A song you loved at sixteen will time-travel you back instantly at thirty. Choose the soundtrack carefully.

Music attaches itself to whatever was going on while you played it, and it never asks permission. Years later a single song can drop you back into one car, one summer, one person, with detail no photograph holds. Whatever is on repeat for you right now is being filed alongside this exact stretch of your life.

Build a playlist for this season deliberately and keep it. Add what you actually play, not what sounds impressive. In ten years it works like a door, and you will be glad somebody bothered to keep the key.