100

[00:00:00] **Aurooba Ahmed:** Well, hello! This is The Daily Five with Aurooba, that's me, where we reflect on creating our best lives a little bit every day. Here we go.

[00:00:15] 100th episode. Today is the 115th day of the year. I know this because I missed 15 days and have made it to 100 episodes today. You know, I felt sad about those 15 days at first, but now I'm grateful for them. They taught me and forced me to do what I have said all along, that breaks are okay and sometimes needed.

[00:00:48] I may have been forced into that break by my health, but it was good for me anyway. And I recorded some of my more personally meaningful episodes after that break.

[00:01:02] I've been thinking about this episode off and on all day. I'm excited to have reached the last episode of this season. I am also a little sad. And I'm thinking, yeah, you know, that sounds about right. When you reach your destination after a long journey, it's so awesome to have gotten there. And also, a little sad that the journey is over, if it was a good journey anyway. And this one was.

[00:01:37] For those of you who have listened along, thank you. It has been an honor to be chosen and selected into your queue of content, whether for one episode, a few episodes, or all of them. The conversations I've had this season have been interesting, surprising, and sometimes quite deep with some of you. There has been much goodness in that.

[00:02:04] It will be odd for the next few days, I imagine, for me to go to bed without having recorded an episode, as I have done for so much of this year. But it will be freeing as well, because I am ready for what's next.

[00:02:23] I started this second season because I wanted to prove to myself that I could get to 100 episodes. And that I could do it without it feeling torturous and incredibly hard. That I could do it and enjoy it and even provide some value. That I did in fact have so much to say that I could create 100 episodes day after day. You know, I don't have exact counts, but I reckon episodes are between 400 to 900 words based on the average from my transcripts. And that's an average of 100, 000 words spoken and shared over the course of 100 episodes. That's about the length of a novel.

[00:03:04] Even as I look back at the topics I've covered, you know, there are so many that I didn't. I never covered conflict. I never covered grit in much detail. I didn't cover love, even though I often touch on it in many of my anecdotes. I didn't say much about friendship. I said very little about strife or loss or grief. And there are so many other topics that I am not even remotely qualified to speak on, at least right now in this phase of my life.

[00:03:34] But I touched on a lot that do matter as well, that felt matterful in my own life: work, burnout, communication, kindness, process, support, success, habits, values, purpose, some kinds of relationships, growth, rest. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Sincerity.

[00:03:58] We often teach the things we're learning or want to learn more of ourselves. We often preach the things we ourselves need to hear most. I'm not sure that has always applied, but sometimes it has. That is for sure.

[00:04:15] I feel content with this season, and that is a beautiful thing. I don't know about you, but sometimes it feels like the act of truly finishing something in a timely manner is Rare and lacking in life, something we covet and imagine, but rarely achieve. Like the pen you lose before it ever runs out of ink, and you start afresh, only to eventually lose that one too before it runs out of ink. Always starting, never finishing.

[00:04:46] But this season of The Daily Five is ending. And it's ending in a timely fashion, with a close that satisfies me. And that is valuable and good.

[00:05:01] I cannot promise you a third season, but perhaps there will be. There is no way to tell for now. So, thank you for joining me. I hope it was an enjoyable journey.