Time for everything, time for anything

I originally planned to finish this series in twelve months, intending to write one entry a week for 52 weeks. But, other things came up and I didn’t have as much time as I thought I would. We moved, you started a new school, I had other projects, etc. But finally, I’m starting my last entry in September, nine months after I’d planned. Which is the perfect intro to this one.

Time is funny like that. It marches on like a metronome, indifferent to how much you wish it would slow down or speed up. It offers no do-overs, no matter how frivolously you spend it. And it gives zero fucks what you planned to accomplish in the time you had. Once that time is over, you’ll get no more. But, it also stretches out ahead of you into an unknown future, offering untold possibility and infinite choices.

Which is why I hope you both learn to make choices about how you spend your time and understand what those choices mean. Because while there’s never enough time for everything, there’s still enough time to do almost anything.

Your choices make all the difference.

In a video about finishing big projects, Jason Pargin discusses how he managed to complete and publish five novels on deadline while working a full-time job that was not writing said novels. For anyone who’d tackle a similarly sized (big ass) project, he first asks what they’d be willing to drop from their life. He says “no one thinks of the project they’re taking on as a trade-off, but it always is.”

I myself am guilty of this shortsightedness, as evidenced by my failing to complete this project in the time I’d originally allowed. See, there’s never enough time to do everything, and choosing to do something almost always means you can’t do something else.

Every minute I spend working on this Important Shit I Can’t Teach My Son Yet is a minute I don’t have to write stand-up jokes or short stories, go hiking with you, or get abs. Thankfully, your Mom will still love me without abs. Your hikes these days are as short as your short legs. But, the other projects go on hold. I set this project as my priority and accept I won’t be doing stand-up while I try to finish it. Same goes for writing new short stories or a novel.

I’m (admittedly) not great at making these choices; my default is to have more hobbies and interests than I have time for and half-ass my way through all of them. That’s because it took me a long time to learn that  I don’t have enough time to do everything. So, before you join a new club, take up a new sport, or decide to write a novel, ask yourself what you’re willing to give up.

Side note: making these choices is much easier if you learn to flip any FOMO (fear of missing out) into JOMO (joy of missing out.) Focus your intention and energy into the book you’re actually writing, not the DILFS of Asheville meetup you skipped. Be present and content doing what you chose to do.

This lesson applies to more than hobbies and projects. There’s never enough time to visit with and connect to all the friends and family you care about. There’s never enough time to teach your son everything you want to teach him. There’s never enough time to do all the cool things you want to do with your family.

But.

There’s still enough time for almost anything, if you choose to make it a priority. There’s still enough time to visit with and connect to all the friends and family you care most about. There’s still enough time to teach your son the most important things you want to teach him. There’s still  enough time to do the most important things you want to do with your family.

The choices you make will make the difference.

I can’t visit all my close friends. But, by making an effort and being intentional in my planning, I can schedule vacations with those willing to reciprocate that effort.

I might not be able to teach you everything I want to teach you, but I made the time to write down some of the most important things here.

Your Mom and I won’t have time to do everything we can imagine and take every trip we want to as a family, but we can choose and plan to make sure we get to do the things we think are really important.

At eighteen, it’s easy to look out at the months, years, and decades you think you have coming and feel as if you have all the time in the world. Especially when you’re young, invincible, and years away from your first gray hair. You might see an infinite series of possible paths and choices laid out and waiting for you to explore. On the flip side, you might see all the things you hope to accomplish and all the hours you’ll need to accomplish them and feel the crushing weight of all those expectations.

I hope you find the center of those two extremes. Because while your possibilities are infinite, your time here on Earth is not.

You’ll never have enough time with the people you love, but there’s still enough time to tell the ones you still have that you love them.

There’s never enough time to accomplish everything you want to accomplish, but there’s still enough time to finish something you’ve been putting off too long.

See how this works? It’s about making choices. You can’t do everything, but you can still do almost anything.

And that’s how I want to leave you.

These pages don’t have everything you need to know, and they certainly don’t have everything I ever want to teach you. I made choices with the time I had to write this project, choosing what to leave in and what to leave out.

I hope you forgive my errors and omissions. As I said before, I’m figuring this out as I go along. I hope you find this helpful, and that it inspires you. Writing this down has certainly inspired me; I find myself trying to be the man I’m trying to teach you to be. It’s forced me to face my own shortcomings, to examine and articulate my own beliefs, and to try to be a better father, husband, and friend. More importantly, I hope you know how much you are loved, both by me, your Mom, and so many others.

So. What now? Enjoy the possibility before you. Make the most of it. Try to take some of my advice, but know it won’t always be right.

I love you,

Dad

On rules: the good, the okay, and the ones that suck

I have no doubt that I will someday regret giving you the advice I’m about to give you, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. That’s because like all the shit I’ve included so far, it’s important, and I want to make sure you know it.

This advice is about rules.

Some rules are good, and should be followed.

Some rules are okay, and can be bent.

Some rules are bad, either for being unjust or for being stupid, and  depending on the consequences and the nature of the rule, deserve your ire, to be broken, or at the very least, followed with extreme disdain.

The hard part is figuring out which rules are which.

Side note: All laws are rules, but not all rules are laws. “Don’t pee into the wind” is a good rule of thumb, while “don’t pee in public” is a law against public indecency. Break the first at your own risk. Breaking the second usually carries formal penalties beyond pee on your shoes.

My hope is that you gain the wisdom necessary to tell one kind of rule from another; you can’t just classify all the rules you don’t like as “bad” and ignore them. Well, you could, but that’s a surefire path to having shitty face tattoos and spending years in a room with bars wearing an orange jumpsuit.

Assuming you enjoy seeing the sky and picking out your own clothes, how do you learn which rules are which? There’s the easy way, where you pay close attention to the things your Mom and I tell you, learn from our mistakes, and don’t make the ones we already made. We’ll help you figure out which rules are really important and which ones are bullshit.

And there’s the way you’ll probably do it, which is how I did it, and also how most people do it: by trial and error. This will involve a considerable amout of pain and suffering, both for you, me, and your Mom, but I’m pretty sure it’s a part of growing up. And don’t feel bad for thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about; I hear most children believe their parents to be idiots.

Nonetheless, until you’ve become wise enough to tell one kind of rule from another, your Mom and I will let you know when you break a rule that is good and should be followed. But, as with the rest of what I’ve written, the advice below should serve as guidance in my absence.

Let’s start with the good rules. The ones that make sense, and should be followed, both by you, and by everyone else. I’d put six of the Ten Commandments into this category: Don’t murder, don’t adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t covet. You’d do well to also honor your father and mother, and your father and mother would sure appreciate it. As for the other commandments, I’d put them in the “okay” category. If you’re into religion, they’re for you. If not, then not so much.

The six I mentioned are good rules and should be followed for a couple reasons.

First, a few of them are codified into actual laws in our society, meaning that we’ve all agreed to follow them for the common good, and have empowered police to catch people breaking them. Get caught breaking laws and you get punished with fines, jail time, or even (in some states) death.

Second, you can apply reason to them and see why they’re good rules. For example, committing adultery (as in cheating on your spouse) makes for an unhappy marriage, which makes for an unhappy life, and/or a divorce. These are not desirable outcomes. And while there’s no law against coveting or lying, you’ll live a much happier life if you covet and lie as little as possible. We all lie sometimes. (No, you don’t look fat — Yes, this is delicious — Of course I want to watch another nature show instead of the baseball game.)

Finally, good rules stand up to moral litmus tests. I like Immanuel Kant’s formula of universal law, (asking what would happen if everyone took the action you’re about to take all the time), but countless philosophers have spent countless hours contemplating their navels,   morality, rules of society, and which ones are good and bad. Learning about them and their perspectives is a good idea. I should know; I took Intro to Philosophy three different times.

On to rules that are okay, and can be bent. Breaking these rules may get you in some trouble, but the trouble is either minor enough that you simply accept it as a necessary cost of breaking the rule, or you’ll get caught so infrequently that it’s worth rolling the dice. That doesn’t mean a rule’s validity should be determined by its consequences; no one’s going to arrest you for littering, but it’s still a shitty thing to do.

Still, consider the validity and the reasoning of the rule before breaking it. You can probably cheat on your taxes without getting caught and certainly ride a motorcycle without wearing a helmet; that doesn’t make doing either a good idea, or even okay.

The speed limit and legal drinking age are two examples of okay rules that almost everyone breaks, within reason. You’ll find the birth of both rules interesting (Nationwide Speed Limit, Legal drinking age of 21) and I encourage you to look them up. Regardless, most people drive a little bit over the speed limit and start drinking alcohol a little before their 21st birthday. Which is okay, as long as it’s within reason. Drive a hundred over the speed limit and you might kill someone (including yourself.) Same goes for giving your four-year-old Jaeger shots.

Breaking these “okay” rules also means accepting consequences when you get caught. I’ve paid plenty of speeding tickets and while I wasn’t ever arrested for underage drinking, I have been punished for it. When you decide a rule is okay but choose to break it, you might suffer for that decision.

E.g., skipping school for a good reason: I played in a rival high school’s jazz ensemble because my school didn’t have one. That ensemble took a trip to Disney World to play in a contest, and I went on that trip. It meant missing classes at my school, and I was punished. My principal called it an “unexcused absence.”  That punishment was fair, I had missed school, and not for an official school activity. Well, not an official “my school” activity. Still, it was totally worth it, and in hindsight I think I made a good choice.

Finally, there are bad rules. They can be either unjust, stupid, or both. The morality tests I mentioned before, when paired with careful use of your brain, can help you identify rules that suck.

Let’s start with stupid rules. Example: the Y where we belong makes everyone get out of the indoor pool when it’s lightning outside. Despite there having never been a recorded death from lightning hitting the ground outside and electrocuting people swimming in an indoor pool, everyone must exit the pool for 30 minutes any time there’s a lightning strike within three counties of our YMCA. It frustrates me to no end, but as stupid as that rule is, the only thing I can do about it is join another pool.

When I asked the Y management why the rule existed, they told me it was an insurance requirement. When you ask about rules that seem dumb, you’ll sometimes run into people who say, “that’s the rule because that’s the rule.” The existence of the rule becomes more important than the validity of the rule. Don’t be one of these people. Ask questions. To quote Sturgill Simpson.

“If there's any doubt, then there is no doubt, The gut don't never lie...And the only word you'll ever need to know in life is why.”

Unfortunately, sometimes, you can’t do anything about stupid rules, no matter how stupid they seem.

Swimming in the pool after I’ve been told to get out might mean losing our Y membership. Other than the lightning policy, I really like this Y, the staff, and its location five minutes from our house. I usually just grumble around after I’ve been forced out of the pool, telling anyone nearby that we’re not in any real danger. Maybe I should pack a change of clothes when it looks like lightning so I have the option of running on a treadmill instead.

On to unjust rules. What’s makes a rule unjust? Ask yourself if the rule is fair? Is there good logic and reasoning behind it? Does it screw over one particular group of people? For example, segregation and Jim Crow were the rule of law for a long time, but are unjust. There were once rules that prevented women from voting. Unjust. And some states have laws against sodomy. Asinine.

People broke those laws intentionally to point out how unfair they were, and they were eventually repealed, but not before those people spent time in jail for their protests.

What should you do about unjust laws? Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thomas Jefferson believed you’re obliged to break them. King said, “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’” And Jefferson said, “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." I wonder what King and Jefferson would say about laws against sodomy, and if one of them would take it up the butt in the name of justice.

Butt jokes aside, I agree with the sentiment and their positions. Beyond just disobeying unjust rules, you can and should take other actions against them, both directly and indirectly. You can vote for representatives that will help change these rules, you can get involved with or donate to organizations that will fight these rules, and you can choose to spend your dollars at companies that share your views on these rules. You can also choose direct action against unjust rules by contacting your elected representatives, protesting, speaking out, or simply refusing to follow them. I hope you have the courage of your convictions and are strong enough to stand for justice, especially in the face of rules that are unfair and unjust.

My hope is that you learn to question things, or rather, that you continue to ask questions like four-year-old you does, constantly seeking to understand “why?” Because not all rules are good, and not all rules are smart. Follow the good ones, bend the okay ones, and don’t be afraid to shit all over the unjust and stupid rules along with anyone who tell you to follow them just because they exist.

