hope z

For as long as I can remember, my usual workout time has been between midnight and 3:00 AM. A couple of weeks back, two young guys—Josh and DaeDae—started working the overnight shift at my gym.

I’ve been chatting with them here and there—when I arrive, when I leave or whenever they happen to be cleaning nearby. Nice guys. But until recently, it’s been mostly small talk.

Friday morning, on my way out, I decided to go a little deeper with them. I wanted to ask about something that’s been on my mind quite a lot lately, especially where Gen Z is concerned.

You see, I’ve noticed a distinct change in people’s mind sets over the last five or six years. I suspect it’s been brought about by a perfect storm of political upheaval, a pandemic, a stark rise in hate crimes and a 24-hour news cycle (or pseudo-news cycle, in many cases) where strong personalities seem bent on peddling controversy and worst-case scenarios in exchange for ratings or personal social-media followings.

Meanwhile, we’re being continually bombarded with click bait—video and article titles that are intentionally vague, misleading, skewed or outright false. If they’re to be believed, everything we know and love is a hair’s breath away from being torn away from us. Our freedom. Our democracy. Our safety. Our health.

Our very existence as a species on planet earth.

And the result has been an outbreak of fear, anxiety, depression and doom every bit as widespread, infectious and devastating as COVID-19.

So I stopped and asked Josh and DaeDae this question: “How do you feel when you think about your future?”

And in stereophonic unison, they immediately replied…

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scam

Most people who read my blog know me first and foremost as an author. So they are surprised when they learn that I do other things as well. (And conversely, those whose first dealings with me center on one of those other areas are always surprised to find that I’m also an author.)

Well, one of those other things I do is designing information systems. I’ve done this since I was a child and home computers first came out. But as far this story is concerned, here’s the simple version: I build fancy stuff with spreadsheets. Often, it’s stuff that few other people can figure out. And for that reason, I always have clients who seek me out and pay me well for this work (which I fit in between my writing and marketing and mentoring and…)

You might think these two worlds are incongruous, but in my mind, they’re just different ways of helping people. And I am passionate about infusing both with core values such as kindness.

To that end, I choose to donate a little time each week as I’m able to helping answer posts on a couple of free online forums. Typically, I can only volunteer about a half hour or so per week; but I can get a lot done in that time, considering that the forums are designed to help people with relatively small stuff. A little knowledge sharing here. A formula tweak there.

Recently, I read a forum post from someone who appeared to be located in Romania, and who was requesting spreadsheet help. But in assessing things, what he required wasn’t small stuff. It was a highly customized, time-intensive solution (i.e., real work).

Usually, I’ll just pass over such posts or suggest that the person consider hiring a developer. In this particular case, however, I made the choice to “break my rule” and try to help the guy out anyway. You see, I’ve been especially aware lately of the need for tenacious worldwide kindness. And while it wouldn’t bring about world peace, going the extra mile for this stranger in Bucharest seemed a good opportunity to put feet to my convictions.

Still, it was a bit tricky. Sharing complex solutions on a free forum would create unrealistic future expectations for site visitors. In addition, I can’t offer in a free public forum the same level of complex work that my private clients pay me for.

But my mind was made up. I was going to help this guy (I’ll call him “Ivo” here).

Since Ivo’s shared spreadsheet contained his email address, I reached out to him privately rather than through the public forum. I introduced myself. I explained essentially what I’ve shared with you here: that I am a longtime forum contributor, that the help he required went beyond what I could provide through the free forum, but that I was willing to help him at no cost if he would simply share a copy of the sample spreadsheet with me.

Some hours later, his email reply popped up.

As I try to keep this blog family friendly, I’ll have to do some censoring:

“You bet. You [#&%@!] poor [*!@~$] scammer, eat [&$^#%]. Maybe that’s more useful to support your laughable existence.”

Here, I’d offered him free work —work I’d have charged any other client $150 for—and this was his response?

