How to Low Stake
A few weeks ago, my aunt passed away.
It was unexpected, yet not surprising. That strange space where the heart is broken open but the mind quietly nods. In the days that followed, we gathered—some in person, others from afar. There were phone calls, shared stories. A mixing of grief with gratitude.
In the quiet that follows loss, emotion makes way for a softer kind of thought. Not strategic planning, not goal setting—just a murmur of something deeper. Something simpler.
A family member said something that's stayed with me: “We all end up in the same place.” There was no drama in her voice, just calm. “We come with nothing, we leave with nothing.” A reminder I’ve heard before, and forgotten before. But in that moment, it felt less like advice and more like gravity. A truth that didn’t require agreement—it simply was.
A few days later, I went for a long walk with an old friend in Lisbon. We hadn’t seen each other in a few years. He’s around my age, maybe a few years older. He walked me through his cancer diagnosis from two years ago, and the many moments of not knowing what would come next. He told me about the strength he had found and the grace he had grown into, uninvited.
When I asked how this experience had changed his perspective on life, he smiled and said what I had just started to touch myself: “Most things aren’t that important.”
That sentence keeps repeating itself.
Most things aren’t that important.
But my mind is good at making most things feel that they are important.
There’s a habit I’ve noticed—one that lives quietly in my day-to-day. The gym session missed and turned into guilt. A stock market trade made, not for the sum of money but for the illusion of control. A late reply to a message, a small tiff in a conversation, or a dinner reservation gone wrong—each one has the potential to feel like more than it is. Like something is at stake. As if a single choice could jeopardize the entire direction of a day, or a life.
There are moments, looking back, where the intensity I felt simply doesn’t make sense. The pressure to finish something. The need to be understood. The desire for things to unfold exactly as imagined. I remember days when, after not meditating “well”, I felt like my entire self-discipline unraveled. As though one “poor” practice erased a decade of showing up.
And yet, there is so much—almost everything, really—that is actually low stakes.
The disappointment of a meal. The annoyance of a flight delay. The frustration of a weak Wi-Fi signal. The uncertainty of a video call that doesn’t load on time. The inconvenient timing of an invitation. The mood shift after a lost sports match. The entire evening revolving around a show on Netflix.
None of it really matters.
But it can feel like it does. I’m slowly seeing that feeling and reality do not always hold hands.
There’s a quiet liberation in remembering that. A freedom made not of apathy, but of perspective.
When I remind myself something is low stakes, I don’t abandon effort. If anything, I feel more curious. More grounded. I allow space for surprise—to be delighted, even.
And what I notice is that on the days I bring that mindset into what I do—whether it's walking into a meeting or ordering a meal—something shifts. I feel more present. More available to life. Less burdened by outcome. There's space for joy to enter, because I’ve stopped blocking the way with anxiety.
The pressure has softened. And in that softening, I can still care. But I no longer have to carry.
These recent brushes with mortality have been hard. And yet, I hold deep appreciation for what they’ve opened. The way they rearranged my perspective without asking permission. The way they trimmed the excess weight of so many imagined crises.
This reflection is a way to remember. A kind of ritual integration. An attempt to stay close to the clarity that only seems to emerge when life itself interrupts the illusion of control.
There is no neat conclusion. Just a clearer horizon. I am inspired to continue to remind myself that things are more often than not low stakes, versus what my mind tries to convince me to believe.
And that is how I learned to low stake.