I love you,

Dad

Of note: I set out to write 52 of these, and this is my 51st. Thanks to any of you who’ve been reading along with me through all of them. Be on the look out for the 52nd and final blog coming soon!

Heaven is for real. Or it isn't. And nobody knows which.

Let’s talk about God.

Wait, don’t go.

I know invitations to talk about God have shut down countless conversations and gotten hundreds of thousands of doors slammed in Jehovah only knows how many well-intentioned faces, so before you stop reading, let me tell you what I’m going to tell you.

Of all the advice I’ve given you, this one might be the least instructive. It touches on God, religions, and what I believe.

But.

More important is what I’m not going to tell you.

This is not an instruction manual for what you should believe; you’ll have to work that out yourself. Of course, your Mom and I will be there to share our thoughts and talk you through it, but since neither of us have all the answers, we’re not going to dictate what you should or shouldn’t think. This is more of a directional suggestion. A little bit of “consider this,” some loose guidance, several “watch out for these assholes,” and some light blasphemy to keep it interesting.

To start: approach this topic with humility. If you need a primer on humility, go back and read Be Humble. Why be be humble on matters of faith and religion? Because you can’t ever be sure that you’re right. You can feel, believe, or think you’re right. You can declare with absolute certainty that you’re right. Lots of people do.

Newsflash: Statistically, they’re probably wrong.

According to Wikipedia, there are there are roughly 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, and ultimate concerns. Some of these groups have beliefs that overlap and just vary on small stuff like if their clergy wear robes or if they can speak to each other in the liquor store. Some of them think everyone else is full of shit and every person not in their religion is doomed.

But, since it’s impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God, it’s definitely impossible to prove that one particular brand of God is the one we should all be worshiping. So, be humble.

On that topic, let me express my own humility. I might be wrong about all of this. God may be super pissed off that I don’t wear a yamaka or that I cut my hair. But until I hear it from God, I’m going to stick with my haircuts and ball caps.

Also, I don’t hold any degrees in religion and definitely don’t claim to be a religious scholar. I’ve read the Bible, am familiar with its teachings, and have (albeit briefly) studied other world religions. I’ve also practiced and experienced a few different flavors of Christianity. Beyond that, the only reason you should listen to my opinions on this topic is because I’m your Dad, and sometimes I know things. That’s not to say I’m pulling this out of my ass, (I’m not,) or that I haven’t given this a lot of thought, (I have.) My expertise is just limited.

What do I believe? That many religions offer valid moral guidance on difficult topics, that they can help us be better people, connect with our neighbors, do good in the world, and provide some peace in the face of everything we don’t understand about our universe. And there’s a fuck-ton of stuff we don’t understand about our universe, including who made it, why they did that, if they give a shit about us, and what happens to us when we die.

Which is scary. And religion offers answers to these scary questions. Different religions offer different answers; more on that later.

Religion can also be a force for incredible good in both our lives and our communities; it inspires and has inspired humans to do amazing things.

On the flip side of that, some religions and/or religious sects are forces for incredible bad. In fact, they just plain blow ass. Some blow a little ass, and some blow all the ass there is to blow. Avoid these people and their idea of God.

For example, the Westboro Baptist Church is less of a church and more of a hate group. They rose to fame by picketing American soldier’s funerals with signs like “God hates Fags.”

Newsflash: God does not hate Fags. If God actually exists, and if God is a He, why would he hate anyone, let alone people he allegedly made?

In Afghanistan, The Taliban claimed “policies guided by Islam” prevented women from attending school and working in society and used stonings, amputations, and executions to punish citizens who violated these rules.

Newsflash: These policies are not guided by Islam, they’re guided by assholes who use religion to subjugate and control people.

The Crusades killed shitloads of (between one and nine million) people. Exact estimates vary because it was a long-ass time ago and records weren’t really a thing.

Newsflash: I would know more about secular motivations for The Crusades if I hadn’t slept through an entire semester of Mr. Giles European History seminar in high school.

My point is, humans have used religion to justify some really awful things. But, the problem in each of these cases isn’t the religion, it’s the people using that religion to do awful things.

So, when speaking of the tangible effects of religion, it’s a mixed bag. I want to say it’s much more positive than negative, but that’s just my intuition and certainly a debate worth having. Assuming you can find someone who wants to debate it with you.

Don’t debate religion with people who don’t want to talk about it.

Just don’t.

Ever.

I can say that if you use your brain and look at the teachings and doings of a particular brand of faith with clear eyes, you can usually figure out whether they’re good or bad for humanity and society in general.

Love thy neighbor?

Good.

Fly a plane into a building and kill thousands?

Bad.

Don’t murder?

Good.

Force people to believe and pray the same thing as you?

Bad.

Feed the hungry?

Some of us would add a work requirement to that policy because of all the hungry who won’t get a job, so that one might not be as easy to answer as it might seem.

Easy or not, you can still look at those principles and make a judgement about each of them. You can see what each religion teaches, how its followers implement those teachings, and the effect they have on society and the world.

I’m not saying it’s an easy call, but it is a call you can make by weighing observable facts--e.g., a church might provide food and aid to disaster victims and spiritual comfort and community to millions but also have a history of covering up sexual abuse of young boys by its priests. That’s a complex decision. But, you weigh the positives and negatives, and you make one.

Your Mom and I make that decision based on our values. Other people make different decisions based on different values.

I’m giving you a difficult task, I know. What is right and wrong, after all? What moral values do you use to evaluate a place that teaches you moral values? Check out Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development for his thoughts on the different ways we make moral decisions. This is an unrelated can of worms for you to open some other time. In the meantime, ask yourself these two questions when you’re evaluating a religion:

1. If something doesn’t feel right, ask yourself why. Poke at it until you can tease out what doesn’t seem fair, okay, or good. And if someone tells you to stop asking questions and get in line? Get the fuck out.

2. Watch for hypocrisy. Not the little ones, but the big conceptual hypocrisies, e.g., “Jesus says to love your neighbor but we don’t love  those people because we have reasons and stuff they did.”

Ugh.

When you’re trying out churches and evaluating religions, consider both the denomination and the specific church (I’m using church as a catch-all for any house of worship, not intentionally excluding mosques, temples, halls, etc.) in your location. For example, Buddhism isn’t the first religion that comes to mind when I say “embezzlement,” but if the monks at the Buddhist temple you’re visiting all drive Ferraris and wear diamond plated grills, you (and your money) might do more good elsewhere.

And then there’s the intangible — the afterlife. That is, what each religion tells you about what happens when you die. You can’t evaluate these teachings empirically because death is a one-way transition. And even when someone dies a little bit and then is revived, all we have to go on is what they say they experienced.

Newsflash: they don’t always tell the truth or completely recall what they experienced. This really complicates things, because for many religions, that afterlife is a big (if not the biggest) selling point.

Some religions teach that believing a specific dogma will land you in paradise for all eternity, while others believe entrance to the afterlife is earned through certain deeds. On the flip side of that, some use the threat of eternal punishment to encourage belief; they preach fire and brimstone and everlasting torment wait for you in Hell if you don’t behave on Earth.

But, no matter what kind of afterlife a religion pitches you, whether it’s reincarnation, eternity in paradise, or the threat of never-ending nut punches from Beelzebub’s big fists, they can’t prove any of it is real.

You just have to believe. That’s the “faith” component. And this is where I get hung up. Because there’s always a part where you just have to believe. And usually, I don’t. At one point I did, but I couldn’t ever find answers to my questions that really satisfied me. I asked, I read, I thought about it, and I wasn’t satisfied with the answers I found.

That’s because we don’t know what happens when we die. And that’s scary.

No, scary isn’t strong enough.

It’s terrifying.

As humans, we’re driven from birth to survive, to do anything it takes to stay alive. And while the unknown is generally frightening, accepting an unknown that goes against our strongest inborn instinct is way, way beyond frightening. And that’s part of the appeal of religion.

As Matthew Inman put it in his webcomic The Oatmeal, “Does it (religion) help you cope with the fact that you are a bag of meat sitting on a rock in outer space and that someday you will DIE and you are completely powerless, helpless, and insignificant in the wake of this beautiful cosmic shitstorm we call existence?”

For lots of people, the answer to that question is “Fuck yes, it does.”

For me, it’s a reluctant “not really.” I’d like to believe I’ll end up in paradise with all the people I love for all eternity, drinking juicy IPAs and eating giant piles of spicy chicken and black bean nachos with melted cheese all the way through while I sit in a recliner made of clouds and watch Randolph Childress cross up Jeff McInnis over and over and over, but I can’t seem to convince myself that’s the case. I struggle with the metaphysical aspects of religion, the miracles, the afterlife, the magic.

Fortunately, belief isn’t required to find magic in a church. “Come on, Dad,” you say. “Of course you have to believe.”

Nope. You don’t.

Good worship services transcend the mundane, inspire us to be better people, connect us to our neighbors, and give us hope when life is busy pooping on our dreams.

I’ve felt that magic. And I’m comfortable believing what I believe  because I’ve found denominations that don’t demand strict dogmatic adherence, a.k.a. they are okay with my bullshit.

I once heard a friend invite someone to visit a church we both attended. The someone in question said, “Oh, but I’m an atheist.”

“That’s okay,” my friend said. “You’ll fit right in.”

I encourage you to figure out what works for you and let others figure out what works for them. And please, don’t be the insufferable prick that goes around pointing out logical inconsistencies in other people’s belief systems.

Remember, you might be wrong. I might be wrong. We all might be wrong and living in a simulation on a twelve-year-old’s computer.

I’ve been that argumentative butthole and would not recommend it. Just like nobody wants to hear about Our Lord and Savior Xenu of the Galactic Federation, nobody wants to hear why Sister Beatrice may or may not be full of shit.

As long as someone else finds peace and happiness in their definition of faith and God, let them have it. That is, until they start waving it around or trying to stick it down your throat. At that point, you have my eternal blessing to argue as much as you want. Otherwise, in the words of my friend Dan-O, “Bro, don’t harsh the mellow.”

So, that’s what I think about God and religion. It took me a long time to figure that out, so I don’t expect you to have a handle on it right away. Take your time, ask lots of questions, and talk to people about it. And someday, I hope you figure it out for yourself too.

I love you,

Dad

A personal account of incredible kindness

Last week, you knocked a top front tooth out, again. You knocked out the top front left in 2020, mid-pandemic. This time is was top front right, but as awful as the experience was, it also gave us the opportunity to meet two incredibly kind people who went out of their way to help us when you (and I) really needed some help.

I’m going to tell you that story and why I hope theirs is the kind of behavior you grow up to emulate; because more than anything else you can be in this world, I hope you grow up to be kind.

Your Mom was out of town for a 40th birthday girls trip, so you and I went on an afternoon hike to go see Little Bradley waterfall, about thirty minutes south of Asheville. You love seeing waterfalls and throwing rocks in the water, and I love taking you to do things you’re excited about, so the stoke was high.

The trail meanders through a shaded wood beside Cove Creek, and we saw lots of other families out playing in the water and hiking the trail. The weather was warm, but the shade beside the creek kept us cool. We were having the best day. The trail was steeper than advertised and trees had fallen here and there, so every now and then I’d have to pick you up and lift you over a log. We stopped for a picture and your grin lit up the entire forest. Eventually, we came to a the first of two stream crossings.

A line of hands-width size stones made a perfect bridge from one bank to another, and rather than get our feet wet, I scooped you up and carried you across. In hindsight, the ease of this crossing led me to underestimate the crossing where you’d knock out your tooth, but I didn’t know that yet. At the time I was riding high on Super Dad vibes.

We walked a little more until we came to a second, deeper stream crossing where I saw two options: We could wade across what would be at least waist-deep water for you or we could go upstream twenty yards and pick our way over a line of exposed rocks crisscrossed with little flows of water. Another family had just finished the latter route, so I felt good about that option.

We went upstream and crossed the rocks like we’d done the trees; I’d go over, straddle the gaps, pick you up, and put you down on the other side. It was more difficult, but I was feeling good about our progress. That is, until I fell.

We hadn’t made it very far when I lost my footing while moving you from one rock to another. I slipped and you fell forward onto a rock the size of a kitchen table.

I really hope that someday, you learn to put your hands out when you fall. Your two missing top front teeth are proof that to date, you have not learned this very important life skill.

