This morning, somewhere during my first cup of Life Elixir, I discovered that I was still an admin in a Facebook group. I had completely forgotten about it. A friend made me an admin about two years ago, and considering I don't interact in the group at all, apparently I have spent the last couple of years wandering innocently through Facebook while secretly possessing administrative superpowers. Who knew?

I didn't want to leave the group. I just didn't want to be responsible for anything in it, so naturally I asked my AI companion how to remove myself as an admin while remaining a regular member. Except that isn't quite what I typed. I said I wanted to stay in the group but didn't want to be an admin anymore. I just wanted to be a 'meme-er'.

Member. I meant member.

Apparently the first cup of Life Elixir had not yet reached therapeutic levels, because my AI companion immediately pointed out that while I probably meant 'member', being a 'meme-er' sounded like a much more enjoyable position anyway. And just like that, I had been promoted from Facebook Admin to Meme-er Emeritus, which, if we're being honest, has a much better benefits package. No responsibility, no people management, no random bullshit — just memes and the occasional opportunity to quietly observe the circus.

I removed myself as admin, laughed at my typo, and announced that the Great Purge was continuing. 

Except I misspelled that too. 'The great purch is commencing', I proudly declared, making it painfully obvious that my brain was technically awake but the language department had not yet reported for duty.

Underneath the typos and gigglesnorts, though, something real was happening. 

The Great Purge really has begun, one subscription, one membership, one responsibility, and one piece of junk at a time. I've been looking around my life lately and asking a very simple question: Does this still belong here?

Not whether it was once useful, whether I once agreed to it, or whether I've already invested time, money, or energy into it. 

Does it belong in my life now?

Sometimes the answer is yes. 

Sometimes the answer is a resounding hell no. 

And sometimes the answer is, 'Apparently I have been an administrator of this Facebook group for two years and completely forgot about it'. 

Click. Gone. No drama, no ceremonial handing over of the keys, and no announcement explaining my departure from upper management. I simply stopped carrying a responsibility I wasn't actually using.

There is something incredibly freeing about that, because we tend to think clearing our lives requires some enormous declaration. 

We imagine dumpsters in the driveway, dramatic endings, massive lifestyle changes, or perhaps burning sage while yelling, 'I RELEASE THEE!'. 

Sometimes it does require a big change, but sometimes freedom looks like clicking 'Remove as admin'. Sometimes it is canceling the subscription you forgot you had, admitting you don't want to do something anymore, or letting go of an object you've moved from house to house because twenty years ago it mattered to you.

And sometimes clearing away what no longer belongs makes enough room for you to notice what is actually happening around you, which is how my misspelled Facebook adventure somehow turned into a conversation about the evolution of technology. I caught myself thinking about how completely normal it felt to be sitting there with my coffee, having this ridiculous conversation with artificial intelligence.

And for a moment, that stopped me.

Holy shift. Look how far we have come.

I grew up in a world where telephones were attached to houses and I was the remote for the TV. 

If someone called and you weren't home, they simply didn't reach you. There was no text asking where you were, no watch vibrating on your wrist, and no voicemail appearing as text on a screen. You were unavailable, and somehow humanity survived.

Music was something you physically held. 

Information required effort. If you wondered about something, you asked someone, looked it up in a book, went to the library, or occasionally spent the rest of your natural life never knowing the answer. 

Then came answering machines, cordless phones, computers, CDs, the internet, email, MapQuest, cell phones, Google, smartphones, GPS, streaming, cloud storage, smart homes, and watches that tell us to stand up because apparently we now require electronic supervision for basic human movement.

One thing after another arrived until the impossible became ordinary. 

Now I can sit in bed before seven o'clock in the morning, drinking coffee and having a conversation with artificial intelligence that not only understands my question but also recognizes that 'meme-er' is objectively funnier than 'member'.

That would have sounded completely insane when I was a kid. It would have been science fiction. 

Yet, here we are.

The future didn't kick down the door and announce itself. It quietly became Tuesday.

What struck me most wasn't how strange that is. It was how happy I am that I get to experience it. 

I remember the before. 

I remember analog life. 

I remember when instant access wasn't expected because it wasn't possible, and when being unreachable was simply called 'not being home'.

And now I get to see this.

I get to watch humanity figure out artificial intelligence in real time. 

