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Weekend Check-In: Changes Are Coming

September 25, 2026 · 15 min

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You Knew This Was Coming

Change arrived this week for someone listening to this. It always does. And the response, almost universally, is some form of: I never saw that coming.

In this weekend check-in, Kit Mann makes the case that most of the time, on some level, the person did see it coming. The job had been unstable for months. The relationship had been signaling. The body had been sending information that was not being processed. The change was not sudden. The awareness of it was sudden. And those are not the same thing.

The Tao Te Ching's Chapter 16 describes the practice of returning — of being present to what is actually there rather than to the mental model of what should be there. The preparation for change is not strategic. It is attentional. The person who is in the room with what is actually in the room does not eliminate change from their life. They eliminate the gap between the change and the awareness of it.

Follow The Modern Taoist so you don't miss the full Tuesday episodes. And if you know someone who keeps getting blindsided by things they already knew were there, send this one their way.

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