Not nostalgia

Note to self

This week, I found myself searching online for my old cricket bat, the Kookaburra Bubble Plus. I didn’t need it. I just wanted to hold it again and feel what it felt like.

Then I messaged my cousin to play one-on-one basketball. I haven’t played in 25 years.

Then I watched Paul Tudor Jones speak about the Robin Hood Foundation and found myself remembering a version of me that wanted to build the Good Society Fund.

All of this arrived together, uninvited.

The boy who picked up that bat wasn’t just playing a game. He was learning what it felt like to hold something with total commitment. The kid who read Market Wizards wasn’t looking for a career. He was looking for a calling. The young man who dreamed of making a fortune and giving it all away felt nothing was impossible.

Somewhere along the way, ambition got confused with ego. Wanting more got tangled with wanting wrongly. So I managed it down. But humility was never meant to be a ceiling.

So why is this showing up now?

Maybe because I’m at a threshold and some older part of me knows it. Maybe the next move requires me to want it at a different scale—and that scale still feels uncomfortable. Maybe the guilt around money has done its job of keeping me honest, and now it’s just keeping me small.

That Jawad didn’t disappear. He was waiting for the man I was becoming. Now faith and vision can do the work together.