You fell face first and landed on your chin, nose and mouth. Remembering the sound of that impact turns my stomach, remembering your tears and screams flips it upside down. My therapist said the brain hates trauma, so when you experience trauma, your brain revisits it over and over, trying to prevent it from ever happening again. Lord knows my brain has done just that; I know you’re the one who fell on your face, but I feel completely responsible for that fall, and that guilt stings.

I scooped you up and turned you around to see blood coming from your nose, mouth, and chin. Lots of blood. As I think back, I can see a tiny speck of white in a puddle of red where your face hit the rock. Pretty sure that was your tooth, but at the time I was so worried about getting you to the shore and stopping the bleeding that I barely noticed it.

Holding you with both arms, I walked across the flowing creek towards the shore, giving up any caution about wet feet or clothes. This was about the time I saw a man and woman coming towards us.

It had taken us several minutes to get out to where I now stood. But now, rather than carefully negotiating each step as I had on the way out, I just walked through the flowing water, over slick moss, and back across the rocks. You were screaming in my ear, and all I could think about was getting you to safety. I had almost made it back when I came to a gap too wide to step across.

The couple stood at the shore, and he stepped up to the gap and held out a hand. “Stay right there. Be careful, okay?”

My heart was in my ears, and if I was saying anything, it was “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He stepped out onto the rocks, said something about being careful not to fall, and helped us get to shore. We got to a log where I sat down and put you on my knee. This was when I got my first good look at your face. Your other top front tooth was clearly gone. You were bleeding from your nose, mouth, and chin. “Fuck,” I said. “This is my fault. This is all my fault.” We were out of the creek but I felt like I was going to drown in guilt.

Darren and Jane introduced themselves and started asking questions. “Did he hit his head? Do you have anything to stop the bleeding? Are you okay?”

I’ve taken first aid, CPR, and swiftwater rescue classes. That is to say, I’m normally pretty good in these situations. That day, I was not good. Not at all.

I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t brought a first-aid kit, I didn’t have anything to stop the bleeding, and I wasn’t sure how we’d get you out of there. In hindsight, I was woefully unprepared.

Thank God for Darren and Jane. I answered their questions, established that you hadn’t hit your head and probably didn’t have a concussion, and managed to point out your injures while trying to calm you--and myself--down. Darren produced a water bottle from his bag and filled it with cold water from the creek. He handed it to you to press against your gums and numb the pain in your mouth.

Before I could gather my wits, Darren did the job for me. He told me and his wife that he would jog back down to the trailhead to get some ice, then asked her to stay and help you and me walk out. It was at least a half a mile back to the car.

“Is that okay with you?” he asked.

“Of course, thank you,” I said.

With that, he set off.

I carried you and Jane walked with us, peppering us both with questions to keep us calm. She pointed out difficult spots in the trail, helped me lift you over obstacles when necessary, and told us about their family. That chatter kept me focused and diverted some of your attention from the blood all over both of us and the pain in your mouth.

Darren met us three-quarters of the way back; he’d jogged out, gone to his car and made an ice pack out of an empty Cheetos bag and a hair tie. As you used it to soothe your mouth, he told me the nearest hospital was just 11 minutes away; he’d looked it up on his phone.

We got back to the car and after exchanging numbers with Darren, headed to the ER. You cried most of the way there, but by the time we got checked in, you’d mostly calmed down.

They got you cleaned up and gave you way more band-aids than you needed. But, since you love band-aids, this was just fine. They gave you stickers, crayons, and eventually pronounced you all okay, minus one missing tooth, a torn frenulum, a small cut inside your nose, and a few scrapes on your knees that were now covered in band-aids.

The doctor said ice cream would help the pain and swelling.

We went straight to Somewhere in Time in Saluda for your favorite, “pink strawberry.” They were kind enough to give it to you for free, and wouldn’t even accept my money when I tried to pay. Which was awesome. But unfortunately, our day had one more heartbreak in store.

We walked out of the ice cream shop, I wrapped your ice cream cone in a napkin, and held it out for you to have. You took the cone and promptly dropped it right on the dirty sidewalk, ice cream side down. I saw the tears welling up in your eyes, and the look on your face was more than I could bear.

I might not have been able to save your tooth, but I could fix your ice cream cone. Hoping I didn’t get tetanus, I picked up the ice cream cone and proceeded to lick off all the dirt and sidewalk grit. Every last dirty, crunchy, gravely bit. Satisfied that nothing but pink strawberry remained, I took extra care giving the cone back. You approved and proceeded to devour the remaining ice cream.

That happened on a Saturday. By Thursday your scrapes had all healed, the hole where your tooth used to be had closed up, and you had already acquired a new scrape on your nose from tripping on a root at preschool. Seriously man, you have got to learn to catch yourself when you fall forwards.

Beyond learning to not fall face first, what’s the lesson? First, to me, it’s a story of incredible kindness.

Darren and Jane went way the hell out of their way to help two complete strangers. Not because they stood to gain or because they had any obligation to us. No, they helped us because we needed help, and that brand of kindness makes the world a better place. Their kindness made an indelible mark on our lives; I’ll never forget them or what they did for you. That is the brand of kindness I hope you learn to carry in your heart and share with others.

Second, that day affirms something I’d only read before then. It’s from Elizabeth Stone, and I saw it on a greeting card.

Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

See, when I said before that I’m normally pretty good in situations like the one we found ourselves in that day, it’s from experience. I’ve been to the ER a few times, I’ve gouged open my shins on rocks in a river, I’ve gone over the handlebars on my bike, I’ve seen my own blood plenty. Usually, I just wipe it off and go on. I’ve seen other people injured and have been fine helping out and calming them down. Your blood was a different story.

So, on the days when you feel like your Mom and I are being overprotective, or aren’t letting you do something you think you’re old enough to manage yourself, or if you get hurt and we’re making an extra big fuss about making sure you’re okay, remember this:

You are both of our entire hearts, walking around outside our bodies for the rest of our lives, and more than anything else, we love you and want to keep you safe.

Even if sometimes, I’m not that good at it.

I love you,

Dad

Be Humble

Be humble. Because no matter how much you think you know or how much you actually know, the list of things you don’t know will always be way the hell longer than the list of things you do know. As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s also a list of things you think you know that you’ve got wrong.

Trust me, those things you think you know are just waiting out there in the world to make you look like an asshole as soon as you open your mouth to declare something you’re sure of. And I’m not telling you this to say I know more than you, or that I’ve got it all figured out. In I have no idea what I’m talking about, I was pretty clear that I don’t know everything. What I’m telling you is that you don’t either, and you should act accordingly.

How? Be humble.

In Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, he says that “astronomy is a humbling and character-building profession.”

Why’s that?

Let’s start small, with our planet.

And by small, I mean relative to the rest of the universe. Relative to you and me, the Earth is pretty fucking huge. We’ve got 7.7 billion people, 99.999999% of which you’ll never meet. There are 196 countries, most of which you’ll never visit. Even in a country with only 50 states, I’m still 11 short of visiting all of them, and I like to travel. The size of our planet should be humbling enough.

We live on a massive planet with more cultures, history, and people than you’ll ever have a chance of understanding completely. And yet, that Earth is just a teeny, tiny fraction of the planets in our universe. Viewed in just the context of our galaxy, Earth is tiny.

How tiny?

In 1990, as NASA’s Voyager 1 was headed out of the solar system, it turned around to take look back at Earth. From so far away, (3.7 billion miles from the sun), our whole planet was just a pale blue dot. In his 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot,” Carl Sagan wrote about the significance of that picture. If you haven’t read that book or heard his thoughts about that picture, go back and click the pale blue dot link. Spend 4 minutes watching the video, and then come back. I’ll wait.

When I watch that video, it humbles me. It stretches my perception of the size of our universe and reminds me just how tiny a part of that universe I actually am. The city and state where we live is just a small part of a small part of our planet. And if that planet is a small part of something so vast I can’t begin to comprehend it? That humbles me, as it should anyone.

I don’t say this to make you feel unimportant; you are and will always be the only star of the movie of your life. You also play a massive role in the movie of my life. I only want you to realize how much else there is around you; more to learn than you’ll ever learn and more to see than you’ll ever see.

So, don’t act like you’ve seen it all; you haven’t.

For that matter, nobody else has either, so when you meet people who pretend like they have, don’t believe them. (More on this in a bit.)

Beyond the things you don’t know yet, there are the things you think you know, but don’t. You’ll encounter an idea and wonder why it was never adopted, only to learn it has been tried and actually sucks. For example, Communism or shaving your butt crack. Both interesting in concept, and awful in reality.

I’ve been certain of many things in life that turned out to be not so. In some cases, I’ve come to understand how wrong I was on my own. And sometimes, other people helped me with this discovery. This is, unfortunately, one of the most memorable ways to learn that you do not actually know what you’re talking about.

Here’s how you avoid feeling like an asshole in those situations. If you’re not sure, admit it. If you don’t know, say so. At the very least, just keep your mouth shut and listen. That’s how you can avoid looking stupid and learn.

In What Will People Think?, I mentioned “the knowers.” You’ll know them by the never-ending stream of self-assured nonsense that comes out of  their mouths. These are the ones who mansplain, who talk over experts, who are so incapable of humility, of admitting the limitations of their own knowledge that they put these limits on display for everyone to see.

It’s counterintuitive, but it takes a strong and confident person to admit they don’t know something.

Humility isn’t easy.

No, the easy path is pretending you know, or shouting down everyone who actually does. Instead, listen to a mantra your Mom picked up from one of her mentors at work. “I reserve the right to get smarter every day.”

How?

“Be curious, not judgmental.”

That link goes to a scene from Ted Lasso, and is Ted misquoting Walt Whitman. Don’t let the misattribution throw you off, the idea still holds water. By withholding judgement and letting curiosity lead, you will learn more, you will be wrong less, and most importantly, you will get smarter every day.

As just one person on a pale blue dot spinning round an enormous universe, you can’t know everything. You’re going to be wrong plenty.

Both are okay.

As long as you don’t let what you don’t know today stop you from knowing it tomorrow, you’ll be just fine.

I love you,

Dad

Choose Discomfort

Your Mom and I are making ourselves uncomfortable on purpose, which sounds like a terrible idea. It’s not, though, and I’m going to tell you why it’s good for us and good for you. 

Late last summer, a recruiter contacted your Mom about a job. After lots of emails, phone calls, interviews, and soul searching, she decided to take a job as the VP of Sales at Sierra Nevada Brewing. This also meant we’d relocate from Cincinnati to Asheville. Which all sounds great, because who wouldn’t want to work for the brewery that started the craft beer industry and live in the mountains of North Carolina where they got married? And we’d be closer to my family. What could be uncomfortable about that?

You have to consider what we’re leaving behind. 

Your Mom had worked at P&G for 17 years; and while every day had challenges (and new acronyms, so so many acronyms), it was a company she knew well full of people she’d worked with before. She had friends, mentors, mentees, and lots of people she cared about. Plus, she was really good at what she did. 

It’s hard to underestimate the amount of comfort and familiarity you establish when you’ve been with an organization that long. That familiarity extends to the city of Cincinnati; we’ve been here long enough that we have friends we know and love, people that recognize us in the shops and businesses we frequent, and a routine we’ve established. We’ve made significant investments in our house; it’s a place we’re comfortable and happy. We joined a church and sent you to their preschool where you’ve made friends and have teachers we trust. That is all to say, we’ve made this city our home, and it’s a home we’ve grown accustomed to and comfortable in. We have a good life in Cincinnati.

We’re choosing to leave that comfort and familiarity behind. We’re selling this house and buying another. Your Mom took a job in an industry where she knew almost no one and we’re moving to a city where the same is true. Establishing herself in her new role has meant she’s had to travel all over the country these past few months. And she’s had to learn a whole bunch of new shit. You’ll start a new preschool the week after we move without any of the three rotating best friends you’ve made this year. (Every day you have a new favorite color and a different one of three boys is your best friend, but you are four, so that’s pretty normal.)

Anyway.

Change is hard, changing everything all at once is harder. As we’ve prepared to move, bought a house, and searched for preschools, your Mom and I have both struggled. We’ve felt anxious and stressed. From getting the electricity turned on at our new house to finding a new babysitter for you, there’s a never-ending list of things to do. She’s missed being at home with us and we’ve missed having her here. It hasn’t been easy, and it won’t be like flipping a switch once we get there; in Find Yourself Somewhere New I wrote about how it takes two or three years to really feel at home in a city, and I don’t expect Asheville to be any different.

