Dayenu

liz

My favorite Passover song is Dayenu. Sung as a refrain, the word dayenu means “it would have been enough.” In context, it is speaking to the Exodus and how G-d’s miracles preserved the Jewish people through many trials and tribulations on the road to freedom from slavery in Egypt. The premise of the song is that although each miracle on its own would have been enough, there was an abundance of blessings. As I move through this season of my life, I find myself returning to this song and its message.

Last week, someone (who doesn’t know me very well) asked me what I wish I had done better during quarantine. The question was framed from the perspective that quarantine is some kind of strange staycation where I can choose to take up a new hobby or embark on a plan for self-actualization. “Nothing,” I answered. There is nothing that I regret about how I have used this time. Even the time that others might label as unproductive.

The other person was a bit taken aback. “Really? Nothing? You’re not even thinking about what you could have done better? Organized your closet, eaten healthier, worked on something around the house?”

Nope.

If I had only gone to therapy, it would have been enough. If I had only spent time on the couch petting my dog, it would have been enough. If I had only taken a meandering walk along the Bayou with my daughters, it would have been enough. I have had all these things and more.

In a time where everything feels scarce, I am grateful for this unexpected recognition of abundance and blessing. I have been surviving and, more importantly, I have survived. There is no need to put artificial pressure or expectations on myself. Dayenu.

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Published by liz

From history major, with side quests in Medieval Studies and chemical engineering, to nonprofit finance leader, Big 4 tax partner, technologist, researcher, and now co-founder of Divine, nothing about my career has been linear. The throughline has always been systems: financial systems, organizational systems, technological systems, and human systems. I have an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management and a PhD in Organizational Leadership Psychology, and I’ve spent my career trying to understand how complex systems shape people’s choices, opportunities, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. Today, my work sits at the intersection of psychology, technology, human-centered design, and digital trust. I am co-founder of Divine, an open-source, decentralized social video app built to put creativity back in human hands and replace doomscrolling with joyscrolling. Divine is part of a bigger question I care deeply about: how do we create online spaces that support safety, creativity, identity, and belonging without defaulting to surveillance, extraction, or control? At Divine, I wear a lot of hats across engineering, finance, operations, and strategy, while helping shape the app’s trust, safety, and values work. I focus especially on teen online safety, human-generated content, participatory design, and healthier relationships with technology. I am a postdoctoral alum of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Computer Science, where I worked with Dr. Pam Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab. I continue to write, speak, and research at the intersection of online safety, digital trust, decentralized technology, and youth wellbeing. I was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Data Integrity in 2023. In 2025, I had the honor of serving as President of Division 13 of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychology. I also live with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2020, I took a leave from PwC to focus on my mental wellness, and I now speak and write openly about mental health, especially in the workplace and in relation to digital wellbeing. This blog, Seriously Jerk Brain, chronicles much of that journey.

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