What would you have done at this point

Most people who read my blog know me first and foremost as an author. So they are surprised when they learn that I do other things as well. (And conversely, those whose first dealings with me center on one of those other areas are always surprised to find that I’m also an author.)

Well, one of those other things I do is designing information systems. I’ve done this since I was a child and home computers first came out. But as far this story is concerned, here’s the simple version: I build fancy stuff with spreadsheets. Often, it’s stuff that few other people can figure out. And for that reason, I always have clients who seek me out and pay me well for this work (which I fit in between my writing and marketing and mentoring and…)

You might think these two worlds are incongruous, but in my mind, they’re just different ways of helping people. And I am passionate about infusing both with core values such as kindness.

To that end, I choose to donate a little time each week as I’m able to helping answer posts on a couple of free online forums. Typically, I can only volunteer about a half hour or so per week; but I can get a lot done in that time, considering that the forums are designed to help people with relatively small stuff. A little knowledge sharing here. A formula tweak there.

Recently, I read a forum post from someone who appeared to be located in Romania, and who was requesting spreadsheet help. But in assessing things, what he required wasn’t small stuff. It was a highly customized, time-intensive solution (i.e., real work).

Usually, I’ll just pass over such posts or suggest that the person consider hiring a developer. In this particular case, however, I made the choice to “break my rule” and try to help the guy out anyway. You see, I’ve been especially aware lately of the need for tenacious worldwide kindness. And while it wouldn’t bring about world peace, going the extra mile for this stranger in Bucharest seemed a good opportunity to put feet to my convictions.

Still, it was a bit tricky. Sharing complex solutions on a free forum would create unrealistic future expectations for site visitors. In addition, I can’t offer in a free public forum the same level of complex work that my private clients pay me for.

But my mind was made up. I was going to help this guy (I’ll call him “Ivo” here).

Since Ivo’s shared spreadsheet contained his email address, I reached out to him privately rather than through the public forum. I introduced myself. I explained essentially what I’ve shared with you here: that I am a longtime forum contributor, that the help he required went beyond what I could provide through the free forum, but that I was willing to help him at no cost if he would simply share a copy of the sample spreadsheet with me.

Some hours later, his email reply popped up.

As I try to keep this blog family friendly, I’ll have to do some censoring:

“You bet. You [#&%@!] poor [*!@~$] scammer, eat [&$^#%]. Maybe that’s more useful to support your laughable existence.”

Here, I’d offered him free work —work I’d have charged any other client $150 for—and this was his response?

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less lonely

We’ve heard it a million times: “Bad news sells.” And we’ve certainly had more than our fair share of it lately, haven’t we?

As someone who takes my own advice perhaps more than anyone, and ever keeping in mind that central theme of mine — “You always have a choice” — I went beyond simply turning off the bad news to making an active search of good news.

Would you believe that there is actually a whole news site called Good News Network?

There I read an article that not only held true to the claims of offering good news, but that introduced me to something I’ve suspected was true for some time, yet for which I had no proof.

Until now.

I encourage you to read that article for yourself. But the short version is that researchers from California and Italy teamed up to conduct a study which reveals that people with greater empathy and wisdom are less lonely.

Conversely, as you might have guessed, that means people with less empathy and wisdom are more lonely.

Well, that seems easy enough, right?

Just get more wisdom.

Get more empathy.

Be less lonely.

Phew! Glad we solved that one so quickly.

Hmmm…

In reality, those two qualities — wisdom and empathy — are a bit hard for most people to nail down. After all, how do you measure something like wisdom? How do you gain more of it, for that matter? If it were a matter of merely reading the array of inspirational memes that endlessly scroll across our social media accounts all day and pressing the “Like” button, we’d all have wisdom to spare. None of us would ever be lonely.

Likewise, if empathy were gained simply by being around other people, or commenting on their posts, or hitting the sad emoticon button when they post that they just broke up with their boyfriend again, empathy would be the norm (and, therefore, loneliness the exception).

Alas, not so.

