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Aaron McHugh| 2 minute read

Write it by hand instead

Write it down. Don’t send a text, an email, a DM. Take out a piece of paper, tear out a page in a magazine, locate your favorite stationery in the back of your closet, and handwrite your thoughts, appreciations, birthday wishes, and good-byes.

Years ago, a friend of ours shared his homemade birthday card with me, “I make all of my cards.” I’ve never purchased a card since. Last month I scribed notes to dear allies in my decade-long grief journey, a letter written on a topographic map to a friend-of-a-friend’s daughter in a trauma recovery program.

Handwritten words create physical artifacts to reside in our lives, serving as reminders-we’re loved, we are seen, of who and how we want to be.

Live bravely and write it down to bring more life.

Keep going,

Aaron

My daughter wrote me this note on an old surfing journal to ask me if I wanted to camp out in our ’74 VW Bus in the parking lot of the new Chick-fil-A to get free food for one year.
On vacation I wrote these notes to our family and taped them to the front door of our beach condo reminding us to ask for help. The instigator of this note came after our son scraped our car pulling into the garage. 🙂
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About the Author Aaron McHugh

Aaron McHugh is an executive transformation coach, enterprise agility consultant, writer, podcaster, adventurer, and author of Fire Your Boss: Discover Work You Love Without Quitting Your Job.

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