Never Say Never

Early one Thursday evening this summer, I dropped the boys off to see their dad, parked the car at Aldi and stepped out into the blazing sun.

For the past few years, I've watched the Internet fill up with ordinary people posting videos about the design of their cities. "I could never do that," I told myself. I could never film videos about Waco because I'm not inspired here, I'd say. It's not walkable here. It's not pretty. There are too many cars everywhere and not enough people out walking. I'd feel too awkward.

Well, 2026 has been a of "never say never" in so many areas of life.

Never say I'd be a single mom? Done. ✅

Never say I'd live in the countryside? Done. ✅

Never say I'd DoorDash to build a margin? Done. ✅

Never say I'd film videos about Waco? Also done. ✅

But this newsletter is not about filming videos or becoming a content creator. It's not about the fact that I'm now regularly walking my city and filming the walks. All of that is tangential to the most important thing that happened this summer, which was a reframe.

For the past 5 1/2 years, I've seen my city as a liability. It's not beautiful. It's not walkable. It's too hot. It has too many loose dogs.

All of those things are still true, but something shifted and I began to see them as opportunities for investigation, for curiosity, for question-asking, for storytelling. Like, maybe living in an un-walkable place is the perfect position from which to investigate the costs of not designing for pedestrians...now there's an idea!

When I saw the city this way, it became obvious that all of the challenges with the city were actually opportunities. And maybe that's what all of these people posting videos understood that I didn't. They grasped a reframe that's essential for anyone wanting to advocate for a better city: the problems are the opportunities, they are the invitations to start noticing, to start asking questions.

This mindset shift is essential for meaningful participation. If we're going to participate in the conversations shaping our cities, then we have to look at the frustrations, challenges and dislikes that we have about our places through the lens of curiosity.

That's what clicked for me. That's part of the story at least. Are there better ways to practice curiosity then taking 30-minute walks in 100-degree heat? Probably. But it's what was available to me.

So that's how I found myself walking 30-minutes that Thursday afternoon in good ol' suburban Texas, the only pedestrian on one of our city's busiest (and ugliest) Stroads, with my iPhone out, filming like a tourist in Times Square, convinced the whole time that this was right where I was meant to be.

And that was right where I was meant to be.