Why, then, are we choosing to be uncomfortable? Why are we stepping into discomfort that may last years when we were perfectly safe and comfortable here?

Because we believe that after the discomfort passes, our lives (and yours), will be better for it. Your Mom is going to kill it at Sierra Nevada. I know she is. She took a leadership position in an industry that’s still predominantly male, and is helping a purpose-driven company become more inclusive in their thinking and hiring. Asheville offers untold opportunities for hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, and outdoor recreation. It’s also beautiful. We’re going to make friends there and so will you. Not to replace the ones we have here, but to add to our circle. We’ll make unknown faces into familiar ones and our new house into a home. I know this because we’ve done it before, and as hard as it seems now, we’ll do it again.

I can picture it in my head and it looks awesome.

What’s there to be afraid of? Well, it will be hard. That’s for sure. And as optimistic as I am, things might not work out like we want them to. Asheville might suck. Your Mom might hate selling beer and we might struggle to make friends. (Although, in my one shot at Cincinnati, if you can make friends here, where everyone wants to know where you went to high school, you can make friends anywhere.)

The other choice would be choosing comfort over change, not taking risks because we let the short-term discomfort scare us away from what could be. And being perfectly honest, it’s always going to be what could be, not what 100% will be. 

The point is that it’s okay to be anxious, to worry, and to feel discomfort. Change is uncomfortable and the unknown is scary. But for me, and for your Mom, what’s not okay is to not try. We had this dream of what things could be, and what it could be for you, and we wanted to make it actually happen. So as much as it pains us to leave the sweet, humid, sweaty embrace of this city of sausage by the river, we’re going to do just that. 

Don’t read this as some kind of diatribe against Cincinnati, or people who never leave the city they grew up in; it’s not that. For some people, that’s their dream. 

It’s advice, for you. If you avoid hard things like discomfort, change, and challenges, you’ll have a lukewarm life. Things will forever be just okay, not amazing, not awful, but just okay. For me and your Mom, that’s not good enough. My hope is that you feel the same way. 

Take on hard things. Embrace the pucker. Choose discomfort. 

It will make you stronger, and while you won’t always win, your life will be richer for having tried and your victories will be sweeter for having struggled.

Because living a lukewarm life means never knowing if you could have made your dreams come true. And it definitely means never cracking a beer on the patio with your parents at the brewery where your Mom works after spending a day home from college mountain biking with your Dad. And maybe if we’re lucky, we can get Mom to come biking too.

I love you,

Dad

Sam Vines on boots and money

Let’s talk about money, why the idea that “you get what you pay for” is almost always true, and why not having money can cost you money. To set the stage, I’m going to share the Samuel Vines theory of Economic unfairness. Who is Sam Vines? Sam is a character in Terry Pratchett’s 1993 book Men at Arms.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

There’s a lot to this idea. First, it offers an easily understood example of how buying the cheap version of a product can cost you more in the long run. Conversely, it also shows how spending more for a quality product now can save you from having to replace it later. (Neither of these are the primary ideas of the theory, but hang with me and I’ll get to that one as well.)

Here’s my caveat: High cost does not always equal high quality, so don’t confuse or equate the two. Designer items or brands marketed on prestige and perception may cost more but be of complete shit quality. For example, a Maserati Ghibli starts at $71,000, but according to consumer reports, it scored a 1 out of 5 for reliability. It might do one-eighty-five, but when it breaks down again? Well, then you can’t drive. 

The Toyota Camry starts at $25,395, but is widely seen as one of the most reliable cars you can buy. And before you ask why I just poked a hole in Sam’s theory, he wasn’t comparing the Toyota of boots to the Maserati of boots. He was comparing a 20-year old PT Cruiser that’s been in 3 accidents but only costs $1,000 to a new Toyota that costs $25,000. I stuck the Maserati in there so I could include Joe Walsh lyrics and remind you that spending more doesn’t always mean getting better things. This holds true for almost anything though, so do your homework on what you’re buying; Yeezy shoes don’t cost $250 because they’ll outlast Nikes. They cost that much because a famous rapper designed them.

That said, lots of people can’t spend more because they don’t have more to spend. This is the next insight from his theory. It demonstrates why quality products are out of reach for some people, and that the decision to pay more for a quality product isn’t one everyone can make. His metaphor uses boots that wear out after a year, but the two cars I’ve compared would do just as well. For that matter, there are no shortage of real world examples: Owning a washing machine vs. going to the laundromat, having a bank account vs. using check cashing services, or getting cheap credit vs. a no-credit check payday loan. It’s easier to save money when you already have money. 

If you don’t already have money, there’s no easy solution. Credit isn’t readily available when you’re broke, and you often pay higher interest rates and more fees if you do qualify for credit. The best you can do is scrape by as best you can, suffer through wearing cheap boots, and try to make smart choices about where you spend what money you have. 

The American dream tells you that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps, work hard, and eventually make enough money to not be poor anymore. And for some people, that works. A good friend of mine spent years skipping lunch and eating the same thing for dinner so he could pay off his student loans as quickly as possible. These days, he is very not poor. But for lots of people, one mistake can put them right back to zero, or even into debt. Because they’re operating with no margin for error, unexpected medical bills, the loss of a job, or even a busted water heater can empty their savings account.

Which brings me to the most important thing I want you to take from this. Being poor is not a moral failing, or an indictment of your character. Our society isn’t built to make upward mobility easy. If anything, it’s the opposite; the rich mostly stay rich and the poor mostly stay poor. And while your financial circumstances can be a result of your decisions, some of us have more options than others, while some of us have only bad and worse choices.

If you find yourself broke, be careful how you spend what money you have. If you find yourself rich, be smart about how you spend your money so you stay that way. And above all, remember that nobody goes to bed dreaming of spending their last dollar on boots that won’t keep their feet dry, but some of us wake up to that reality every day.

I love you,

Dad

The Sex Talk

This one’s going to be a doozy. And for your grandparents, they might want to look away; we’re going to talk about sex. So strap in, or strap on, whatever floats your little man in the boat.

At some point, we’ll have a you-and-me version of this talk, where you’ll have to listen to me struggle through this stuff while you suffer soul-crushing embarrassment. But, since this blog is about writing down things just in case I don’t get to explain them to you, I’m also going to embarrass you in writing.

We’ll skip the biology lesson, because this isn’t that kind of sex talk. You know, about fallopian tubes and seminal fluid. Although, you should learn what those are before 6th grade. Otherwise, you might end up like your Dad, who at the urging of Scooter Bailey, told Lee Raymer to “suck my Fallopian tubes,” in a cutdown fight on the school bus. Not surprisingly, your Dad lost that cutdown fight.

But, this is not a talk about fallopian tubes. This is a talk about consent, responsibility, emotions, accidents, and consequences. So, without further ado, here we go.

First, let’s talk about firsts. Some people wait for marriage to have sex for the first time, either because of their religion, their personal beliefs, or maybe because they haven’t found the right person to do it with. If you want to wait for marriage, that’s okay. However, I’m not going to expect that you will or demand you do so. What I do expect is that when you decide to have sex, you understand the decision and consequences associated with that choice, and make that decision together with your partner. More coming on those consequences below.

Side note: anal sex is still sex, and if you have anal sex, you and your partner are not virgins. And while it won’t get you pregnant, you can still catch feelings and/or STDs. Also, virginity is a social construct, and you are not damaged, less valuable, impure, or less worthy of being loved if you are not a virgin. That’s a common idea in some abstinence campaigns (mostly pushed on girls and women) and it’s trash. Having sex doesn’t make a girl a whore or a slut anymore than wearing glasses makes someone smart. Don’t buy into that nonsense. 

Moving on, having sex with another person has consequences. You can get that other person pregnant, you can catch an STD, and you and/or that other person might catch significant feelings for each other. And while I can’t give you a statistical breakdown, those are the three most likely consequences of unprotected (heterosexual) sex. Homosexual sex has two of the three consequences but pregnancy is off the table. That isn’t to say one of those three things always happens, rather, any or all of them can happen, so you need to be prepared before you take your pants off.

I’ll start with the most likely outcome, catching feelings. Having sex is an incredibly intimate, powerful, and overwhelming experience. While there are some people who have and enjoy casual sexual relationships, my experience has been it’s very hard to separate the feelings from the experience. When it’s good, it’s a real good fucking time, (pun intended.) Not only does it affirm your love for your partner, but it releases endorphins and oxytocin (feel-good hormones) that create intimacy, relax you, and help fight anxiety and depression. It’s also pretty fun.

You’ll never be prepared for these feelings until you’ve felt them. And even then, they’re still big, big feelings. You’re in an incredibly vulnerable state, you’re with another person, and they’re in the same incredibly vulnerable state. Once you’ve felt these feelings, you’ll spend a lot of effort, time, and money trying to feel them again. Because having sex with someone you love is fantastic.

And this is how a casual sexual relationship can lead to a very non-casual sexual relationship. Which can be good or bad, depending on the willingness and emotional readiness of you and your partner. Because while you might be physically ready to have sex at 14, you might have all the working parts, I would tell you that you are very not ready for the emotional parts of that relationship, and extremely not ready for the other possible consequences.

Like STDs. You do not want to catch an STD. Way less exciting and enjoyable than catching feelings. Lovesick people can make bad decisions, but syphilis sick people can go blind. And while STDs won’t kill you (mostly), they are embarrassing and uncomfortable. Although, they may have some new ones that will kill you in fifteen years. So, avoiding STDs is a good reason to be careful, use protection, and demand honesty from and be honest with your partners. 

Babies are the third possible consequence of heterosexual sex. That is not to say that you will always get a girl pregnant when you have sex, but you can always get a girl pregnant when you have sex. Birth control is great, but not perfect, mostly because of human error. Condoms break, girls forget to take their pills, etc. I’m sure they’ll have some new stuff by the time you need it, but unless it’s administered by robots, human error will still be a factor. Most of the time is not all of the time; unless your chosen type of birth control is 100% effective, a baby can happen.

And until you’re ready to be a father, that’s a bad idea. Because if you make a baby, you’re responsible for that baby. Raising a child is awesome, amazing, and harder than anything I’ve ever done. And I’ve only been doing it for four years. I waited until I was in my forties to have you for a variety of reasons, but that afforded me the opportunity to go to college, go to film school, figure out what kind of career I wanted, and chase it through a few states before I needed to devote most of my waking hours to taking care of you. Give yourself the same opportunity to have some fun, do some stuff, and go some places before you have kids. You’ll be glad you did.

On to consent. Always, always, always make sure your partner consents. What does that mean? I like this definition from RAINN.org: 

Consent is an agreement between participants to engage in sexual activity. Consent should be clearly and freely communicated. A verbal and affirmative expression of consent can help both you and your partner to understand and respect each other’s boundaries.

Consent cannot be given by individuals who are underage, intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, or asleep or unconscious. If someone agrees to an activity under pressure of intimidation or threat, that isn’t considered consent because it was not given freely. Unequal power dynamics, such as engaging in sexual activity with an employee or student, also mean that consent cannot be freely given.

With that stated, my follow-up is that no one owes you any kind of physical relationship, ever. Doesn’t matter what they’re wearing, what they said about your sweatpants, or what you want. Consent should always be freely given, and if you’re in doubt about your partner’s ability to give consent, they can’t.

Sex is a big deal, and it’s something I’d bet you’ll really enjoy doing. It’s great! But, you don’t need to do it until you’re ready.  When is that? When you’re ready to handle all the consequences that come with it. There will be a time when some of your friends start having sex. Some of them will talk about it like it’s the best thing ever. Someone you know might get pregnant and/or have an abortion. For me, this happened in high school. Some of your friends will even pretend they’re having or have had sex, even though they aren’t and haven’t. Teenagers trying to impress their friends are like that. Don’t let their enthusiasm and your hormones steer you down a path you’re not ready for. It’s your body and your choice, but remember, they will also be your consequences. Make sure you’re ready for them.

I love you,

Dad

Don't Text Important Sh*t

When it comes time to talk about important shit, pick the right way to do it. Text messages, email, and written letters have their places and their uses, but when it comes to conversations that really matter (about things like relationships, sex, money, legal contracts, etc.) get to face-to-face, or at the very least, get on the phone. Yes, it’s less convenient, but you’ll be less likely to miss important details, misunderstand, or miscommunicate. You’ll also be 100% less likely to be autocorrected into telling someone to “shave the date,” or ordering “Egg rolls with fuck sauce.”

