The Light We Need

Last night, I found myself staring into candlelight, watching the flame dance and flicker in the stillness. I don't know how long I sat there—a long time—just looking at it. There's something about light I can't fully explain, something that draws me in like I'm being pulled toward a part of me (maybe I'm the part of something bigger). Perhaps I'm light trying to find my way too, but that might be too poetic for an engineer like me.

Christmas time makes us reflect deeply. We look back at the year behind us to shape the person we want to become. It feels like the right time to set goals. For many of us, these are good times to shoot for a better version of ourselves. I'm no exception.

One of my goals has been to write down my ideas more frequently. Too many times, I've been confident about an idea, only to talk with someone and realize I don't have strong arguments to back it up, and end up being a fool. I've been thinking about things lightly, scraping just the surface instead of diving deep. Writing forces me to shine light on half-formed thoughts, to see my own ideas clearly enough to know if they're worth saying out loud. I'm working on it.

My process starts with questions. I've found this is the easiest place to begin. You don't need to be a genius to ask good questions—the more you ask, the better you become at it. The people we remember the most are often the ones who asked us a great question.

Christmas is a season full of light. Cities, buildings, homes, and trees shine bright at night. There's light everywhere, in multiple colors and shapes. It's so pretty, people get out to see the lights, even if it's crazy cold.

After watching that candle last night, I started wondering: what is the light we actually need?

There's an engineer in me that wants to break things down into components, even something as mysterious as light. To me, there are three fundamental ways we need light in our lives:

Light to see the world

We're scared of dark places. Caves. Deep forests. Even our own rooms, when we can't see into the corners (or under the bed). Seeing the world clearly gives us comfort and security. The absence of light feels like something is wrong, something's off—like when you wake up at 3 AM, and everything feels like it's from a different house.

I remember being seven years old, convinced something lived in my closet. My mom would turn on the light and show me that it was just clothes and shoes. "See?" she'd say. "Nothing there." The light in the room made all the difference—it changed what I could see, and that changed how I felt.

We need light to see clearly where we are in the world. We can't belong to a place we can't see.

Light to see who we are

The need to understand who we are runs deep in all of us. We discover things by shining light on them. When we point the light on ourselves or step into the spotlight to let others see us, we allow ourselves to be seen and understood. In that same process, we also see ourselves.

There was a moment in college when a professor asked me why I'd chosen engineering. I gave the standard answer about problem-solving and building things. He looked at me and said, "No, really—why?" In that conversation, having someone shine their attention on me like a beam of light, I discovered something true about me: I loved taking complex things and making them simple enough for anyone to understand. He saw it in me before I saw it myself.

Seeing ourselves in the light gives us a kind of warmth and belonging that's hard to explain, but unmistakable when we feel it.

Light to see where to go

When people get lost, it's easy to imagine them shining a flashlight to find their way back. The path ahead needs to be clear. Light shows us where we're going, gives us focus and intention about the direction we should take.

I've been lost many times—not just physically, but in that deeper way where you don't know what you're doing anymore. What brought me back wasn't a sudden revelation. It was a light: a conversation that clarified what mattered, a project that reminded me what I'm good at, a question that illuminated the next step even when I couldn't see the whole path.

Sometimes we don't need to see the entire journey. We just need enough light for the next few steps.

People describe angels as a beam of light.

May this be the time when light comes to you—to brighten the world around you, to illuminate who you are, and to show you where to go.

Here's to a future full of light.