New name, same things

Introducing Dailyness

I’m marking the year’s beginning with a small but meaningful change: On Things will now be known as Dailyness.

While the name is new, the direction isn’t. Just like its previous iteration, you’ll still find many observations on the things we do, feel and encounter in our days.

So this is less a reinvention than a deepening—a clearer way of framing what I’ve been circling for years: the rhythms of everyday living.

For a long time, I’ve been juggling various personal and professional projects: this newsletter, A social life, with friends, philosophy studies, client work, my next book proposal.

Last year, something clicked: these weren’t separate projects at all, but rather expressions of the same curiosity—how can we get the most out of this life, day by day?

It’s a question I’ve been turning over for a long while. When I look back over my work of the past decade, it’s clear I’ve always been dealing in days: interviewing creatives about their daily routines, creating podcasts exploring creativity and connection, publishing a book about the stumbles in the day.

I keep returning to the day because it’s a container for our lives—not just our working life, but our inner life, love life, creative life, social life, private life, and our vital life.

So now, instead of splitting my attention—and yours—I’m bringing everything together under the same umbrella.

Dailyness will be an ongoing exploration of the varying rhythms in our days—and how we can be more present to the many lives within them.

A new rhythm for the newsletter

This next chapter also feels like the right time to introduce a fresh approach to the newsletter.

Dailyness will be available in full to all my readers. This means if you choose to become or (hopefully) remain as a paid subscriber, it will be as a show of appreciation for my work because it’s in some way meaningful to you.

I’m deeply grateful to those of you who’ve supported this work over the years with a paid subscription.

Many of you have told me you subscribe simply because my words have helped you think about things more deeply, reframe something, or feel less alone. This tells me you’re not here for a quick fix hidden behind a paywall—you just want to support this work because you have the desire and means to do so.

And that’s what I will continue to invite. This way, Dailyness can be both a nourishing personal practice alongside offering inspiration, comfort, and value to my readers.

Having been an independent writer for almost a decade, I can attest that my cadence has always ebbed and flowed—and it’s embracing that very cycle that has led to various epiphanies, books, podcasts, newsletters, and projects.

In a world obsessed with progress over process, I want to champion the deepening we find in the quiet stretches—and there’s no better place to apply that than my own creative projects, including this newsletter.

I’m excited to embrace a rhythm that feels sustainable and true—and hopefully this can be a permission slip for you to go with the ebb and flow, too.

For now, please enjoy this latest edition of the newsletter—a new name, but with the same things helping us be more present in the day.

Things from the day

Below, you’ll find a selection of my daily observations made between newsletters—a ‘best of’ November, December and January, if you will.

For those not yet familiar, these daily things are part of a special writing process I’ve cultivated for more than 1,000 days.

Cherished by many of my paid subscribers already, this practice will not only remain a staple of Dailyness, but my plan is to share more behind the scenes of this micro-journalling habit.

For now, I hope you find something to ponder for your own day within this collection of days.

Monday 17 November

Where do you put the kind words you receive? My friend gives me a compliment so heartwarming that I want it on my CV, in a frame, or on a plaque on my favourite park bench. I want to dwell more on compliments, rather than obsess over perceived slights.

Thursday 20 November

You think you’ve met your person, but it doesn’t work out. You think you’ve found the dream job, but you don’t get it. You think you want something new, but you decide not to get it after all. Listen and allow for the redirection. There’s no winning and losing if you trust that everything is working out for you.

Saturday 22 November

Overheard: “One of the hardest things to admit to yourself is the way in which you enjoy being stuck.”

Monday 24 November

I learn that a dear friend has a large malignant brain tumour. She’d had a seizure the week prior, during her final year medical exams. I’ve always been struck by this particular friend—her intelligence, tenacity, beauty. She can fly a plane. Has worked on construction sites. Knows the botanical name of any flower. All with a tumour occupying most of her left frontal lobe.

How do we deal with the universal ache that comes with not knowing what someone else is going through, nor what we might go through? My friend offers at least part of the answer in her Facebook update: “Every single day is precious,” she writes. “And we are only put here on earth to enjoy it, nothing more.”