Don’t think I’m anti-text/anti-email. Especially because it’s possible text messages won’t even be a thing when you’re old enough to read this. We will have certainly developed new ways of communicating short snippets of information by then, who knows, maybe we’ll be sending mini-holograms back and forth. But, unless that technology manages to perfectly replicate every nuance of in-person communication, it will still be imperfect. More importantly, it will be at least one step removed from in-person communication, which by design, reduces the emotional immediacy and impact of that communication. What’s that mean? The further removed you are from a person, the easier it is to say something you wouldn’t say to their face. 

Visit any social media site for extreme examples of the impact this distancing has on communication. People will happily pile on one obscene comment after another, suggesting people eat shit, go and have sex with themselves, or die in a fire. People don’t say things like that to other people’s faces because when face-to-face, they can’t avoid the emotional impact of their words. They also can’t avoid a punch in the nose. We’ll revisit that emotional impact in a quote below, but first, let’s talk about why texting isn’t for important shit. 

It’s a useful invention, and a great tool for communicating, when you’re aware of its limitations. Credit here to Maria Popova of The Marginalian. In her round-up of resolutions worth making, she makes a case for the value of “real human communication.”

Texting, with its ready-made emojis and its immediacy, is a superb medium for communication of levity and logistics. But where it triumphs in time-sensitive matters, it fails abysmally in matters of emotional sensitivity — I don’t know of a single relationship that has been improved, repaired, or saved by texting in those vital and vulnerable moments of emotional misalignment and miscommunication, where the medium’s immediacy becomes a gauntlet of mutual reactivity and its two-way disembodiment a way of avoiding the evidence of one’s emotional impact on the other. Here, conversation triumphs.

She goes on to cite Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing on the power of and value of real human communication, which is beautiful and worth a read, but for the purposes of this lesson, Maria captured the important part.

I’ve long believed that texting is a terrible way to communicate about things that matter. Fart jokes and directions? Yes. Anything that might be  made worse by misunderstanding or misreading? No. That’s because tone is really hard to understand in written text. 

Here’s an example: We were emailing with a realtor about homes we are considering buying. One of the homes had a run-down, super creepy looking shed in the back yard. In my email to her, I said, “Oh great! This place has a murder shed we can keep our ‘guests’ in.” I sent the email, laughed about it with your Mom, and then an hour later it hit me that I didn’t really know this realtor, and she didn’t know me. She was going to show us homes by herself, and here I was joking about murdering people. Oops. I immediately followed up with another email that noted since tone is hard in email, I was making jokes, and that there would be no murders, no “guests,” and definitely no murder shed. 

Thankfully, she had a good sense of humor. Crisis averted. But in person, tone is part of the message. The way you deliver that sentence, the tone and mannerisms you use will tell the other person you’re either joking, joking awkwardly about murder because you’re awkward, or not really joking because you might be a murderer. Written text lacks that tone.

Same thing goes for any important conversation. To revisit Popover’s quote,

I don’t know of a single relationship that has been improved, repaired, or saved by texting in those vital and vulnerable moments of emotional misalignment and miscommunication, where the medium’s immediacy becomes a gauntlet of mutual reactivity and its two-way disembodiment a way of avoiding the evidence of one’s emotional impact on the other.

That two-way disembodiment she speaks of is the removal of all the bodily cues that come with language, and those cues are often more important than the words themselves. The tone, volume, and pitch of your voice, your facial expressions, where you look, the way you move your body, your hands, and even the way you pause, none of this comes through in a written text message. How important is all that “other stuff?” It’s important enough to either support or completely invalidate your message.

Imagine these scenarios: In the first, you’re sitting on a bench in the park with your girlfriend, you pause mid-sentence, squeeze her hand and say, “you know, I love you.” She’ll probably believe you. She might even say she loves you too. In the second scenario, you’re on the same bench with your girlfriend, you pause mid-sentence, squeeze out a fart and say, “you know, I love you.” She might believe you shit your pants, but she’s definitely not going to tell you she loves you too. Finally, let’s put the fart on the other foot. Same bench, same girl. You squeeze out your fart, because you have gas and can’t help it, and then say, “I love you” for the first time. She sighs, looks you in the eyes, says, “I love you too,” as she rips a big fart of her own. Do you believe her? Of course you do. It’s a completely different message, and now you’re both floating on an especially noxious cloud of love.

And yes, those are hyperbolic examples, but the point holds; the things you don’t say can be more important than the things you do. At the very least, they can either support your intent or completely invalidate it. Same holds true on the receiving end of any communication.

So, the next time you have something important to communicate, mind how you say it. While it might be infinitely more convenient to thumb out a text or fire off an email, if there’s a chance the message might be misunderstood, if there’s a subtle nuance you’re worried about the message receiver understanding, pick up the phone or get face-to-face. It can make all the difference in the ducking world.

I love you,

Dad

Listen up, Mom has the mic.

When I think about the qualities I want you to emulate and share with the world, I think about kindness, empathy, respect, hope and love. As I reflect more on what is at the root of these qualities and behaviors, the art of listening comes to the center and forefront. I’m not sure I’m qualified to write to you about this as it’s something I struggle with every day. So, please don’t always follow my actions in this regard (although I try to get better with practice each day) but do try to cultivate and practice active listening.

Listen is a verb – it’s active, it requires energy and focus. The Merriam-Webster definition includes three parts:

• To pay attention to sound

• To hear something with thoughtful attention: give consideration

• To be alert to catch an expected sound

I think the second part is the most critical. To me this speaks to not just active listening BUT also listening with a willingness to be influenced. 

As I reflect on managers and leaders I’ve most admired over the course of my career, they excel in this art – they listen with an open mind. These are brilliant people with usually more experience and practical knowledge than myself or others, they probably already have a firm opinion on the topic at hand, and yet they make each individual feel valued and seek to understand their point of view. They use that to sometimes evolve and strengthen their own innate bias or preconceived decisions, or if it doesn’t change their mind, they can clearly articulate back to the individual what they heard and why they weren’t swayed. When I reflect on experiences with these leaders, I always walk away feeling valued and respected no matter whether they approved of my idea or point of view. That’s really incredible – to be told “no” or disagreed with, but still leave feeling respected and valued. 

I try every day to practice this but it’s hard, and I struggle. Sometimes, I let my own ego get in the way. Still, I’m trying to be self-aware and I ask others to hold me accountable as I grow in this space.

The place where I personally need to practice is at home and with our family. This will sound like an excuse (and it is), but I struggle with this for two reasons. 

First, my mind is easily distracted. I’m often thinking of fifteen other things I need to accomplish around the house or in life and I let that mental to-do list interfere with being present and listening in the moment. To combat this, I’m trying to pause and write down the items in my mental list so that I can create space for listening. I’m also going to try to tell you or your Dad what I’m doing when I go to capture that list on my phone so you know I’m trying to remove something from my mindspace so I can focus on you two. 

The second challenge is that after focusing all day at work, I’m mentally exhausted and sometimes feel like I just can’t focus anymore. Sigh. This is terrible; you all deserve the same energy and focus, if not more, than what I give at work. I don’t have an easy solution for this one, but I’m going to keep working on it.

I hope that as you grow, we can work on our listening skills together. I hope I can teach you and model for you the ability to listen to opposing points of view with an open mind, showing respect and kindness for others, whether or not it changes your mind. This will make both of us smarter and allow us to continue to grow together and learn new things. I hope as you get older you will hold me accountable to continue to practice and improve, and I will do the same for you.

Love,

Mom

'And' instead of 'either/or'

It’s easy to see other people categorically as good or bad, right or wrong, friends or enemies. That would be a mistake, but it’s a mistake plenty of people  make every day. I’d rather you look a little deeper and see the duality inside everyone. That’s because most people aren’t either one thing or the other; we’re one thing and the other, almost always some of both. Your best friends will be kind and cruel. Your parents are good and bad. The people you can’t stand are generous and selfish. Sure, we can trend to one side or the other, but in the end, there’s a little bit of both sides in everyone.

This can be hard to understand; your brain wants to use associative thinking to categorize and classify everything, people included. It’s one of the shortcuts our brain uses to help us process our world, and while necessary to function, it does us and those we lump together a disservice. You’ll need intention and a second look to undo those snap judgements, but it’s worth the effort.

But how, Dad? How can you and Mom be good and bad? What about my best friends, how can they be generous and selfish? And don’t some people suck?  What about them?

Yes, I said that, several times. Let me take this opportunity to rephrase: Some people mostly suck. These people often make bad choices and do bad things. But, even the suckiest of the suckers usually have a little good inside. Usually. There are still a few I wonder about. Either way, it’s not on you to go dig it out, and it’s not your job to make them into better people.

Rather, stay open to seeing some good in everyone, even those who mostly suck. Realize that one, or even a series of failures doesn’t make someone a bad person. It’s okay to guard yourself around these people and look out for your own interests. To do otherwise would be myopic, shortsighted, and dumb. 

Don’t loan your tools to the neighbor who frequently breaks their own. Don’t leave money lying around if your sticky-fingered friend is coming over, and you don’t have to let someone in front of you in line just because they’re ill-tempered and impatient. 

That said, a little kindness goes a long way, and even people you expect the least of will surprise you from time to time.

On the flip side, even the people you love and respect are going to   occasionally suck. In that spirit, here’s a story about anger, kindness, being shitty, forgiveness, and a time when your Dad definitely sucked. 

Your Mom and I went to the ACC Championship game a couple weeks ago to see Wake Forest play against Pitt. We sat in the Wake Forest section but had a Pitt fan a few rows down from us. Much to your Mom’s chagrin, I got into it with the Pitt fan in the first half. As the two teams went back and forth, we talked trash and were shitty to each other. Half in good fun and half in malicious dislike. I was a little drunk and a lot loud. At halftime your Mom reminded me about being a good sport and asked me nicely to be less of a shitheel.

So, I bought this fan a bag of peanuts, made conversation at halftime, and apologized for my shitheeliness. Which was good and did not suck.

The second half started and went badly for Wake. As Pitt scored over and over, the Pitt fan kept needling me, and I lost my temper. Like, really lost my temper. I’d had too many beers and I acted the fool. I got in this fans face. I was sure he was the worst person in the world, and I 100% hated him. 

I hated him all the way back to the hotel, and even the next day. I also hated myself because I knew I had sucked. It wasn’t the behavior I want to model for you, and I was embarrassed and ashamed.

After a few days I sat down with my therapist to talk through it. In that conversation I told him initially, if I’d seen that Pitt fan out and about on Sunday, I’d have given him the finger. But after processing it for a few days, I’d decided he probably deserved an apology, that even if he was pushing my buttons, I had forgiven him. 

“Have you forgiven yourself?” my therapist asked.

“What?”

“You made a mistake. You had a bad day, lost control and made a mistake. You deserve your own forgiveness, certainly as much as a stranger does.”

And I did, which was good. I also committed (to myself) to working on getting less angry when my sports teams lose and doing some daily meditation work around processing anger.

But, in that story I was both good and bad. I was kind and cruel. I was a prince of peanuts and a shitbag of sportsmanship. 

That’s an example of “everyone makes mistakes,” and I hope it turns out to be a story that proves we can all change and grow, no matter how old we are. But, the duality that’s in me, my capability to be both sides of the spectrum exists in everyone. 

Most people don’t fit neatly in an either/or box; they’re not all good or all bad, they’re not all right or all wrong, and they’re rarely all friend or all enemy. The best people can do bad things, and even the most self-centered pricks can surprise you, rise to the occasion, and do something wonderful. 

How then, can you prepare yourself for these moments, and how am I suggesting you think about the actions of others? 

Be careful with categorizing other people. Just because someone is unkind once, don’t assume they’re an unkind person. And just because someone is generous and helpful today, don’t take for granted that they’ll always be that way in the future. To quote Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: 

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

We all contain multitudes. 

Okay, then what?

I wrote this not to make you look for the worst in others, but to encourage you to forgive and find the good. Yes, you can always find a flaw, but more importantly, you can also find a light inside anyone. When the people you love make mistakes, do bad things, and are shitheels, realize they’re human, and every bit as fallible as you. Forgive them their fuckups today and learn to forgive your own fuckups tomorrow. 

