Good Morning!

Welcome to the first Monday of 2026. This one sets the tone for the rest, so let’s crush it today!

Last week, going into the New Year, was all about becoming and transformation. This week, we’re cracking into time and living well inside of it. Not in the sense of productivity, but in presence, memory, and morality. We’ll be hearing from some familiar favorites as well as a couple of new voices: German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Josef Piper, poets Marcel Proust and T.S. Eliot, and Marcus Aurelius. Let’s get into it.

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” - Viktor Frankl

Today, for our main course, we’re going to talk about Martin Heidegger’s core insight: We exist within time. To burn that off, we’re going to lock ourselves in the present moment with a little mindfulness exercise. To close with our Book Nook, we’re going to open up Heidegger’s Being and Time.

I know I’m hungry, so pull up your seats. Thought Breakfast is served!!

We don’t possess time, we inhabit it.

Modern culture treats time as a currency. We literally exchange our time for money. Heidegger reframes this optic. Rather than viewing time as something outside of ourselves and tangible enough for exchange, he says we are actually temporal beings. We don’t step into or out of time, but we exist through it.

Life, then, is not something happening inside of time. Life is time unfolding through a person. It feels scarce only because it’s finite. Every moment arrives once and then disappears, like a wave in the tide. This truth doesn’t declare tragedy, but it gives life its weight.

If you were to stand in the ocean, open a jar, and collect a piece of a wave passing by you. Does that make the wave last any longer, or do you just have an insignificant jar of saltwater?

We’re always trying to “hold” the present moment, but it’s always always moving forward. The more we grasp it, the more it escapes us. This German philosopher, Heidegger, holds a disposition very similar to the Stoics and the Buddhists: time cannot be controlled. It can only be received and responded to.

The modern productivity mindset prompts us to ask “How do I use time?” but Heidegger tells us to ask “How do I live inside the time I’ve been given?”

Reflect on today, not your whole life:

This isn’t meant to be a full resolution, but a practice of orienting ourselves toward the present moment.

“Anticipation reveals to Dasein its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. In this possibility it is thrown back upon itself, and it is anxious. Being-toward-death individualizes Dasein, disclosing that this possibility is non-relational and cannot be outstripped. In anticipating this possibility, Dasein understands itself as finite and is brought before the responsibility of its existence.”
- Heidegger, Being and Time, §53 (Being-toward-death)

Imagine you have something special, but you can only have it for a little while. That something is special because you only have a little while with it. We don’t get endless time, and that makes all the little things, moments, and people very special.

Everything in life has an ending. Since we know things don’t last forever, we should pay more attention to what matters. Hug people tighter. Enjoy moments more. Try to be kind.

Knowing that time is special shouldn’t make us afraid. It should remind us to love people, enjoy every moment, and to do things that matter.

Munch on that for today. Heidegger shows in this passage that we don’t live forever, which makes our time precious. Knowing this helps us become ourselves and reminds us to use our life well. Have a great Monday, and come back tomorrow for another steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!!

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Thank you for reading along with us today! If you enjoy this content, and want to start your days grounded in thought and mindfulness, I suggest you have a seat at our table! Smash that button below to check out more editions and subscribe!

Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast