By mid-March 1986, life felt familiar.

Winter hadn’t quite let go yet. The air still had a chill, and most days moved at a steady, predictable pace. School, work, weekends… repeat. Nothing about it felt historic.

What we noticed was simpler.

Songs on the radio that stuck in your head before you even knew the words. Movies that shaped how you thought about friendships and relationships before you had the language for either. TV shows that showed you versions of adulthood you were quietly measuring yourself against.

If you wanted to hear a song again, you waited.
If you missed a show, you missed it.
If you had a question, you didn’t instantly get an answer.

You lived with what you knew. And most of the time, you didn’t question it.

Meanwhile, something quieter was happening. On March 13, just days before this moment, Microsoft went public.

Most of us didn’t notice. But the way we would learn, think, and revisit what we thought we knew was already beginning to change.

Let’s take a look back.

This Mixtape Memory Lane is sponsored by Practical Advice from the Scriptures.

“Rock Me Amadeus” – Falco
It sounded different the first time… and every time after that. Half the lyrics went by too fast to catch, but it didn’t matter. You recognized it instantly. It didn’t ask you to understand it… just to feel it.

“Addicted to Love” – Robert Palmer
That guitar hit and you knew exactly what was coming. Clean, controlled, and unmistakable. And the video? Precision, repetition, style… it made the song impossible to separate from the image.

“Sara” – Starship
Slower. Softer. The kind of song that showed up late at night or on a long drive. It gave you space to think… even if you didn’t know about what yet.

“These Dreams” – Heart
You didn’t always choose this song… it just found you. Calm on the surface, emotional underneath. The kind of track that made you stare out a window a little longer than usual.

“The Show” – Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick
This felt like something new. Storytelling, rhythm, personality… it wasn’t just a song, it was a performance. If you heard it once, you remembered it.

“Bop” – Dan Seals
Country crossed over more than people remember. This one made its way onto pop radio and into spaces it didn’t usually occupy. It had a rhythm you could move to and a sound that felt just familiar enough to stick.

Pop. Rock. Hip-hop. Country.

The playlist didn’t stay in one place.

Neither did we.

👇 Watch the full throwback video playlist on YouTube Music. https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAP5Oj7iUBp34nErc6zRK8_Kes8OB_HJn&si=UlnRQ1LT3wiUuUeu

If you were heading to the movies around that time, you probably had a sense of what kind of night you were in for before you even bought the ticket.

Some people were still lining up for Pretty in Pink… not just for the romance, but for everything underneath it. The awkwardness, the class differences, the feeling that everyone else seemed to understand the rules except you. It didn’t hit you all at once. It stayed with you a little longer.

Others were drawn to something quieter and more layered. Hannah and Her Sisters had that effect. Conversations that felt real. Relationships that didn’t resolve neatly. The kind of movie you understood differently depending on where you were in life.

And then there were the films that leaned into atmosphere and scale. Out of Africa was still in theaters, giving audiences something slower, more reflective… the kind of story that asked you to settle in instead of keep up.

At home, television still shaped the rhythm of the week.

Moonlighting didn’t feel like anything else on TV at the time. Fast, a little chaotic, and built on chemistry you couldn’t quite predict. You watched as much for the tension between characters as for the story itself.

The Equalizer moved in the opposite direction. Quiet, deliberate, and a little unsettling. Justice wasn’t flashy… it was personal.

And then there was something new starting to take shape with L.A. Law. It hinted at a different kind of storytelling… more layered, more character-driven… a sign that television was beginning to grow up along with its audience.

You didn’t binge.

You chose… and then you waited until next week to see what happened next.

This Life Reboot is sponsored by La’Merde Designs apparel.

In 1986, most of what you believed came from a limited number of sources.

Family. School. Television. Experience.

And once you formed an opinion, it tended to stay put. Not because you were unwilling to change… but because there wasn’t constant pressure to reconsider.

Today is different.

Information moves faster. Perspectives collide more often. And certainty feels harder to hold onto.

That’s where intellectual humility comes in.

Not self-doubt.
Not second-guessing everything.

Just the recognition that what you know… might not be the full picture.

Research shows that people with higher intellectual humility are more likely to evaluate new information fairly and revise their beliefs when presented with credible evidence (Leary et al., 2017).

That’s not weakness. That’s growth.

Choose one belief you hold with confidence.

Then ask yourself: What evidence would change my mind?

Not “Do I want to be right?”
But “What would make me reconsider?”

Then take one step:

You don’t have to change your conclusion. Just expand the conditions under which you would. That’s intellectual humility in practice.

Three days before this week’s moment, Microsoft went public.

At $21 per share, the stock surged quickly, turning Bill Gates into one of the youngest self-made billionaires. At the time, software didn’t feel like the center of the tech world. Hardware did. But this moment quietly shifted that perception.

What investors were really betting on wasn’t just a company.

It was a new way of interacting with information.

If you had purchased just one share at the IPO… and held it through decades of stock splits and growth, it would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars today. Not because of one breakthrough moment, but because software became embedded in nearly every part of daily life.

Life Reboot is sponsored by La’Merde Designs.

Mixtape Memory Lane is sponsored by Practical Advice from the Scriptures.

Looking back at that week in March 1986, nothing felt urgent.

The music was everywhere… “Rock Me Amadeus,” “Addicted to Love,” “Sara.” Songs that didn’t ask for your full attention, but somehow stayed with you anyway.

At the movies, stories like Pretty in Pink and Hannah and Her Sisters were quietly shaping how we understood relationships, identity, and the complicated space in between.

On television, shows like Moonlighting were changing the rhythm of storytelling… faster, sharper, less predictable.

And just beneath all of that, Microsoft stepped into the public spotlight… a signal that the way we would learn, work, and process information was about to change in ways we couldn’t yet see.

That’s what makes this moment interesting. Nothing felt different. But everything was beginning to shift.

The culture was shaping how we felt. Technology was starting to shape how we think. And somewhere in between, we were forming beliefs we would carry for decades… often without questioning them.

Which brings us back to the idea of intellectual humility. Not the need to be right… But the willingness to recognize that what we know might only be part of the story.

As Pretty in Pink reminded us: “You said you couldn’t believe in someone who didn’t believe in you.”

Maybe the same is true for ideas. Growth doesn’t come from holding onto what we already believe. It comes from being willing to examine it… and, when necessary, change it.

If this edition brought back a memory or gave you a new way to look at an old one, share it with someone who lived it too.

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Until next time…