Here’s a quick self-check for wisdom:

1.) Do you listen as well as you speak?

2.) Are you known for being…

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it’s a breeze

One day last week, I wished a friend of mine a happy birthday. He turned 30 and was feeling old. Interestingly enough, he was a sophomore in high school when I met him, and I was older than he is now. So I was able to paint a convincing picture for him as to just how young he still is.

As we talked about getting older, a famous quote came to mind:

“With age comes wisdom.”

Yet I’m inclined to agree with the second half of Oscar Wilde’s observation on the matter:

“… but sometimes age comes alone.”

I don’t need to look very far to find middle-aged adults who are just as petty, rash, irresponsible or egocentric as they were when they were teenagers. (Some, in fact, are even worse off now than when they were younger.) Likewise, I know many in their twenties who are quite well-adjusted and have exemplary character.

That is, wisdom comes not merely from experience but from intention to ponder that experiences. To learn from it. To make new choices.

To change.

Well, after this exchange with my still-young friend, my eye was immediately drawn to a seemingly trivial bit of movement in my living room—a sight so familiar to me that, if not for that particular conversation, it would certainly not have been noteworthy let alone served as the inspiration for a blog post.

At the open window, the edge of a sheer white curtain floated and fluttered in the spring air.

In that moment, I was transported to a particular night in February back when my birthday friend was still in high school. He and a dozen or so other guys his age were gathered in my home on a Monday night for our weekly meet-up. They crowded onto the olive green sectional or found space on the living room floor, happily munching on pizza, which was the norm.

The conversation that night coalesced around a theme. Many of them expressed that they invited change, that they wanted more for their lives, that they were open to deeper connection with others and a sense of real purpose. They came faithfully each week, ready to absorb. They were honest about who they were and where they excelled or struggled. They took part in discussions and read books. But they hadn’t seen the personal progress they’d expected “by now.” They still weren’t feeling or experiencing whatever it was they thought they should be feeling or experiencing.

One or two of them even hinted that they were disappointed that the other group members hadn’t gone to greater lengths in supporting them during the week between meetings.

Where was the magic that would grant them the life they were looking for?

As they continued sharing their thoughts, I got up and headed for the kitchen, presumably to grab another slice of pizza for myself. What no one noticed was that, on the way, I cranked the heat up another ten degrees.

Even at a moderate 70°, I can tell you that 15 teenage boys will heat up a room quickly. With the thermostat now at 80°, it wasn’t long before the sweat was trickling and they were begging for relief.

Instead of lowering the thermostat, I opened the two windows along one side of the room. “Let’s see if this cools things down quickly.” But even though it was a frigid winter night, the temperature in the room didn’t drop by even one degree. No air was coming in from those open windows.

“That’s not working,” they moaned. “Can you just turn the heat down?”

I had them where I wanted them. Breaking the current flow of conversation, I said, “The windows are wide open. Why do you think the cold air isn’t coming in?”

One of them held his hand up to a screen, as if he thought for a moment that maybe a tropical heat wave had mysteriously descended upon New England. I could see that they were thinking. Another offered, “Maybe there’s no wind tonight.”

After a minute or so more, when I was sure their minds were open, I got up without a word and disappeared down the short hall. I opened my bedroom door (which I knew they would hear). Twenty seconds later, I returned and stood in the center of the room. I pointed to the open windows and, as if I were a sorcerer, freezing air whooshed into the room. In less than a minute, they were bundling up in the hoodies they’d so recently discarded; and within two, they were shivering and had had enough.

I turned down the thermostat, closed one window, leaving the other open just an inch or so as I revealed to them how I’d gotten that air to come in—to transform a stagnant space with something new and refreshing.

My secret? I had…

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emoti-con

Yusif is a talented writer. He’s completed one novel. He’s several drafts into another novel and has two more in the works.

I know Yusif personally. I’ve read his work. We’ve brainstormed together often. He’s creative and his ideas are truly unique, never derivative. What’s more, I’m certain that Yusif’s stories have mass-market appeal.

I was hanging out with Yusif at a museum one day two summers ago. He was looking at a blurry, black-and-white photo from the early 1920s, depicting a nondescript teacher and her students standing outside a one-room schoolhouse in the Florida Everglades when, out of the blue, he spun around and announced, “I want to write a story about this!” Before the day was out, he had completed a full chapter outline for what would be a middle-grade novel. And over the next two weeks, if memory serves me correctly, he was writing a chapter a day.

Upon completing each chapter, Yusif would read it aloud to me, sometimes in person and sometimes over the phone. His descriptions were masterful without being overwrought. I cared about his characters. His dialog was fresh and authentic.

He was passionate about researching details. He read every book he could get his hands on about the early settlement of the Everglades: the people, their background, customs, housing, transportation, religion, food, relationships with the Native Americans of the area. We made several more trips to area museums, churches, schools and Everglade City itself. We walked together through the actual setting of his story, studying the buildings, the photos on the walls. Eating alligator.

Within a year, the novel was completely written, thoroughly edited and ready to be submitted.

It was an exciting time.

Except when it wasn’t.

You see, there were many, many days during that year when Yusif read his work… and hated it.

The enthusiasm and positive attitude with which he went into querying the manuscript fizzled. As sure as he’d ever been that this book could fly—maybe even become a favorite book for many readers—he was now equally convinced that no agent would want the book. That readers wouldn’t get through chapter one without putting it down, never to pick it up again.

“Be honest with me. It’s awful isn’t it? No one’s going to want to read this,” he moped.

How is it that the very same story and ideas that had thrilled him now felt lackluster? That the characters he’d grown to love—that he’d brought into being, and rooted for and cried over—now seemed like cardboard cutouts? And that the same configurations of words that he’d painstakingly crafted and tweaked, and which he’d read aloud to me with pride only weeks earlier, now sounded bland and trite, even embarrassingly bad?

To quote the Bee Gees:

It’s just emotion that’s taken me over
Tied up in sorrow, lost in my soul

Interestingly enough, while Yusif was working on his second novel (with all of the wide-eyed wonder and hope with which he’d begun the first), we watched a video series where prolific author Judy Blume talks about her process. Her unassuming nature, candor and vulnerability struck me. Here was one of the all-time bestselling children’s writers, whose books have sold over 82 million copies and earned her more than 90 literary awards (including three lifetime achievement awards) saying, “So often, I’ve…

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we are the world

My new book, TRIED & (Still) TRUE, just launched this past week. It’s been cause for much celebration.

It’s also been cause for a major lack of sleep.

And staying in sweats all day.

And not showering some days (which, if you knew me, is really saying something).

And, if I’m being completely honest, I even realized after 4:00 PM one day that I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet.

So Sunday afternoon, when I ventured out for a trip north to visit my cousin, it felt strange to have the sun on my face, to feel the gravel of the drive crunch under my shoe-clad feet, which during the last few days had been bare.

Driving along the winding bucolic roads, passing apple farms and waterfalls that had iced over in motion, and with the sun playing like an old-fashioned projector light through the bare tree branches, I found myself singing aloud at the top of my lungs a song that’s been stuck in my head for the last few days:

We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me

If you don’t recognize it, it’s because didn’t live through the ‘80s or at least weren’t old enough to remember what was going on in 1985. “We Are the World” brought together some of the most well-known pop stars of the day to sing what would become the fastest-selling and highest-grossing single in American history, as well as the first song to ever be certified Multi-Platinum (Quadruple Platinum, in fact, selling over 20 million copies).

If you missed it in 1985, you may have heard it in 2010, when another all-star ensemble reprised the song to raise money for the victims of the devastating Haiti earthquake.

Anyway, there I was belting the song in my car. When I reached my destination, I was still humming it. And I got to wondering why. Why was this 35-year-old song stuck in my head? I hadn’t heard it recently nor talked about it with anyone. (As I say, I’d been holed up in my home for days around the book launch.) So why was this particular song burgeoning inside of me on this particular day?

Before I’d even reached the door, I’d figured it out.

I’ve had hundreds of interactions with people during the first few days since TRIED & (Still) TRUE launched. Calls, texts, emails, blog comments. I’ve read each Amazon and GoodReads review. And I couldn’t help but notice that much of the positivity and praise has been shared alongside a common counterpoint that took this basic form:

“It’s so refreshing to read this encouraging, uplifting book with the world being so negative, divided and scary lately.”

I totally get it. I’ve placed myself on total news blackout for long stretches and turned on ad-blockers so that I can’t even see sidebar headlines when I check my email. If anyone in my friend group happens to mention certain names or events, eyes widen and bodies tense, as if Bloody Mary is on her way through the magic mirror. It’s easy to give in to the sense that “the world” is broken beyond repair. That this is it. The End.

But I don’t believe that.

As I wrote this new book, I delved into the lives of the people who brought us some of the most famous proverbs from history. I didn’t just talk facts. I talked lives, reminding readers constantly that those who penned the words that have become part of our literary legacy were real people just like you and me. They weren’t giants or superheroes. The most famous of them wouldn’t have been known by more of the population than the average person today connects with via social media. They were us. We are them.

And I’m here to tell you—they went through some things.

Subjugation by tyrannical emperors.

Religious purges.

Mysterious and gruesome plagues that killed millions.

Natural disasters on a scale not seen before or since.

They had no running water. No hot water on demand. No showers or baths. No porcelain toilets or toilet paper. No sewage system.

They did not have prenatal care plans and epidurals. Their anesthetic for anything from dentistry to amputation was a few swigs of whiskey and biting down on a stick. There was no counseling or medications for depression and anxiety. No pills to control blood pressure.

No multi-vitamins. No toothpaste and toothbrushes. No Tylenol. No dry skin cream.

In many places and times throughout history, people weren’t out drinking with friends and celebrating on their 21^st birthday. They were quietly reflecting on the notion that their life was likely more than halfway over. Living to the age of 40 seemed to them as living to 100 might to us now.

And yet, somehow “the world” continued on, no matter how bad things seemed in the midst of tragedy and hardship.

Here’s a snippet taken from page 26 of my new book:

One thing I have learned is that worry serves no purpose other than to waste otherwise good moments in the present.

I am also convinced, however, that we always have a choice. I cannot choose for a society, or even for a single other person. But I can choose what I myself will do, how I will live—right now.

Let me break down a few lines from that earworm of mine—“We Are The World”—in hopes of…

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dwelling

The phone rang at 9:52 this morning. Unknown number. I didn’t pick up.

At 9:53, a voice message appeared. I listened.

It was “Fabiola from the District Court victim advocacy office,” informing me that the case against the woman who stole my wallet and fraudulently used my debit card last summer was being heard today. It was a short message, which ended by asking me to return the call if there was anything I wanted to add to the case before it went before the judge.

At 9:55, I called back. No answer. I left a message explaining that the local police detective in charge of the case had assured me I’d receive an invitation to appear in court when the woman was tried, but that I’d received no such letter or call. I requested that the case be continued until such an invitation were issued, to allow me to be there, and asked that Fabiola call me back.

I continued to call back every 5 or 10 minutes. Answering machine. Answering machine. I left a couple of other messages with details pertinent to the case:

• I’d learned that this woman had 19 prior counts of theft and fraud before mine, and yet had never received jail time.
• I’d lost not only days of my life trying to rectify the stolen funds with my bank and piece back together the contents of the stolen wallet, but actual money by way of lost work hours and having to order a replacement license.
• The woman had committed these thefts with a child of under four years of age in tow, using the boy as part of the con, involving the child in the crimes and modeling to this child that theft was an acceptable way of life.

Do you think me heartless? Did you imagine that I’d have more compassion, given my lifelong role as a mentor to youth, many of them having made poor choices along the way?

Please know that my first response was compassion. Had I learned that the woman had used my bank card to buy formula, diapers of food staples, I would have shown up to court and advocated for leniency, even offering her my own help where possible.

But it quickly became clear the day of the incident that she was not stealing out of indigence or need. No, she was rushing down my own street (a mark of a seasoned criminal, knowing that purchases near the residence of the victim are less likely to be flagged immediately as fraud), buying cartons of cigarettes here, magazines there, donut gift cards at the next place.

At close to 11:00, Fabiola called back. The case had gone to trial at 10:00 she told me. She was upstairs at the hearing when I’d called back.

I could feel my blood pressure going up.

“Fabiola,” I said, “so what you’re telling me is that you called me eight minutes before the hearing and immediately hung up the phone and went upstairs … meaning you had no intention of hearing my feedback before the case was tried.”

Awkward silence on the phone.

Then the excuses began.

“Well, we sent a letter to you in February.”

“I didn’t receive any letter. What address do you have?”

“8 Meadow Lane …”

“No, I haven’t lived there in over six years. And it’s not the address I listed on the police report.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry you didn’t receive the letter, but we did send it.”

“Yes, you sent it to the wrong address … which wasn’t the one I provided on my victim statement. Are you telling me that the police didn’t give you my victim statement? It’s not in your case file? Because if that’s the case, I need to hang up with you and go right down to the police department to file a complaint against the detective in charge. Gee, and he seemed so competent …”

“Well,” Fabiola hemmed and hawed, “I didn’t say we didn’t get the report. I just know that we sent a letter to 8 Meadow Lane and didn’t hear from you.”

“And that is because … I don’t live there. Are you telling me you didn’t receive it back from the post office then? Because after I get done at the police station, it sounds like you’re telling me that I need to stop in at the post office and ask why they also screwed up. But what I’m sure of is that you had my phone number, because you called me this morning … eight minutes before the trial.”

More awkward silence.

“I was only just able to find your phone number this morning, sir. But good news. The defendant plead guilty and received probation.”

I drew in a long, slow breath and let it out.

“Fabiola … so, you didn’t use the address on the police report … which also had my phone number printed clearly on it … and you just happened to find my number minutes before trial … after which you left me exactly zero time to even call you back to voice my concerns and requests for reimbursement? And after nineteen priors and involving a young child in her con, the woman received … probation. What can I do at this point to have a say in the matter?”

“Well, sir, I’m sorry you didn’t respond to the letter, but …”

I cut her off. “Fabiola, I’m not going to accept that. I didn’t respond to a letter which may or may not have been sent to an address I haven’t lived at in six years and that did not match the address written on my police report or currently listed for me with the DMV.”

“Yes, well … no, there really isn’t anything that can be done now, because we didn’t hear back from you …”

I cut in again. “… because you didn’t send the letter to the correct address, and then called at a time you knew would not allow me to respond.”

“Again, sir, the case has been heard.”

“Can it be re-opened, so that I, the victim, can be heard?”

“No, it can’t. The judge doesn’t like to keep cases like this sitting around. He wants to just move them through. So once judgment is passed, there’s nothing you can do. But if she breaks her probation, she’ll be in a lot of trouble and maybe get jail time.”

“She hasn’t been ‘in a lot of trouble’ after twenty priors,” I said. “And were separate charges filed for involving a young child in the crimes? This is not in debate. She was caught on camera at three places with the child.”

“I don’t really know, sir. That’s not our field. That would be family court. Maybe one of the employees at one of the merchant locations filed a 51A.”

*sigh*

I was over it. As politely as I could muster, I ended the call with Fabiola.

*****

In my first post of 2018, I told you that my theme for the year would be further exploration of the advice contained in my book The Best Advice So Far, whether by way of different stories, new perspectives or additional thoughts. Here are a few ideas I was planning to revisit in this post:

Misery is a choice.

Worry serves no purpose but to ruin the present.

