Prove Life Wrong: Learning to Pause Without Quiting
When Forward Motion Doesn’t Look Like Movement
Sometimes progress doesn’t announce itself with momentum.
Sometimes it arrives as a stalled moment on the side of the road, an unexpected interruption that forces you to stop long enough to actually listen. Over the past few weeks, life has introduced one of those pauses — inconvenient, necessary, and quietly revealing. This isn’t a story about quitting or losing direction. It’s about learning how to breathe, reassess, and continue with intention when the path forward asks you to slow down rather than push through.
TL;DR
When the Weave Interrupts the Road
At the end of 2025 — December 19th, to be exact — I needed to travel from Mesquite to Austin for an annual division meeting at my new job, something I mentioned briefly in Rooms, Realms, and the Work That Follows You. It’s just over 200 miles, about a three-hour drive if everything goes smoothly.
Because of my sleep schedule, I decided to leave early — around 3 a.m. The plan was simple: beat traffic, arrive with time to spare, maybe find a quiet Starbucks and get some OWTT work done before meeting the team.
I wasn’t entirely sure I should even make the trip. Things were tight, and I didn’t want to create unnecessary expenses. But the timing mattered, and so did showing up for the people who had trusted me enough to offer me a position. In the end, that made the decision for me.
The drive down was uneventful. Music, a bit of news, long stretches of dark highway — and before I knew it, I was there.
Meeting my team, my manager, and her manager was genuinely affirming. I was welcomed warmly, and there were already kind words about the work I’d done and the value I was bringing. That alone made the trip worth it.
The return trip, however, had other plans.
On the way back, my car broke down.
Traffic was already at a standstill because of an accident up ahead — a full-on jam. Then it happened: warning lights, tones, that unmistakable something’s wrong moment. I joked to a friend on the phone that it sounded like the mothership from Close Encounters, but the humor faded quickly.
I pulled over, assuming it was electrical. Battery terminals looked fine. It was dark, hard to see much else, but I checked what I could — especially the serpentine belt. Nothing obvious.
The car hesitated, but it started again.
So I kept going.
About five hundred feet later, the tones returned. The mothership called again. I pulled over once more, called my wife, and let her know the car had finally given up and I was waiting on a tow.
What I didn’t realize at first was how close I already was.
Fourteen miles from home.
Good ol’ blue had carried me almost all the way back before deciding it was done.
We got the car home and parked out front. Standing there, I made a decision: this can wait. I was off for the week for Christmas. I didn’t need another problem demanding immediate attention. We have another vehicle, I work from home, and this year had already taken enough out of me.
I’d deal with it later — after I’d had time to breathe.
(Side note: I still need to find out whether my Vespa is salvageable from that accident.)
Learning to Pause Without Quiting
For the remainder of December, I made a conscious decision to step back from any major creative pushes. Not disengage — just breathe. I treated January as my true reset: a time for recalibration, planning, and reassessing how I want to weave the next set of threads moving forward.
The plan itself hasn’t changed much. The direction is still clear. What has changed is the focus.
Starting a new job, adjusting to different pay structures, and reworking my budget required a more honest look at timing and priorities. Some projects needed to be pushed back a couple of months. Others, unexpectedly, moved forward sooner than planned. None of it was arbitrary — it was simply a matter of asking a necessary question:
What actually makes sense to work on, given the situation in front of me?
That question sits at the heart of this post.
Learning to Pause Without Quitting isn’t about stepping away from the work. In some areas, yes, things are temporarily paused. But in many others, I’m still investing heavily — in some cases, even more deliberately than before.
That’s why I’ve chosen to slightly delay the Kickstarter launch for the double LP edition of The Infinite Weave: Epica. Rather than forcing momentum, I’m now targeting a mid-February launch to ensure it’s introduced with the clarity, focus, and energy it deserves.
At the same time, much of this “down” period wasn’t idle at all. A significant amount of that quiet space was spent working deeply on a particular Other Worlds Than These project — one I’ve intentionally kept close to the chest until now.
And that’s where things begin to open up again.
Shifting Threads, Not Dropping the Loom
During that quieter stretch, I spent time working on another creative path that’s been steadily forming alongside the music: a set of tabletop roleplaying game adventures and sourcebooks designed as a companion to The Infinite Weave: Epica.
Aside from a small post on Patreon, you’re hearing this here first.
I’ll be sharing far more detail in the next OWTT Dispatch in a couple of days, but it matters that this is mentioned now. Because in many ways, this work represents exactly what I mean by pausing without quitting.
I didn’t stop building Other Worlds Than These. I didn’t walk away from my brands or the larger vision. I simply shifted focus — intentionally — to avoid burnout and to keep creative momentum alive without forcing it down a single path.
That flexibility is precisely why OWTT exists as an umbrella. Music. TTRPGs. Video games. Reviews. Each thread feeds the others. When one area needs rest — or simply a different kind of energy — I can move my attention without losing direction or purpose.
I had already begun work on the adventure itself, but during this pause I made the decision to step back and properly flesh out the world first. The setting. The characters. The connective tissue that makes the music and the narrative feel like parts of the same living thing.
Details are coming soon.
For now, this is the point I want to underline:
This is what pausing without quitting looks like.
The loom never stopped. I just chose a different thread for a while.
Prove Life Wrong
Pausing doesn’t mean retreating.
It doesn’t mean doubt won.
And it certainly doesn’t mean the work is finished.
Sometimes, proving life wrong looks like recognizing when to stop pushing and start listening. It’s knowing when momentum needs refinement instead of force. The road doesn’t always disappear when progress slows — sometimes it simply asks for a different pace.
Over the past few weeks, I didn’t step away from the work. I adjusted how I approached it. Some threads were set aside briefly so others could be strengthened. Some plans were delayed so they could be carried forward with clarity instead of exhaustion.
The Weave is still forming.
The music continues.
The stories are taking shape.
The worlds are deepening.
And when the next push comes — with the The Infinite Weave: Epica Kickstarter, the TTRPG releases, and everything that follows — it will come from a place of intention, not urgency.
This is what it means to prove life wrong.
Not by refusing to pause —
but by learning how to pause without quitting.
If you’d like to help me Prove Life Wrong, you can show your support by checking out the official merchandise — T-shirts, mugs, and more — available here:
Previous posts in this series...
Prove Life Wrong: Learning to Pause Without Quiting
When Forward Motion Doesn’t Look Like Movement Sometimes progress doesn’t announce itself with momentum. Sometimes it arrives as a stalled
Prove Life Wrong: When the Work You’re Meant to Make Finally Calls Your Name
Step into The Weave Many have said that The Dark Tower series is Stephen King’s magnum opus — the work
Prove Life Wrong: Rooms, Realms, and the Work That Follows You
When a Recruiter Forgets You’re Human I want to start this Prove Life Wrong entry with something I originally shared
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