Tuesday 25 November

Listening to a philosophy podcast, I learn the Hellenistic thinker and founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, was told by an oracle to “take on the complexion of the dead,” which he took as an instruction to study the wisdom of ancient philosophers.

In light of my friend’s news yesterday, I think there’s something sage in remembering our death while we are living—to look in the mirror each morning and not only see a reminder of the eons of wisdom of those before us, but also the relative shortness of life ahead for each of us.

Thursday 27 November

My charming friends Celeste and Pete have had their London apartment featured on Never Too Small.

My favourite part is how excited Celeste gets about the retractable clothesline—it’s not the designer things that shape our days, but the little things that bring ease, lightness, and delight.

Friday 28 November

Overheard: “I’m just trying to be consistent, not perfect.”

Tuesday 2 December

At a dinner, someone mentions their recent breakup and I reply with “Congratulations!” It’s a response I’ve kept in mind since hearing a How To Fail podcast episode, and it’s helped me see that in time, breakups are something to celebrate. This is not to discount the grief, but rather underscore the courage, openness and new possibilities we can find from them.

Wednesday 3 December

While conducting a new thought experiment, it occurs to me that the purpose of a positive affirmation is less about believing the words, and more about having a ready distraction so the mind doesn’t latch onto its favourite destructive thoughts.

Sunday 7 December

Today marks 1,000 days of sharing daily things. This practice, more than anything, has helped me embody the fact that, even on so-called wasted days, there’s always something to find within them.

Tuesday 9 December

I’m flicking through an old diary from 2023 and open to a page that says, “I want to give myself a chance.”

I smile—two and a bit years later, and with more clarity about my wants, I feel like I’m finally doing just that.

Thursday 11 December

I ask my personal trainer Frank what he thinks are the common attributes amongst his clients that have achieved their health goals. He says there are three factors: The first is having a clear goal. The second is doing sustainable bursts. The third is tracking.

It’s interesting to me that whatever the goal, it seems to always come back to the those very things: Getting clarity. Embracing seasonality. Building awareness.

Friday 19 December

I’ve been invited to my friend’s birthday picnic by the Merri Creek, so I bring a blanket and a container full of the viral green goddess salad. When I arrive, I realise this is no ordinary picnic—my friend and his partner have set up a dining table in the creek, complete with a tablecloth, long tapered candles, floral arrangements, tableware, and twinkle lights strung from the branches above. Part of me would, of course, have loved that heads up that we would be dining in the creek, but another part is struck by the whimsy of it all.

When we sit down, in the creek, my friend shares how they’ve been embracing the “millionaire life” without being a millionaire. We talk about what things you can do to experience life’s richness, without necessarily being rich. Try dining in a creek for your birthday. Keep a pair of wine glasses in the fridge to chill at all times. Go for the long meandering bike ride. The true millionaire is the one who can cultivate a sense of indulgence, romance and abundance from the ordinary.

Saturday 20 December

You know how someone can make you toast with the same amount of butter, the same spread of honey, and on the same slice of bread, but it never tastes the same as how your grandma made it? What is that? That invisible fingerprint of love?

Monday 22 December

I stumble across a quote from the writer Stella Gibbons, who said: “Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, ‘Collecting material’. No one can object to that.”

Any time I’m berating myself for not yet writing, I’ll remind myself that collecting is the best part, anyway.

Wednesday 24 December

During a tarot reading years ago, I remember being told I’ll know when I’ve landed. Today, a year since I arrived back in Melbourne—and years of feeling like I’ve been in a holding pattern—I finally feel like I’ve settled in place.

I want you to keep this in mind, too—you’ll know when you’ve landed, you’ll recognise him when you see him, you’ll know when something is right.

Monday 29 December

A sunset run. Rows of jacaranda trees. Bats heading out for the night.

Wednesday 31 December

With the cacophony of voices shouting about their products and programs designed to help you become a New You in the New Year, I feel compelled to withdraw from it all. I want to be unfazed by the pressure we put on a year, and zoom right into a day—their hours, minutes, and mere moments. Or, maybe I want to zoom right out and just play around in a decade—where anything might happen across a collection of years, locations, relationships.

