Before we get into this one, I would like to take a moment to celebrate what this weekend stands for.
This newsletter goes out on Memorial Day weekend. A weekend that exists because men chose to stand between their families and something that would have destroyed them.
They did not have a choice about the war. They did have a choice about how they faced it.
That choice is worth remembering before we talk about coffee and solitude and walks. Because the freedom to have a quiet, unhurried weekend belongs to us because of men who never got one.
Honor them today. Say their names if you know them. Teach your sons who they were and what they gave.
Then go have the kind of weekend they fought to make possible.
That is not a contradiction. That is the point.
I usually post on Tuesday, but because it is a holiday weekend, I thought I would try to release and extra newsletter.
This week a post from @readswithravi stopped me in my tracks. Simple. Honest. Funny in the way only true things can be funny.
Six ways to have a good weekend:
Drink coffee. Avoid people. Read books. Go for a walk. Drink more coffee. Keep avoiding people. Read more books. Go for another walk.
I read it twice and thought: that is a Day Warrior weekend in disguise.
So here it is expanded. With one addition at the end that belongs to this particular weekend.
1. Drink coffee.
Not the rushed cup you inhale standing over the sink before the week swallows you whole.
The slow one. The one you make before anyone else in the house is awake. The one that belongs entirely to you.
That cup is not a small thing. It is the first signal of the day that you are in charge of your own time.
Drink it slowly. Guard that silence like it costs something. Because it does.
When I lived in Japan, I especially loved this activity during Cherry Blossom Season at my local Starbucks while sitting at the outdoor patio. The views and memories created in those “slow-down” moments was incredible.
2. Avoid people. Strategically.
This requires no explanation to introverts and complete clarification for everyone else.
The weekend, even a holiday one, is not a social obligation. You do not owe anyone your Saturday morning energy.
There is a difference between isolation and solitude. Isolation is running from people. Solitude is choosing yourself on purpose.
A man who never spends time alone with his own thoughts does not know what he actually thinks. He just knows what everyone around him thinks.
Choose solitude. At least for part of it. The people worth your time will still be there after you have refilled.
3. Read a book. Then go for a walk.
Not an article. Not a thread. Not a newsletter. Not a self-improvement journal. Not this newsletter. A book.
Something with pages and a spine and an argument that takes longer than four minutes to make.
Ten pages minimum. Enough to actually enter someone else's thinking and stay there for a while. There is nothing more soothing and rewarding that lettering you imagination get lost in the pages of a good book.
Then close it and go for a walk.
The walk is not optional. It is where the reading becomes yours. Where the ideas settle. Where the thinking happens that cannot happen sitting still.
Some of the clearest thinking I have ever done happened on a forty minute walk after an hour of reading. No phone. No podcast. Just movement and thought.
That combination is more valuable than most meetings.
4. Drink more coffee.
You earned it.
5. Keep avoiding people.
You are not being antisocial. You are being intentional.
The world will demand your attention again on Tuesday. It will want your energy, your focus, your patience, and your best thinking. All of it.
The weekend is where you rebuild the reserves that make all of that possible.
A man who gives everything to everyone all week and then gives his weekend away too has nothing left for the people who actually matter most. His family. His work. Himself.
Protect the recovery. It is not selfish. It is responsible.
6. Read more books. Go for another walk.
The pattern is the point.
A quiet mind. A moving body. Ideas coming in slowly and being processed on foot.
That is not a lazy weekend. That is a disciplined one.
The men who show up sharp on Tuesday are almost always the ones who protected their Saturday.
They read. They walked. They avoided the noise.
They came back full.
7. Remember someone who did not come home.
This is the one @readswithravi did not write, but it belongs here this weekend.
Find a name. A face. A story.
A grandfather. A neighbor. A man from your town whose name is on a wall somewhere. A soldier from a war your children have only read about in a book.
Sit with it for a few minutes. Not performatively. Not for a post. Just quietly and honestly.
The coffee, the solitude, the books, the walks. All of it is possible because men who were not much older than some of our sons made a decision that cost them everything.
That is worth more than a moment of silence.
It is worth a life built intentionally. A family led with discipline and presence. A legacy worth leaving.
That is how you honor them.
Not just today. Every day you choose to show up fully and build something real.
The Honest Close
Nobody is going to give you permission to have a good weekend.
Not your job. Not your inbox. Not the group chat that never stops.
You take it. You protect it. You fill it with the things that actually restore you.
And this weekend, before the coffee and the quiet and the books, take one minute to remember the men who made the quiet possible.
Then go have the weekend they deserved to have.
- The Day Warrior
Credit and gratitude to @readswithravi on X for the original list that sparked this one. Go follow him. A man who reads is a man worth knowing.
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