Sadly, when I know I’m quite right I’m most likely not.

#protip

If you don’t ever get attached to people then you’ll never be disappointed.

Boom💥

#protip

Pro tip: be really good at accepting people’s help.

As humans we can be fiercely independent critters but pride is irrelevant and unuseful.

Wanna know why? You know that good feeling you get when you yourself extend your hand to help, for no other reason than you’re a good person? That warm fuzzy you get when we make the world not all about us?

Don’t deprive someone else offering help that same kind of warm fuzzy feeling. It’ll make them feel good and very well may be the best part of their day.

PS- my dictionaries are telling me that “unuseful” is not a word. They can go fuck themselves. 👍

#protip #helpwanted

Taking a good photo and making it better.

1- I took the original as I was walking down to the garage on my way to work.

2- It’s not bad but I didn’t like the bottom greenery, it’s too big and blurry. The left side was also too busy so I cropped the whole photo tighter.

3- The garage’s gutter cluttered the picture, too, so I nuked it.

4- The colors were okay but they felt bland. I dropped the Shadows down to -0.35 and bumped the Saturation up to 0.21. Now I love it!

5- I did this all in Photos for macOS in less than 5 minutes. To remove the gutter I used the Pixelmator Retouch extension with the default settings. Yes, your whole life has been a lie.

6- Life is all about making things less complicated, less cluttered. Noise just distracts me from what’s important.

#photos #raindrops #protip

Less choice means more happiness.

#protip

Something like this is what I’m referring to: you’re pulled over along the side of the street at a mailbox, depositing your envelopes on a Wednesday morning.

It’s not Christmas card season but you still got bills to pay or ballots to send. You’re lost in your own world of stamps and bubble wrapped packages. Maybe the taste of envelope glue is still fresh in your mouth. Maybe not.

Regardless, then you pull out into traffic without signaling, without yielding, without common sense. Then you cut across two lanes without haste and turn right.

All of that. That’s being a moron.

It’s more than wearing blinders and seeing only your direct path. It’s putting a bag over your whole head and wandering around life clueless, bumping into people and obstacles like you’re at Funway on Saturday night.

Other people will be annoyed when you’re acting like a moron. Expect that. Underline it in your mind. You may even get the horn.

My point is, we’re all gonna act like morons. It’s what we do. I won’t hold it against you.

But when you see yourself, feel yourself acting like a moron, stop.

Don’t maintain. Don’t forge or plow ahead. Pull up life’s emergency brake, take the bag off, and wave meekly yet happily in complete defeat.

Hang your head if you must. Because people just want to know that you know that you were indeed being a moron.

The key is to stop though. Just stop. 👍

#protip

I have ideas all the time, things I wanna do around the house or to my truck, or books I wanna write or pictures I wanna take. If it’s a really good idea I’ll get excited about it. If I’m really excited with my idea, I’ll actually do it. If I have other things going on, I’ll adjust my schedule to turn my idea into a real thing.

If I can’t budge my schedule because I have other priorities, then I forget about my idea. I don’t write it down. I’ll just let it die in my head. Because if my idea is really good I’ll have the same idea again. If my idea wasn’t that good, it probably deserves to fade away.

When my ideas die, I don’t feed bad or feel like I’m not enough. I don’t get discouraged because I don’t have the time or whatever. I just let the ideas go. I can’t do everything I ever wanted and that’s okay.

And that one idea, if I didn’t have enough passion or drive to make it happen, isn’t going to change the world. It’s not gonna make me a whole person nor is it gonna be a silver bullet to end world hunger or a golden chalice to bring about world peace.

I may have read the gist of all of this somewhere else. I can’t remember. But letting ideas go is an idea I had (mine or not) worth sharing.

#protip

What you need to know today:

Be really good at throwing stuff away.

#protip

Audio (MP3): 20180929 - Almost empty McDonalds

I’m sitting in the McDonalds on State Street in Geneva. Because Egg McMuffins.

This is also the place where Maggie’s mom and I told Maggie that we were getting divorced. It was the most painful conversation I’ve ever had. The most painful day ever. Watching her little nine year old face panic as the conversation unfolded.

It wasn’t a long conversation but it lasted forever to me.

A therapist said to do it in public so the hurt would live outside the home. Sometimes breakups really better are in public. Sometimes it’s the better way out.

And as we were driving back home, the three of us, I thought to myself, “I’m never going to that fucking place again.”

But here I am. Cuppa years later.

Because one of the best things I learned was to “give it some time.”

For as long as it takes. Don’t make up your mind. Just put it down. Don’t rush healing. Don’t rush the feeling. Let the pain fade. It will if we don’t force its end.

#photos #protip #diariespodcast

Audio (MP3): 20180919 - The notion that I can quit

My favorite Freakonomomics^[1] podcast is from a few years back. It’s beautifying titled, The Upside of Quitting.

It’s also the only podcast I’ve listened to more than twice. The episode is one of those things that changed everything. It’s become part of my spiritual condition. The notion that I can quit has become part of who I am.

We’re all familiar with the dogmatic mantra:

Winners never quit.

That’s all fine and good if we play football but not if we’re dying inside because our life is horrible.

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