But also realize that you only see part of anyone, even the people you  think you know the best. Your tool-breaking neighbor might have an anger problem, your sticky-fingered friend might be deep in debt, and the ill-tempered and the impatient woman behind you might be late to pick up her daughter at school. You never know. We’re all imperfect, we all fall down, and we all deserve grace and forgiveness. 

As hard as it can be, try to forgive as many of other people’s failings as you can, because someday soon, you’ll need forgiveness from someone else.

I love you,

Dad

Ideas are Easy

People sometimes half-jokingly tell me about an idea they have for a story, or a book, or a movie. “It’s about a time-traveling cat,” or “this thing happened to me and it’d make a great movie,” or “it’s dinosaurs in space, and all the dinosaurs are super horny. Jurassic Pork in Space!” 

They have the “big idea” and all I need to do is help flesh it out. I invariably decline, but encourage them to continue on their own. Why?  First, because taking care of a 3-year-old keeps me busy, and what time I have left I spend on my own projects. Second, because having the idea is the easy part. The hard part is all the work that comes between having an idea and seeing that idea come to life. And I don’t think this is unique to writing projects. In almost every idea, venture, or project, the hard part comes after the big idea.

This isn’t to discourage you from thinking big, or having big ideas. No, my point is that rather than feeling like you accomplished something by having an idea, you should be ready to jump in and do the hard work it takes to make that idea into something real. Then, and only then will you have something to brag about. Until then, you’re just another guy with a big idea he didn’t do shit about.

But how? How do you turn an idea into something worth bragging about? Well, I’m going to tell you.

First, put your back into it, along with lots and lots of sweat. See, discipline and hard work beat inspiration and motivation every time. That’s because discipline is out of bed and has its shoes on while motivation is psyching itself up. And hard work is pounding the pavement while inspiration is waiting for itself to strike.

You won’t always feel inspired, and you certainly won’t always feel motivated. But discipline means you go to work on your big idea anyway. It keeps you moving forward, and gets you one day closer to making that big idea a reality. I had a big idea early on in the pandemic, that I’d write a weekly advice blog for you to read when you were 18. It would be full of important shit I couldn’t teach you yet. It was inspiring, and I was motivated. In the 50 or so weeks since, my motivation has waxed and waned, and I certainly haven’t felt inspired every time I sat down to write another entry. Thankfully, discipline has kept my ass in the chair, cranking these out week after week. And between you and me and everyone else reading these, I’ve found inspiration as I’ve gone along, sometimes after I’ve deleted the paragraph I just finished. But I wouldn’t have found it if I wasn’t sitting in the chair doing the work.

Once you’ve established the habit, and you’re plugging along making that idea a reality, you’re going to make hundreds, if not thousands of tiny decisions. And that is where the real magic happens. Every one of those little decisions should feed into your big idea, and those little things are what make a big idea real. Example: A print ad is usually a picture with a big headline and some sentences down at the bottom. A Creative Director I once worked for taught me that whenever I wrote a print ad, I should make sure the body copy had some nugget for the few people who bothered to read it. A joke, a wink, something to pay off the big idea. It was another chance to make that idea real. Another example: If you go to the box seats at Faurot Field where Mizzou plays football, and walk down the hall to the bathroom, you’ll find a little joke above the urinals. They have seat numbers, just like the suites, and every other seat in the stadium. It makes me laugh every time I pee, (which is sometimes awkward), but it’s a great little decision that improves the entire experience. 

The best part about all those little pieces is that they can also make the big idea better. In an interview with Adam McKay on What He Learned from Working with Improv Guru Del Close, he talks about going to your third thought. He’s talking about Improv, but this is completely applicable to everything you do. He says, “Sounds really simple, but when you’re onstage, your first thought is knee-jerk. Your second thought is usually okay, but not great. Del would make you stay in a scene until you found your third thought, which was a little above and beyond what most other teachers would suggest. Basically, he wanted your third thought for your character choice, your third thought for your premise or your scene, your third thought for your heightened move.” 

Instead of being satisfied with your first idea, throw it out and come up with another, and then one more. Then you’re building something amazing. Each little decision is a chance to do just that, to not only flesh out that big idea and make it real, but a chance to make it better.

I haven’t always had the discipline to make my ideas come to life, or to make them better. But the ideas that have come to life, and then gotten better have always been a result of discipline and hard work. 

When I started writing and trying to sell short fiction, my work was rejected hundreds of times before I sold anything. And in the ensuing years of writing and submitting, I sold zero stories on the first draft. The ones that I did sell had all been worked, polished, re-worked, re-polished, edited, and then re-worked again. That’s what it takes to succeed.

Not just in writing, but in life.

So, you’ve got a big idea? Great. Find the discipline to do something about it.

I love you,

Dad

What the world owes you, and what you owe the world

I’m going to write about entitlement and privilege. As in, how much I don’t want you to go through life feeling like the world owes you something (a.k.a. being entitled) and how much I want you to realize the advantages you’re born with (a.k.a. privilege.) 

Let’s start with the short list of people who owe you something; it starts with me and ends with your Mom. We brought you into the world, so by my estimation, we owe you about eighteen years of food, shelter, clothing, love, and instruction on how to be a successful and productive adult. It certainly doesn’t mean that’s all you’ll get from us, but that’s the bare minimum of what someone owes you. Beyond that, nobody owes you a thing. 

Woof, Dad. That’s harsh. What about the rest of the family?

Well yeah, lots of other people care about you, love you, and would do anything for you. Your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, and lots of our friends would look out for you, and provide for you if they needed to. But they’re doing it out of kindness, the goodness of their hearts, and their love for us and you. They don’t owe you that.

Why am I telling you this? Because I don’t want you to go through life with a sense of entitlement, believing that anybody owes you something. Because, at the risk of sounding harsh, nobody owes you shit. 

And the proper response when someone who owes you nothing (this includes almost everyone) gives you something is simple: gratitude. For more on this, hop over and read why you should never delay gratitude. But you’ve got a great start on this habit and I beam with pride every time you say “thank you” to the people who care for you in the Children’s Center at the gym, to man at the deli who gives you a free slice of cheese, or to anyone who gives you a sticker. I hope you keep it up.

Your Mom and I were both very lucky to have parents who cared about us, provided for us, helped us get ready to be successful, functioning adults. We were fortunate enough to get way more than what they owed us. Lots of people aren’t that lucky, and we both understand that. We hope to give you the same opportunities, and your mother works very hard to make that a reality. Her success means I can stay home to care for you, and there are many people in the world who simply can’t do that. And that means you are very lucky. Privileged, even.

It’s not a bad thing, I don’t want you to feel guilty about it, but it’s a real thing and I want you to understand it. Look, I too grew up privileged. By virtue of my father’s hard work and success, I didn’t want, and my mom was able to stay home with me and my brother and sister. My parents also paid for my college education, giving me opportunities galore. They have always been there for me and for that, I’m incredibly grateful and lucky. Your Mom and I plan and hope to do the same for you.

That (and being born in one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations on Earth) is one kind of privilege. But your (and my) privilege goes beyond that. Like you, I’m a white male, which comes with a whole other set of advantages.

First, being white means we don’t face many of the disadvantages people of color struggle with every day. Our ancestors weren’t brought to this country on slave ships, and our parents and grandparents didn’t have to struggle against a system of laws designed to disadvantage us. We are given the benefit of the doubt in most situations. And while we will discuss how you should interact with and deal with police officers, it won’t be like these conversations of black parents teaching their children how to deal with police, which are frankly heartbreaking and very hard to watch.

Not only are you not disadvantaged, your skin color carries advantages people of color don’t have. Peggy Mcintosh wrote about her experiences with White Privilege and went so far as to list 26 of the daily examples of white privilege in her life. It’s worth reading. It can be hard to reconcile, and if you believe our country is an absolute meritocracy, this kind of thinking will be hard to digest. But I think it’s important. 

After being born white, being born male also comes with its own set of benefits. Barry Deutch wrote the “The Male Privilege Checklist, An Unabashed Imitation of an Article by Peggy McIntosh,” which is also worth reading. A few of the advantages he identifies include being paid more than women for the same work, being less likely to be sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, or seen as overly emotional because of our sex. Again, if you think our society solved sexism in the 70’s, this can be hard to reconcile. But I think it’s also important.

Lots of people will tell you there’s no such think as white privilege, or male privilege, and that these concepts are complete bullshit. “Let’s just treat everybody the same,” they say. “I don’t see color, or gender, or sexual orientation,” they say. The thing is, assuming your reality is the norm for other people is a privilege, and also a bit myopic. Empathy is doing the opposite of that, understanding what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference. Seeing the world and your actions from other people’s perspective is hard, but I think it matters. I’ve written how much I want you to be empathetic. It’s a good way to try to not be a dick. It’s also a good way to be kind. I so hope you are kind.

Now for the harder part. If you believe me that these privileges are real, what’s a white male to do? 

First, don’t be sexist. Don’t be racist. Don’t be shitty to other people because they’re different than what feels “normal” to you. Don’t be a bigot, don’t make fun of disabled people for being disabled, and don’t be a dick about someone using different pronouns than you expected. Of course not, Dad. What kind of asshole would do that? Plenty of them.

Beyond that, it gets harder, because there aren’t easy answers. 

I think your first responsibility is to understand and recognize the advantages you have. Tim Wise offers a great insight in Obliviousness is the Most Destructive Privilege of All when he writes, “Fact is, systems of inequality, which involve advantages and disadvantages as two sides of the same coin, are all harmful to the cause of a fair and just society...Rather than engaging in discussions about degrees of pain and unearned advantage, I find that the most productive way to engage privilege is to examine the one that links them all...It’s the privilege of obliviousness — the privilege of not having to know other people’s reality and lived experiences.”

In that case, the first step is recognizing and understanding your privilege. Which isn’t to say you should mansplain white privilege to women who aren’t white. And for fuck’s sake, don’t be one of those who brags about hitting a triple when you were born on third base. Yes, you should still try to get to home plate, but realize that you started on third while others might begin their at-bats with two strikes.

The next step is using your privilege when you’re in a position of power to advocate for people who don’t have the advantages you do. This article by Dolly Chugh about using your everyday privilege offers some good suggestions and examples for how to help in a work environment, “We can ask questions, raise issues, and add perspectives that are not organically emerging in discussions at work. We can introduce data, invite people into conversations, and create buzz around ideas. We can amplify the views of people not being heard at meetings, and bring back conversations when someone is interrupted. We can give credit for people’s work and spread the word about their talent. We can notice when bias is playing out around us, and name it when it happens.”

There are many ways you can use your privilege in your daily life to help those without it, and plenty I’m sure I haven’t mentioned or even considered. It’s not easy, but being kind to other people and trying to understand how they see the world isn’t always an easy thing to do. It takes effort, consideration, and courage.

I hope this kind of empathy and concern for others is something you aspire to, and that you want to live in a society that’s truly fair and just for everyone. It matters to me, and it matters to your Mom. The question you have to answer is how much it matters to you.

I love you,

Dad

Wave Your Freak Flag High

Don’t fit in, and don’t feel like you have to. Plenty of people will say otherwise, but I’m here to tell you they can all go to hell. No, here’s a case where you should listen to Jimmi Hendrix, who sang he would “wave his freak flag high.” Because deep down, there’s a freak inside of all of us.

That pressure to pretend you’re just like everyone else starts early. Middle school, maybe even before that. It’s probably most intense in high school, but it never really goes away. And we all feel it, even adults. Sadly, most of us spend our lives not only bowing to it, but making sure everyone else does too. 

Why? 

First, there’s a security in making the safe choice, to fitting in. Being part of a tribe feels good, whether you end up hanging with the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, or dickheads, it feels good to belong. 

Side note: part of that security can depend on the exclusion of others. And that’s one of the downsides to tribalism, even when it’s just seemingly harmless cliques. Don’t build your identity by shitting on someone else’s. It’s mean, it sucks, and eventually it’ll turn you into an asshole.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with finding a tribe you belong to, as long as you remember who you are. See, there’s a difference in dressing and looking like your friends and feeling the need to think and act exactly like they do. If you want to dress preppy, dress preppy. If your friends are all into outdoor stuff, you might wear a paracord bracelet. And athletes wear the same uniform by design. Just don’t let your team colors dictate your thoughts.

It takes courage to stand out, to think about things differently, or to even do things differently. And I’m not talking about the conforming non-conformists, groups of people who eschew social and societal norms in packs, effectively creating new social norms that they’re more comfortable adopting. 