I’m done with the pressure of an arbitrary year—I just want life.

Thursday 1 January

Earlier in the year, I threw a funeral-themed party with some friends to let go of our regrets. Today, we threw a birthday-themed party and made wishes instead of resolutions.

Friday 2 January

I notice my date is really good at giving compliments and offering thoughtful observations. I ask him if it’s something that has come naturally or if it’s something he has cultivated. He tells me that a few years ago he made a conscious effort to start saying what he was thinking: “Once you can better understand your feelings or thoughts about things, you develop the confidence to share them, and start trusting that maybe the very thing you have to say could be the very thing someone wants to hear.”

Sunday 4 January

My intelligent, tenacious and beautiful friend, who is recovering from brain surgery to remove most of the tumour, tells me that her partner of two years broke up with her just after Christmas—he can’t see a future together if her life expectancy is now shortened.

It’s one of the most shocking reasons I’ve ever heard for a breakup. And yet again, my friend’s resilience astounds me. “I’m just relieved not to be spending any more time with someone who would do something like that to a person they supposedly love,” she tells me.

The irony is that her ex was a big fan of stoic philosophy, and yet the lack of awareness in his decision to end a relationship solely based on a prediction of life expectancy is the very opposite of stoic. You cannot dodge death or optimise a romantic relationship based on a prediction of longevity. Anything can happen—today, tomorrow, in twenty years. All we can do is be honest about our wants, congruent in our choices, and recognise, above all, that love is a verb.

Tuesday 6 January

The last few weeks have been a busy, exploratory, exuberant time of putting myself out there and dating again.

Wanting to bring intention to each encounter, I end one particular dalliance because it was almost, but not quite right.

I realise how often we hold out hope for the almost-connection, for a vague outline of potential, for the “if-only” and ignore our own discernment. I want to trust that by letting go, I’m creating space for the right fit.

Wednesday 7 January

Handing my brother some Tajín to add to his mango, I realise making serving suggestions are my love language—Hey! Try this-with-this. I want the things in your life to be just that little bit more delicious. I love you.

Friday 9 January

I’m listening to ABC Radio as they interview a woman in her 80s who has lost her home of 65-years in the bush fires. I’m struck by the matter-of-fact way she recounts what’s now gone.

“I lost the embroidery and the quilts, but at least I did them,” she says with gratitude for the process, the days we fill, not the things we lose.

“I’m sure I’ll get the chance to do one or two more; I’ll be 90 soon.”

Saturday 10 January

Overheard: “Meaning is made, not found.”

Sunday 11 January

My friend has popped over to my neighbourhood with her daughter, and so we get lunch, go for a stroll and do some errands together. I love when an afternoon stretches out like that with someone—a pandiculation of connection, refreshing the nervous system with the simple yet valued intimacy of someone who has known you for decades.

Wednesday 14 January

I recently watched the film Song Sung Blue with my parents. There’s a scene where someone says in a group recovery meeting, “If you live long enough you can see your dreams die a slow death…”

It was a somber thought, and later I ask my parents what dreams haven’t worked out for them.

My dad says, “None, I’ve got everything I wanted” and puts his arm around my mum.

Playfully brushing him off , my mum says, “The dream of the house in the countryside with a veggie patch and chickens.” Then she adds, “But I’m not regretful about that. Dreams dying isn’t always a bad thing…”

The dream changes, or sometimes even better things arrive, they say to me and each other.

Friday 16 January

I’m having a meeting with my lovely friend and editor Susie Thatcher, and we are talking about our plans for the year ahead. Discussing the work she needs to do on her novel, Susie tells me that the main thing is to keep the doubt out. When I ask how we do that, she says: “You just keep it simple.”

Saturday 17 January

I’m riding my bike along Park Street, and ahead of me is an elderly man zipping along on his scooter. As I get closer, I can hear him offering a cheery “good morning” to each passerby, and so just as I’m overtaking him, I say “good morning” first.

Life can be like that—we project joy as best we can, and then in return, it sneaks up and surprises us, cheerily meeting us by our side.