The sooner you accept that life is not fair, the happier you will be.

And I had originally intended to use a conversation I’d had with a friend a few weeks back as the central anecdote for this post. Little did I know that before it was all over, I’d wind up being my own object lesson for this particular “deep dive.”

I write quite a bit about topics like how to navigate regret, banish worry, and let go of anger before it turns into bitterness. But there’s some related ground that doesn’t get much air time.

I call it…

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bathwater

“You always have a choice.”

I’ve spoken or written this central message of The Best Advice So Far literally thousands of times by now. And yet, I still feel and see the power in it as much as I ever have—the power to transform the way we view and live life.

In the first chapter of the book, I introduce you to Chad. You can read his full story there in the book (or HERE, right now and for FREE, if you like); but I trust you’ll get the gist from this snippet, even without the full context:

You see, even an ultra-optimist like Chad fell apart and was completely overwhelmed and despondent, because he’d forgotten a very important truth. He was immobilized, because he believed in that space of time that life was happening to him, and that he had no say in the matter. Yet, once he was reminded of this key truth, he not only rebounded but began to take the world by storm.

THE BEST ADVICE SO FAR: You always have a choice.

Chad did not need to be a doctor. There was no rule that said he must struggle through a schedule of classes he hated, or even that he needed to remain at that university. Chad had choices.

If you don’t accept this truth—that you always have a choice—if you don’t remember it and live it, then you are left to play the part of the victim in life. You begin (or continue) to live as if life is happening to you, that you are powerless, oppressed by your circumstances. But, if you truly change your mind set to believe and live out in practical ways that, in every circumstance, you have a choice—now, you open a door for change. Instead of living as if life is happening to you, you will begin to happen to life. You will begin to realize the difference that one person—you—can make, that you are an agent of change in your own life and in the lives of others.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that we get to choose everything that happens to us in life. We do not choose abuse, for instance, and we can at no time choose to undo those things which have happened to us in life.

We do not choose illness. We do not choose when or how the people we love will leave us. Or die.

We do, however, have the choice of how we will respond in every situation, even the hurtful ones. Instead, so often, we pour our frustration and anger into those things we cannot change, rather than investing that energy into the many choices that we can make from that point forward.

And yet, I realized recently that, much of the time, the stories I feature center on macro-level change:

• You are not “stuck” in that job. It’s within your power to choose to walk away from it and do something else (as impossible as that may seem in a moment).
• You don’t need to stay with that B.E.A.S.T., i.e., Big Energy-Absorbing Stupid Thing, that you’ve stuck with for so long even though it’s sucking the life out of you (for your own sake, if you haven’t already, please read that chapter in the book, or this post).
• Chad wasn’t doomed to misery throughout his college years for the sake of grinding through a major he hated, even if quitting diverted from plan or conflicted with the perceived expectations of others.

In essence, each of these is a way of saying, “You can stop doing that—right now—and make a whole new choice.”

And that is 100% true. You can.

But it isn’t the only option. Not by a long shot.

Today, I want to explore another possibility…

Staying.

You see, staying is also a choice. Sometimes, it’s even the best choice—one that involves countless other choices that have the ability to breathe new life into a tired, difficult or even painful situation.

I’m in the process of writing my next book, entitled Tried and (Still) True, which seeks to revitalize some very old pieces of popular wisdom that have sadly gone out of use. Among them is this gem:

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Rather than just read over that and move on, leaving it as no more than vague notion, let’s do some visualization together.

I present to you Exhibit B (for “Baby”).

When most people hear the word “baby,” they envision a wide-eyed little wonder like the one on the Gerber label.

Awww. Babies are adorable (even when they aren’t really). Babies coo and giggle. Babies think everything we do is hilarious. We want to cuddle them and talk gibberish to them and smell their baby-head smell.

Thing is … babies also poop.

In fact, sometimes, babies poop a lot. It’s remarkable, really, how such a tiny body can even… [continue reading this post at the main site by clicking the button below]

 

losing track of why

Saturday afternoon, I cheated.