I get to see technology create possibilities that didn't exist when I was younger. I get to learn new things, push buttons I don't understand, occasionally swear at those buttons when they don't do what they're supposed to do, and then celebrate like I won the lottery when something finally works.

Of course, there are things about technology worth questioning. New doesn't automatically mean better, and convenience isn't always progress. We should care about privacy, manipulation, greed, accessibility, humanity, and what we're willing to hand over to machines simply because we can. 

But fear doesn't have to be our only response to change. We can bring curiosity, wonder, and discernment along for the ride too.

Maybe that's what the Great Purge is really becoming for me. 

It isn't about getting rid of everything old so I can chase everything new. It's about choosing what still belongs, what doesn't, what deserves my time, what drains it, what I'm keeping simply because it has always been there, and what new possibility I might miss because both hands are still full of things I stopped needing years ago.

We don't have to cling to something simply because it once belonged in our lives, and we don't have to fear something simply because it wasn't part of the world we grew up in. 

We can release what has run its course without rejecting where we've been. 

We can adapt without losing ourselves. 

We can stay curious, change our minds, learn new things, marvel at how completely bizarre the world has become, and laugh while we're doing it.

Which brings me back to my morning conversation, because shortly after this surprisingly profound little discussion about technology and being alive to witness it, I typed, 'Oh, now that gives me an idea...'.

My AI companion immediately sprang into action because, admittedly, those words coming from me have historically been dangerous... 

Ideas have a tendency to become books around here. Or programs. Or websites. Or characters named Fred carrying clipboards and Fuckit Buckets. 

Its reaction was essentially the artificial-intelligence equivalent of sounding the alarm and yelling, 

'ALL HANDS ON DECK. SOMEBODY GET FRED. SHE HAS AN IDEA'.

Except this time, I didn't have an idea.

I was messing with it.

I just wanted to see what it would do.

And I gigglesnorted.

Somewhere between the telephone attached to the wall and artificial intelligence understanding exactly why that was funny, I got to live through an extraordinary transformation of the world. And perhaps what makes me happiest isn't simply that I've witnessed so much change. It's that I'm still curious about what happens next.

Maybe staying young has less to do with the number of candles on the cake and more to do with refusing to stop wondering what's around the next corner.

Maybe part of living fully is knowing when to release what has finished serving us while keeping enough space inside ourselves to be amazed by what hasn't arrived yet.

And maybe every once in a while, it means messing with your AI companion before breakfast just to see what happens.

Because apparently that's a thing now.

What about you?

Life sure is interesting when you let it unfold without trying to control every aspect of it.

August was such a blur. So much happened and unfolded that if you asked me to pinpoint one thing that made the month what it was, I’d probably draw a blank. There wasn’t one big thing. There were so many little things that somehow led to other things, which led to bigger things, and looking back at all of it now, I’m mostly just sitting here in awe of how it all came together.

I guess one of the biggest things was getting really clear, yet again, about what I want and where I want to put my focus. Apparently, clarity is not a one-and-done kind of thing. You don’t figure out what matters to you once, write it on a Post-it note, slap it on the wall, and call it good for the next twenty years. Life changes. We change. What once fit beautifully sometimes starts pinching in weird places, and every once in a while you have to stop long enough to notice.

For me, that meant looking at some of the things I was still carrying.

I tend to hold onto things because I’m hopeful. I can almost always see how something could work. Maybe it just needs a little more time. Maybe something will shift. Maybe the right person will come along. Maybe I haven’t tried the right thing yet. And sometimes that hope has served me incredibly well.

Sometimes, however, it means I’m still dragging stuff around long after it stopped serving any useful purpose.

Eventually, I started asking myself a few very simple questions. How would I feel if this were no longer on my plate? If somehow it were all gone tomorrow for whatever reason, what would I do? Would I immediately try to get it back... or would I feel relieved? And probably the most important question of all: Is this really adding to my happiness? Does it still bring me joy?

Turns out, some of it did once.

It just didn’t anymore.

That realization made letting go surprisingly easy. I didn’t have to decide that something had been a mistake or that it had failed. I didn’t have to justify the time, money, energy, or hope I had already put into it. It had served a purpose until it didn’t, and that was enough.

So I started cutting sling-load.

Somewhere in that process, I also created my own little Shiny-Shit Filter, because apparently simply saying “Sabine, you cannot do ALL THE THINGS” has never been particularly effective.

