👋 Welcome to the 119th issue of Open Loops, a weekly newsletter to help you think, grow, and build momentum.

My name is Reza, and every week, I sift through over 100 pieces of content —newsletters, articles, podcasts, books, and (way too many) tweets—to pull out the most interesting, actionable ideas.

This week reminded me of something profound in the simplest way.

I had a few friends over on Tuesday night.

A dear friend was visiting town. Perfect excuse for a small gathering.

After an early start, morning training, and a long day in the office, I expected to be exhausted.

Instead, four hours vanished in a blur of stories and laughter.

It reminded me of Robert Waldinger's fascinating research.

His team tracked hundreds of people for 80 years, measuring everything from blood work to bank accounts.

Their most striking finding?

The best predictor of happiness and health wasn't career success or wealth.

It was the strength of their relationships.

Here's another startling fact: the number of people having weekly dinner parties has dropped 90% since 1950.

Most of that decline happened by the 1990s. The strange part? There's no barrier to hosting. No law against having friends over for dinner.

We've just... stopped.

We meticulously track our steps, our screen time, our investment returns.

We optimize our sleep and our productivity.

Yet sometimes the most valuable investment is as simple as clearing a Tuesday evening for friends.

Major reminder to myself to make more time for intimate moments like this.

Now, let's dive into this week's ideas.

You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.

That is not generally taught in school. At most as if your livelihood depended on it: the next step, the next job, grant, scholarship, professional advancement fame; no questions asked as to further meanings. And let’s face it, the lesson of the schools for a vast number of children—hence, of readers—is This is not for you.

To write as if your life depended on it: to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public words you have dredged, sieved up from dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence—words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.

Ideally you need ‘to care and not to care’.

You need to give yourself completely, while at the same time seeing things from a distance.

Every important creative act has this duality: of giving everything and then of letting go, so that the created work can have a life of its own.

A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware made a list of the biggest regrets of the dying.

Her list seems plausible. I could see myself — can see myself — making at least 4 of these 5 mistakes:

Don't ignore your dreams,

don't work too much,

say what you think.

cultivate friendships,

be happy.

If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.

This newsletter is my creative outlet. When I’m not writing it, or working out, I help founders and their early teams bring clarity and structure to the chaos of building early-stage brands. If you’re a founder navigating GTM, you can lean more here.