Well, OK. What I mean is that I cheated on my self-imposed low-carb diet and got a ham, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich at a local joint. With bread. English muffin, to be exact.

It was snowing like gangbusters, and my feet were wet and cold. So sue me if I wanted something warm and salty — and crunchy. I definitely craved the crunch.

I know. I was weak. You may sneer and/or jeer at will.

I’d placed my order (which included a hot decaf peppermint-mocha with milk) and had moved to the far end of the counter to wait. From where I was standing, I could see through a rectangular window-like opening into the kitchen area, where an earnest young guy was making my salty-crunchy indulgence.

He plucked a couple of plastic gloves from a nearby box. One, he wadding into the palm of his left hand, holding it in place with his ring finger and pinky. With the remaining two fingers and thumb, he attempted to pull the other glove down over his right hand. His brow furrowed with the effort, swiping fingers over the entirety of the glove repeated until, after much ado, he was finally able to get it in place.

With his now-covered right hand he moved to uncrumple the remaining glove, which had been wadded up in his left hand the whole time. He fumbled it and the glove spiraled downward to land on the floor.

The greasy, filthy, wet floor.

Hey, it was already covered in hand sweat and germs. Why not add to the cocktail, right?

He bent down and retrieved the glove, shaking it a couple of times before managing to don it —

— and then proceeded to… [click the link below to continue reading this post at the main site]

i think i can

In July, I completed the recording, editing and mastering of the audiobook version of The Best Advice So Far, right on schedule.

By mid-August, the audiobook had been submitted to Audible, approved and officially released.

From the very start — before I’d ever even penned a word of it — I knew that I eventually wanted The Best Advice So Far released in digital, print and audiobook formats. At long last, that vision had become a reality.

Within days of that milestone, and while still on vacation in Florida, I’d begun outlining my next book. And by September 12, I had completed the preface.

It felt strange, after all that had gone into the first book, to be at the very beginning again with a completely new book. Yet I’m excited about it. I can envision, even from here, what it will become.

Thing is, it wasn’t “becoming” very quickly.

Here we are at the beginning of December, and I don’t have even a single completed chapter to show for it.

All the while, I’ve grown increasingly aware that lots of stuff I’d set out to do — some for more than a year now — also hadn’t gotten done. Instead, they continued to scritch–scritch–scritch like proliferating mice inside the walls of my brain.

Well, a week or so back, I declared that enough was enough. It was time to figure out why I was stalemated on so many personal goals.

I’m not lazy. In fact I stay quite busy. So that was definitely not the culprit. I’d even go so far as to say that most people who know me would describe me as downright tenacious.

In fairness to myself, I had attempted early on to get somewhere with several of the tech-related tasks (such as getting the “Like” button to function on my blog posts, a feature that has not worked since the site went live). But I’d been stonewalled or left hanging by every representative I’d contacted. Still, I thought during my recent ponderings, I’m smarter than the average bear. I designed my entire website myself, having learned everything I know about coding on my own over the years. So I knew that, ultimately, these problems were not beyond my ability to solve, whether anyone else helped me or not.

I’m creative, as well as clear on what I’d like to accomplish. For instance, where the new book is concerned, the outline is finished. I’ve got plenty of ideas, which often play themselves out in great detail inside my head throughout the day. And, as I say, I’m plenty interested in and motivated by the topic. Yet for all of that, I was still perpetually finding myself with nothing to show for it.

Furthermore, I’m not a procrastinator. As a matter of fact, I’ve said or typed the following statement about myself so often that it feels almost cliché: I’ve never missed a deadline to which I’ve agreed. And that is absolutely true. (Well, except for that one time I forgot to get on a plane for a major event I was supposed to be running — sorry, Steve — but that wasn’t so much missing a deadline as having sincerely mucked up the date somehow).

That’s when it hit me… [click below to continue reading this post at the main site]