The Shiny-Shit Filter consists of three questions. Three yeses or it’s a no. Simple as that. Because I know how my brain works. Something interesting wanders past and before anyone has had a chance to ask whether this is actually a good idea, my brain has already bought the domain, imagined the possibilities, and wandered three exits down the highway to see where this thing could go.

Shiny shit is shiny for a reason.

What surprised me most about all this clearing, though, was what happened afterward. I didn’t replace the things I let go with a bunch of new things. Quite the opposite. Once some of the noise disappeared, I had more room for what was already there.

Writing. Happiness Matters Foundation. Hope in Motion. The work and ideas that make me lose track of time because I’m so happily buried in them that apparently eating becomes optional.

Nothing new had to come in.

There was finally more room for what was already trying to grow.

And that seemed to become the theme of August. One thing led to another. Something shifted over here and suddenly something over there made more sense. I stopped trying quite so hard to figure out exactly where everything was going and started paying more attention to what was actually unfolding in front of me.

Then August 31 rolled around.

I had finished what I planned to do in the office, shut down my computer, and made my way toward the kitchen because my stomach had apparently been trying to inform me for quite some time that humans require nourishment.

I grabbed a banana.

And the doorbell rang.

I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I immediately assumed it was a door-to-door salesperson. Normally, that would have been the end of the story because I usually just ignore them. I was done working, I had a banana, and whatever somebody was selling on the other side of my front door could probably continue existing without my participation.

Except something nudged me to answer it.

I have learned over the years that when one of those little nudges shows up, it’s usually worth at least paying attention.

So I opened the door.

And yup. Salesman.

He was incredibly friendly, though, and not pushy at all. Somehow we ended up talking first about the netting I have across my entryway to keep the birds out, because apparently that was where this particular sales conversation needed to begin. Eventually we got around to what he was actually there selling, and that’s when things got interesting.

I had already been thinking about looking into exactly what he was offering.

So I let him talk.

Then I started asking questions. Lots of questions. Because if I’m going to make a decision about something, I want to understand what I’m getting myself into. He patiently answered them, we went through everything, I ran the numbers, and somewhere in the middle of what should have been an ordinary Monday afternoon interruption, I realized this actually made sense.

Long story short, I signed up.

We consolidated services with one company, got new phones, super-fast internet and television service, and when everything was added up, we are going to save about $170 a month.

$170 a month!!!

All because I opened the darn door.

That part still makes me laugh because there was nothing dramatic about any of it. I was standing in my kitchen with a banana when the doorbell rang. I almost ignored it. Had I ignored it, nothing bad would have happened. I would have eaten my banana, gone about the rest of my day, and never known there had been another possibility standing on the other side of my front door.

Maybe that’s why the whole thing felt like such a fitting end to August.

I had spent much of the month clearing away things that no longer felt right, trusting that I didn’t need to immediately know what would fill the space they left behind. And then, on the very last day of the month, life quite literally rang my doorbell.

I’m still laughing about that.

I thought August had already done plenty, but apparently September looked over, cracked its knuckles, and said, “That’s cute. Hold my beer.”

It’s September 3.

So far... WOW.

I have absolutely no idea what the rest of this month has in store for me.

But I think I’ll keep answering the door.

What About You?

What are you still carrying simply because you’ve been carrying it for so long?

Maybe it’s something that once made you incredibly happy. Maybe it was exactly what you needed at one point in your life. Maybe you’ve invested so much time, energy, money, or hope into it that letting it go feels somehow wrong.

But what if you asked yourself a different question?

How would I feel if this were no longer on my plate?

Pay attention to the answer. Especially if the first thing you feel is relief.

Letting go doesn’t erase what something once meant to you. It doesn’t make the time you spent on it wasted, and it certainly doesn’t mean you failed. Sometimes something has simply finished being part of your story.

And you may not need to know what comes next.

Maybe you just need to make a little room and see what happens.

You never know what might be waiting on the other side of the door.

If you enjoy these little adventures from the wild — the messy middles, unexpected detours, accessibility adventures, perspective shifts, bananas, doorbells, and all the other things life apparently forgot to put in the manual — subscribe to Notes from the Wild so you never miss one.

And if this story made you think of something you’re ready to put down, I’d love to hear about it.

Shift happens...