No. When I encourage you to let your freak flag fly, I’m talking about figuring out who you are, where your passion lies, and being that person. For real. Authenticity is terrifying, it’s vulnerable, and it usually means stripping away all the layers of bullshit we protect ourselves with and taking big risks. 

Selling your house and opening a pizza place in the middle of a pandemic? That’s letting your freak flag fly. Shoutout to Alex at St. Francis Apizza, who’s making some fantastic pizza on the East side of Cincinnati and was kind enough to show me their kitchen and talk pizza this week. Learning to hear your own voice after years of “cultural conditioning, numbing addictions, and institutional allegiances,” leaving an unhappy marriage, and admitting you’re gay despite your conservative  religious following? That’s letting your freak flag fly. Hugging your friend at home plate instead of celebrating with your team after you strike him out to end the game and send your team to the state playoffs? That’s letting your freak flag fly. Leaving a company where you’ve worked for 16 years and are on the fast track to super senior leadership to follow a passion and go sell craft beer? That’s letting your freak flag fly. (I’m so proud of you, Ellie.)

Your freak flag knows some people won’t understand, and it’s okay with that. Because when you fly that flag, when you let your guard down and are your real, vulnerable, authentic self, people respond to that authenticity. And for every person who doesn’t understand, five will not only get it, but love you for it.

You know why?

They want to fly their freak flag too. They’re just scared.

Standing out is scary. Being different is scary. Being noticed is scary. But you know what’s worse? Hiding your light under layers and layers of fear, conformity, and societal pressure. Being miserable doing the same thing everyone else is doing. Following someone else’s dream.

Don’t spend your life trying to be something you’re not. As much as flying that freak flag will scare or even terrify you, there’s an incredible freedom and power to letting your authentic, real, self shine through. 

In an interview on screenwriting, Joss Whedon spoke about how your personal intent is what makes a script yours. He said, “whatever makes you weird is probably your greatest asset.” And while he’s talking about scriptwriting, that idea applies to almost anything. What makes you weird is what makes you you. Nobody else will have it.

Whatever path you choose, I hope you have the courage, self-confidence, and willingness to be real, to be your authentic self. I hope you learn to  wave that freak flag high, high!

I love you,

Dad

Your word, your integrity, and making promises

Keep your word. I’m not just talking about the times you say, “Yes, Dad. I promise I’ll do the thing you just asked me to do.” I’m also talking about all the little times you tell someone you’ll do something, help them out, or be somewhere; the seemingly insignificant promises you make every day. Yes, it’s important to keep the big promises, like the ones you make to your spouse, to your country, or to your God. But it’s also important to keep the little promises like, “I’ll do the laundry,” or “I’ll come by later,” or “I’ll call you back.”

The little ones may seem less important, or no big deal if you forget, but the sum total of those promises will far outweigh the marquee promises  you make in front of a crowd. This isn’t to say you should cheat on your spouse or become a traitor; big promises also matter. What I am saying is that your word is the sum total of all the promises you make, and that hundreds of white lies and unkept commitments can chip away at that word in ways that are every bit as destructive in the long-term as one big lie. 

The little commitments you make and things you say you’ll do may not feel like promises, and they may not carry the same weight as an oath you take before your family, country, or God, but they matter. 

For example, if you consistently commit to play golf with your friends on Saturday morning but then party so hard on Friday night that you’re too hungover to play, they’ll think they can’t depend on you and find another to fill the foursome. If you always sign up to bring napkins to the class party but never remember, people will tire of wiping their hands on their pants and decide you can’t be trusted with something so insignificant as napkins. And if you tell someone half-truths and lies of omission, they’ll eventually start to doubt everything you say.  

Those are all natural consequences of not keeping your word, self-reinforcing lessons most of us learn as we go along. But there’s also an internal cost to lying and cheating, one that’s almost worse than not being invited to go play golf, attend class parties, or be trusted to be on time. Lying, cheating, and breaking promises leads to more of the same. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

In his book, “The Honest Truth About Dishonesty,” Dan Ariely studied cheating, lying, and why we do both. In short, we all cheat a little most of the time. There’s a 10-15% margin of dishonestly that most people feel comfortable with, where they can cheat a little and still feel good about themselves. That in itself is bothersome. I hope you don’t lie and cheat 10% of the time. That said, what I found most interesting was that cheating is contagious and gets easier as we do more of it. When we see other people lie and cheat, we start to think it’s okay. And when we lie and cheat a little and don’t get caught, it becomes our new normal. If we continue to cheat, Ariely explains in an interview how easy it is to lose all connection to our moral compass. 

“I have had lots of discussions with big cheaters – insider trading, accounting fraud, people who have sold games in the NBA, doping in sports. With one exception, all of them were stories of slippery slopes. You look at the sequence of the events – you look at the end – and you say, my goodness, what kind of monster would do this? But then you look at the first step they took and say, I can see myself under the right amount of pressure behaving badly. Then they took another step, another step, and another step.” 

His antidote to the contagion of cheating is surprisingly simple: in a book review by The Washington Post, Michael S. Roth writes, “Mostly, small reminders of basic moral standards tend to improve behavior. Whether it’s the Ten Commandments, an honor code or a declaration of professional principles, bringing moral standards to mind reduces cheating.” Ariely’s research shows that these kinds of reminders serve as moral guardrails, nudging us back to honest behavior, but are most effective as immediate prevention, stopping the little cheating from becoming larger fraud.

Which brings me back to my main point: keep your word, all the time.   When you lie a little, it gets easier to lie a lot. Whether it’s because you want people to believe in and trust you, or because you think it’s the right thing to do, keep your word. Every little lie you tell and throwaway promise you make is one more step towards losing your integrity.

In the event you make a promise you have to break, don’t blow it off like it didn’t matter. Before you break the promise, explain why you want to do so out loud to yourself and see how it sounds. Weigh it against your internal moral compass, and ask yourself if why you’re not doing what you said you would. If you’re okay with it, explain to the person you made the promise to why you’re not doing what you said you’d do. Ask their forgiveness and permission to be free of your promise. It’s not a perfect solution, but shit happens and sometimes the shit that happened was out of your control. At least the person you promised will know you take your word seriously. 

I’m definitely not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be. I’ve lied, I’ve broken my word, and I’ve cheated. Not like Lance Armstrong cheated, but I’ve fudged a timecard at work. I haven’t made a habit of it, but it’s happened. Not only did I usually feel some natural consequence, I’m not proud of the times I did and I never liked the way it made me feel. (Bad. It made me feel bad.)

Like many of the lessons I’ve written, writing this makes me want to do better, both to be a better role model for you and because my word matters to me. 

So, keep your word. Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep, and make sure you keep the promises you do make. 

I love you,

Dad

A job you love

“Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” is a load of shit. It sounds great, and it seems to make sense, but as someone who’s had several jobs I wanted and very much loved, I can tell you that saying is not true, at least not in the literal sense.

That’s not to say some jobs aren’t better and more fulfilling than others. A job that makes the most of your aptitudes and skills, has a good work environment, and pays well will be much more enjoyable than one where you’re abused, overworked, and under appreciated. As an example, being an NFL quarterback is better than working in a coal mine, but if you think NFL quarterbacks don’t work, you should go workout with one, or just let a 340 lb. man tackle you sometime. No matter how much they love the game, it’s work, work, work.

I love to write, and so when I started in advertising, I wanted to be a copywriter. I was hired as an account executive, and not to work in the creative department or come up with copy ideas. Sure that I’d enjoy working as a copywriter more than I enjoyed working as an account executive, I built a spec portfolio on my own time, studied my craft, and learned what I could. Eventually, I got a new job at another ad agency working as a copywriter. And guess what? It was still work. 

It was a different kind of work. I was using a set of skills I enjoyed using, and most days I enjoyed doing it. But, working as a copywriter was where I discovered the throne of agony, so named by Sally Hogshead, a former advertising executive. Agony is Step 3 of her 5 Stages of Your Creative Process. In this step, you suffer, you struggle, you doubt yourself, and you try and try and try to come up with an original, interesting, relevant idea. It’s the hardest part of the creative process, and she claims that “if you want an epiphany, you need to sit your butt in The Throne of Agony.”

This is all true. Every creative process has a struggle, and the only way to get through it is by putting ass to chair and working your way through it. 

There I was, doing a job that I loved, and in some ways, it was harder than doing a job I didn’t care about. The stakes were higher; failing would mean I wasn’t as creative or as good a writer as I thought I was. And while doing account executive things like making media spreadsheets or filling out paperwork is boring, it’s not as agonizing as sitting in the throne of agony. And if sitting in that throne isn’t bad enough, I had to do it day in and day out, whether I felt up to it or not. And by the way, I still had a boss who got on my nerves, a sometimes grumpy creative partner, and a desk with no privacy. 

But even with the “by the way” stuff removed, the throne of agony follows me to every writing project like it’s being pushed by an invisible anti-muse of a demon. Whether I’m writing a short story, a novel, or this very blog post, I feel an internal unease that is only satisfied by doing the work or doing something else, (i.e. procrastinating.) Some days are easier than others, and I occasionally slip into a zone where time and the throne of agony fade into the distance and the words come like water from a fire hydrant. But mostly, it’s work. Fulfilling, creative, exciting work, but still, it’s work.

I hope this doesn’t discourage you from doing something you love, but if it does, there are other options. Plenty of people work a job because it’s the best one they can find. Or maybe it’s the best one that’s available in their town. And some people want a job they can leave at work at the end of the day, leaving them with the mental energy to parent, work on side projects, or just simply unplug and play golf. For some, doing a job they love isn’t an option because it might not pay enough to put food on the table or provide health insurance for their family. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with not loving your job, and sometimes it’s actually easier than making your passion into a career.

But the idea that doing a job you love will mean you never work a day in your life? Bullshit. If anything, you’ll work harder; you’ll care about it more, be more driven to succeed, and face more competition to get there. Nobody’s going on a reality TV show to get a job at McDonald’s, but tell people they might get to be a reality TV pop icon and they’ll line up to sleep in the streets for a week for their 30-second shot at fame.

Still, I hope you do find a job you love. I hope the work is fulfilling, rewarding, and challenging. And whatever your passions are, I hope you pursue them. But, loving to do something doesn’t mean it has to be your job.

I love to cook. I enjoy preparing food for myself, friends, and family. I enjoy the process, the result, and sharing something I made with people I care about. People sometimes say, “you should open a restaurant,” or “you should have been a chef.” My reply is always the same: “thank you,” because it was a compliment, and then, “but I don’t want to work in the restaurant industry.” 

That’s because I’ve worked in restaurants and decided that I didn’t love cooking enough to sign up for the restaurant lifestyle. The hours are long, the work is physically demanding, you always work weekends, and you don’t get to spend much time with your family. Cooking professionally is a really fucking hard job, and I can cook for fun without having to deal with all the parts I don’t like.

Turning your passion into a job can suck the joy out of your passion. It’s tempting, especially if you believe the bullshit about doing a job you love. But before you do it, realize that instead of making your job better, you might just be making your passion worse. 

That said, I hope you find a career that you’re passionate about. I hope you have a job that is fulfilling, challenging, and that you enjoy. Because if you choose a job you love, all the ancillary bullshit that comes with that job gets easier to tolerate. That’s the way writing is for me, and working as an advertising copywriter was a pretty good job. There were good days and bad days, great clients and terrible clients, but I mostly liked the people I worked with and loved the feeling I got when I wrote something good. And while that isn’t “not working a day in your life,” it’s a whole lot better than schlepping coal out of a hole in the ground.

I love you,

Dad

Embracing Uncertainty

Being certain is a comforting place to be. Convinced that something is  or will be, you can rest assured that you’re right, and anyone who disagrees with you is not. This level of assuredness can shift opinions into facts, and facts into absolute truths. The problem is that sometimes, no matter how certain you are, you’ll be wrong. 

You could be wrong about something in the past, (Napoleon was short), something in the present, (Tom Cruise is tall), or something in the future, (see College Gameday for weekly examples.) 

Oof. They all sting. Nobody likes being wrong.

But, it’s okay; it happens to all of us. We make mistakes, we base opinions on incorrect information, and we believe things that aren’t true. The best reaction when you find yourself in this situation is to learn from the error and discover something you didn’t know before. The worst reaction is to double down on the certainty, close your eyes to new information, stick your fingers in your ears, and swear up and down that it’s the other guy who’s wrong. 

