89 · The Dinner Table Truce

What am I supposed to do when I don't relate to my dad on so much — and every dinner conversation doesn't end until my mom and I agree with him, and he is the only one talking? It's irritating; they're adamant in today's day and age. Just let him be him. Once you're out in London running your own business, travelling to the major cities on your own money, you might — maybe — you might miss him. The decade lined up in front of you is based in London and global; it will be stressful, and you will rarely ever again have this phase of living with your parents. So take the time. Travel the world, but visit your parents. Check in on them.

The rule from Dale Carnegie for human relationships: avoid arguments at all costs. Let them rant. Your energy and cognitive attention have better places to go — the business, the academic pursuits. The truth is that the relationship with your dad will genuinely shift once you're not under the same roof, once you're responsible for your own finances, running your own businesses, paying your own tuition, holding yourself accountable. Then they will treat you differently — not as a child. The friction is mostly proximity and dependency. Remove those two variables and a lot of the irritation dissolves on its own. The version of him you visit from London is a different interaction than the dinner-table version. If you're running your own SaaS business, working a bar in London, making your own money, paying rent, carrying your own loans, and booking flights for your parents — things shift. Not "that will shut them up" — it's a tectonic shift in how they treat you: with more respect, more dignity, as a mature adult. It's not about proving anything or winning an argument. The entire relational structure reorganises when the dependency is gone. They won't be able to help seeing you differently when you're booking their flights.

But knowing why the friction exists doesn't make it disappear in real time. So you still need the Carnegie rule as a live operating principle, not just an intellectual understanding.

Last night I felt God talking to me with my dad as the vessel: if you think your life sucking in every aspect is God preparing you for something good, you need a wake-up call. Nothing — and I mean nothing — good happens in the lives of people who choose to carry negative energy. Which is a dichotomy, because some phases need that dark motivation to launch out of a bad situation. Hold both paradoxes; both are true.

Use your dark motivation, fully. Lean into the deepest pain and suffering and come out the other end. You have no idea what you can make of trauma. And at the same time — I swear I will never carry that exhausted, poignant attitude some victim-minded successful people have: "yes, there was definitely a cost, and I am this weary soldier." Brush it off. You're a champion. You did what God called you to do. Enjoy your life.

The stuff that goes on inside a family is the least mathematical thing I own. It refuses the models. That's fine. Some systems you don't optimise — you just keep showing up to them with love, and let time do its due diligence.