.
Living well isn’t about squeezing in more activity. It’s about not sleepwalking through your own days. Eat decently. Move. Rest. Pay attention. Stop pretending your body is a rental car.
If you waste your health, the rest of the Sevenelles get harder.
LOVE – Caring for Others
Love isn’t just romance. It’s the daily decision not to keep score.
It’s listening when you’d rather argue. Forgiving when you’d rather win. Letting people see you without the armor. You can build a life without love, but it will feel strangely hollow — like a house staged for sale but never lived in.
LEARN – Expanding Your Mind
If you stop learning, you don’t stay the same. You shrink.
Learning is not about collecting facts to win arguments. It’s about discovering how wrong you’ve been and surviving the realization. Read widely. Travel when you can. Talk to people who disagree with you. Change your mind occasionally. It’s a sign of life, not weakness.
LAUGH – Finding Joy in the Absurdity of Life
If you can’t laugh, especially at yourself, you will become unbearable.
Life is absurd. Your plans will derail. Your ego will overestimate its importance. Laughter is the pressure valve. Humor doesn’t trivialize hardship. It keeps hardship from trivializing you.
LABOR – Making a Meaningful Contribution
Work will take a ridiculous percentage of your waking life. You might as well make it count.
Labor isn’t just about income. It’s about contribution. About trading effort for meaning instead of just for money. But be careful. Work is a terrible god. If it becomes your entire identity, it will eventually demand sacrifices you didn’t intend to make.
LEAVE – Embracing Mortality and Making a Graceful Exit
None of us is getting out of here alive.
That’s not morbid. It’s clarifying. When you remember you’re going to Leave, you argue less about nonsense. You say what needs to be said. You prepare your paperwork. You make peace where you can. Facing the end honestly is one of the most life-giving things you can do.
LEGACY – How You Gift the Future
Legacy is not what’s written on your résumé. It’s what remains in people.
It’s the habits you modeled. The words you said. The work you did. The tone you set. You are building your legacy whether you’re thinking about it or not. The only real question is whether you’re building it on purpose.
Seven Elements in Concert
Like instruments in an orchestra, the Sevenelles only make beautiful music when played together.
If you neglect your health, your labor suffers.
If you neglect love, your legacy thins.
If you ignore mortality, you waste time.
If you stop learning, everything calcifies.
You don’t get to max out one and ignore the others.
I’ve tried.
So…
This site is my attempt to think out loud about these seven elements of a life.
You’ll find ideas from people far smarter than me.
You’ll find articles I don’t want to lose.
You’ll find reflections, occasional memoirs, and maybe a few jokes that land.
Keep what resonates.
Discard what doesn’t.
Seven simple words.
A lifetime of opportunities.
Welcome to the Sevenelles.