How to stay grounded when life takes off
On gaining altitude and learning to hold steady when life begins to lift off the ground
Last week, I detailed changes around Window Seat’s paid/free cadence. I’m also running a massive giveaway for both free and paid subs—there’s still time to enter! (Read more about both here.)
Additionally, I’m offering 20% off annual subscriptions—just $48 instead of $60. This offer will expire on 11/7.
One of my favorite parts of any trip is the takeoff. Especially the exact moment the plane lifts off the ground.
Beforehand, I monitor my plane from an app on my phone. I follow it as it navigates a maze of taxiways in search of the takeoff runway. When we reach it, I count how many planes are in line ahead of us. I know the dings that signal we are cleared are coming before the passengers or flight attendants do.
I imagine the pilots in the cockpit, faces trained forward on the runway stretched out before them, one calling out rotate while the other slowly pulls back on the yoke that—somehow—effortlessly lifts a giant metal tube full of people off the Earth and into the air.
In a matter of seconds, we have all become weightless.
Five months ago, when I took Window Seat full-time, I felt very much in the moment of full acceleration—anticipating the weightlessness of takeoff. Lately, I’ve realized maybe I’ve actually gone from moving along the ground to being suspended above it. It’s such a small, invisible threshold; you don’t see the wheels lift, you just feel a shift. One second you’re bound by gravity, and the next, you’re buoyed by air. Both have their own kind of pressure.
Life has started to feel a little like that. When the things you once dreamed about begin to happen in real time, it can be dizzying. You’re thrilled, grateful, and a little disoriented all at once.
And like any good pilot, you start scanning for reference points: something familiar to steady yourself by. The rituals that remind you who you are and the people who keep you tethered to what matters. I’ve been learning that staying grounded isn’t about slowing down; it’s about remembering what and who holds you steady as you climb.
Below, a few of the practices keeping me balanced now that life feels like it’s moving faster toward a destination I’m still figuring out. I hope these small rituals and mindset shifts help you find your own sense of steadiness, too.