It’s surprisingly easy to have the worst reaction, because as safe as being certain feels, it closes your mind to other possibilities. How then, should you keep your mind open to new information? I like the way Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors phrased it in their song, Wild World.

“Try a little tenderness, maybe some benefit of the doubt.

Another person's point of view, try to listen not to shout.

Hold your opinions loosely maybe you're not always right.

Show a little mercy, and hold on to love real tight.”

I love the line about opinions and not always being right. Not because I enjoy being wrong, but because it’s something everyone should hear more often, myself included. 

The idea that you might be wrong is hard to swallow. It’s also hard to stomach the idea that things might not go the way you think they will. But, the universe is completely indifferent to how certain your opinions are and what you think. The world spins on, no matter how many people think it’s flat.

The first step to holding your opinions loosely is remembering that sometimes, you will be wrong. Not might, but will. If you can find a way to internalize that thought and learn and grow from the times when you are wrong, you’ll be better off. But this, like many of the pieces of advice I’ve written out, won’t be easy.

That’s because uncertainty is somewhere between scary and terrifying, especially in the present and future. Not knowing if a girl you want to ask out likes you back is scary. Not knowing if your wife still loves you is terrifying. Not knowing how a career choice will turn out is scary; not knowing if you’ll survive an illness is terrifying. Uncertain SAT test score? Scary. Uncertain pregnancy test? Terrifying. The higher the stakes, the more frightening uncertainty becomes. How then, do I suggest you go on? In the face of something between fear and terror, how do I expect anyone to function?

Carlo Rovelli, who teaches physics at Aix-Marseille University, wrote the following in a series in The New York Times.

“We never have total certainty, nor do we need it — or want it. Between full ignorance and total certainty there is a vast intermediate space where we conduct our lives.

We grow, and we gather more reliable knowledge, by being genuinely open to the questioning of our beliefs. This is the core teaching of scientific thinking. The most reliable beliefs are those that survive questioning.”

You have to learn to live and function in that vast intermediate space between ignorance and certainty, holding your opinions loosely and showing mercy and love to both yourself and others.

I went back to the Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors song because as much as I love the lyric about opinions, close on the heels of that line comes something that’s even more important. “Show a little mercy, and hold onto love real tight.” Call it mercy, grace, compassion, or any number of other things. What matters is that you feel it for others and yourself. 

Because just like some days you’ll going to peel back that warm blanket of certainty and realize that you’re wrong, your friends, your family, and even your Dad will do the same. I encourage a heavy application of mercy and grace in those moments. Whether it’s not shaming someone else for believing something you know isn’t true or not beating yourself up for being wrong, try to realize that we’re all living in that same vast intermediate space between ignorance and certainty. 

For me, getting comfortable in that space feels like surfing a wave. On top of a mountain of moving water, surrounded by chaos, you can find a space where time seems to slow down. Sometimes that space only exists for a few seconds, and on other days, it seems to go on forever. You never know how long it will last, or how long you’ll be able to hold onto it. But that’s not what’s important. 

The important thing is to look, to learn as much as you can, and then paddle out and ride that wave, to live in the uncertainty that life presents. Because none of us know how anything is going to end, no matter how certain we pretend to be. And that’s okay.

The alternative is to stay on the shore, waiting and wishing for a certain future that never comes, which is no way to live your life. You’ll make mistakes, and you’ll be wrong sometimes, but you’ll be just like the rest of us, doing the best we can. And while much of life remains uncertain, you can be sure that your Mom and I will always love you.

Dad

Feel your Feelings

This week, a movie made you cry, and I thought my heart was going to break. It was awful. You cried, then I cried, and then your Mom came into the room from the office, and she cried. Stella was even concerned, but she only cries when it’s time for food. But, as I look back on the experience, I want to encourage you to continue to feel and express your feelings, both when they feel good, and when they hurt. Especially when they hurt. Bottling up your worst and most painful feelings is like swallowing a little bit of poison every day; it might not kill you right away, but it’s going to tear you up inside. And eventually, it might kill you. Which is why you shouldn’t do that.

But first, back to the offending tearjerker. On Friday nights, we make popcorn and watch a movie. We started the tradition during the pandemic as a way to make Fridays different than every other day we couldn’t leave the house, and we’ve continued it because it’s fun. This week, your Mom was running late so I let you pick out the movie. You picked the 2018 remake of Benji, mostly because the picture in Netflix for Benji the Movie has a cute dog. Yes, it was rated TV-PG, and it wasn’t as kid friendly as our usual animated fare. But since it wasn’t Old Yeller and I was pretty sure Benji wouldn’t die at the end, I decided it was fine.

In the “all is lost” moment in this movie, the two children who befriended Benji are kidnapped, Benji tries to lead their mother to where they are, but the kidnappers have already left with the kids. The mother, furious that she’s wasted time following a dog she barely knows, yells mean things at Benji and sends him away into the city, where (of course) it rains on the poor sad and lonely dog. All is lost. You were sitting on my lap eating your popcorn when I heard the first huge sob. Big tears followed the sobs and within seconds, you were crying heavy, sad cries for poor Benji.

“It’s okay, it’s just a movie,” we tried to tell you. “Benji is going to be fine,” I said. And he was fine until the very end when in a classic suspense-building / why would you do that in a children’s movie you assholes maneuver, Benji was thrown against a wall, went limp, and the family that loved him thought he died. More big tears and some dirty looks from your Mom. Thankfully, he “woke up,” and all was fine.

As a three—year-old, you’re feeling big feelings and learning how to process them. Society is generally okay with a boy your age crying those tears. There is, however, some pressure to stop expressing your feelings as you grow. For example, a grown man shouldn’t cry in the grocery store because he’s tired and wants a snack. I look forward to you achieving that level of emotional restraint, but when should a grown man cry? When is it okay for adults to express their feelings?

He should cry when he needs to, is when. I’m not going to give you a list of occasions when I believe you’re allowed to cry, because while somewhat amusing, it’s dumb. 

See, suppressing your emotions is bad for you. Anyone who has ever stewed over something for days only to eventually explode over something unrelated and trivial knows this. But in case you don’t believe me, research from UT Austin and the University of Minnesota found that “bottling up emotions can make people more aggressive.” So there’s that, along with plenty of other research that supports this assertion.

And while the belief that a man shouldn’t express his feelings is fading, the remnants of toxic masculinity that remain will tell you men should only feel victory, rage, and ejaculation.

Fuuuuuuuuuck that.

Feeling your feelings and expressing them both gives you the chance to deal with those feelings and helps raise your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence helps you understand and deal with your own and other people’s feelings, makes you a better leader, a better friend, and a better partner. And I’m not just talking about tears. I want you to be comfortable feeling and expressing a range of emotions. 

When you’re happy, and you’re so happy that you feel like you’re flying through a blue sky with little white poofy clouds, take that flight. Fly into those clouds and realize they’re made of cotton candy that tastes salty-sweet like candied bacon. Fill your heart with that joy and don’t be afraid to show and share it.

And when you’re hurt and hurting, I want you to feel that too. Because feeling the sadness is the only way through it. As awful as it is, sometimes you have to sink down low into a deep, dark, pit of awful and cry the hardest tears until somehow, you hit bottom, and you realize there’s no more tears to cry. And in that pit of despair, a little door opens up. Suddenly, there are stairs that will take you back up, when you’re ready to walk up them.

Of course, there are more feelings than flying through the clouds and being down in a hole. Beyond happy and sad, there’s a whole range of other emotions you should be able to feel, understand, and express: frustration, anger, pride, jealousy, shame, hope, disgust, enjoyment, and fear. You may feel several at once, some stronger than others, and even feel emotions that conflict at the same time. Becoming an emotionally mature and healthy adult means learning how to recognize, express, and handle all of these different feelings.

It takes real courage to be this vulnerable, and the funny thing is, we admire others who act this way while not letting ourselves do the same. Anna Bruk and her team called this the beautiful mess effect. “Even when examples of showing vulnerability might sometimes feel more like weakness from the inside, our findings indicate, that, to others, these acts might look more like courage from the outside.” Bruk was inspired by Brené Brown’s book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead in which she writes, “we love seeing raw truth and openness in other people, but we are afraid to let them see it in us...Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me.”

Be brave, be strong, and be vulnerable. And just like on movie night, your Mom and I will laugh with you, cry with you, and be there for you as you feel these big emotions. Because our love for you is bigger than anything either of us have ever felt.

Dad

Find yourself somewhere new

Moving, like pimping, ain’t easy. Especially moving to new cities and states. While your Dad can’t teach you anything about pimping, I can teach you lots about moving. I’m not talking about how to rent a U-haul, though. I’m talking about making a new place your home, going from lost and a little lonely to feeling comfortable and having a few friends. I grew up in Winston-Salem, and after college I moved to Richmond, then Miami, then Charlotte, then Raleigh, back to Winston-Salem, on to Cincinnati, then Nashville, and most recently back to Cincinnati. Guess I was making up for not leaving my hometown for college. And since I’m betting you’ll end up moving somewhere new sometime, here’s what I learned along the way. I hope it makes your moves easier.

Start by not looking back. Moving somewhere new almost always means leaving the familiar and comfortable behind. Stepping into the unknown is  hard, and it can be scary. You’ll be tempted to look back, to wish for the places you know and the faces you recognize. Maybe you want to just visit the place you left on the weekends, and before you know it, six months have passed and you haven’t made one new friend in your new city. Incidentally, continuing to date someone long-distance that you left behind will definitely keep one foot in the place you left. My efforts to make new friends the first time I moved to Cincinnati was the beginning of the end for a long-distance relationship I left behind in North Carolina. I wanted to kayak with my friends and she wanted me to come see her, and you can’t be in two places at once. 

So, what should you do first? Set your expectations. In my experience, it takes two to three years to really feel like a new place is home. That’s when you’ll have learned your way around town, figured out some places you like to eat, and hopefully made some friends. Your experiences may vary, according to some of the variables I’m going to list below, but don’t expect to feel right at home after just a few months. Depending on your age, two or three years may feel like forever. Trust me, it’s not.

Different places are more or less welcoming to new arrivals. One of the biggest factors I’ve found is how many other people are moving to the city. In 2020, 82 people a day moved to Nashville for a population of 1.2 million. It was close to that when your Mom and I moved there, so it seemed like everyone was trying to make new friends. By contrast, Cincinnati has a population of 2.2 million and only 25 people a day moved there in 2020. How does that matter? In a city with less new residents, people have known their friends for longer, they grew up together, and their social circles are tighter. They’re not looking for new friends because they already have all the friends they need. I’m not telling you not to move to places that don’t have fast-growing populations, I’m just telling you that it will take a little extra work and time to break in.

Where you choose to live, much like whether or not you wear pants, will drastically affect how easy it is to meet people. You’ll likely end up factoring in your commute to work or school, what you can afford, and what’s available, so do your research and figure out where people of your age and marital status live. Just like the suburbs are tough for a college kid, the coolest neighborhood in town with all the bars and clubs will be tough for a young family. Choose wisely, and according to who you want to hang out with. 

Speaking of neighborhoods, go out of your way to meet your neighbors. Introduce yourself, invite them over for drinks, or chat them up in the hallways. Don’t be the nosy one who keeps track of everything, but listen to what they tell you and pay attention. It’s good to know your neighbors,  and the more people you know, the more people you’ll know.

If you’ve figured out how long it’ll take to get comfortable and where to live, what then? You’ve got to do some work, that’s what. And that means going out on a limb with some people you don’t really know. Maybe you’ll have the personality that makes this easy, but for your Mom and I, it doesn’t come naturally. We’re both introverts, so hanging out with strangers can be draining. But, if you hang out with a stranger long enough, they don’t seem so strange. Mostly. Besides, it’s worth the effort for the times you do turn a stranger into a friend.

Hanging out with strangers will lead to some strange experiences with some strange people, but as long as you don’t get killed and eaten, you’ll have a good story to tell. For example, one night in Nashville before you were born when your Mom was out of town, I ended up smoking cigars on our front porch with a couple of argumentative swingers I met at a bar up the street. I’m pretty sure they didn’t get what they were looking for, but at least they enjoyed some nice bourbon and cigars before being disappointed.

If you’re moving for school or a new job, you’ll have the opportunity to make some friends in those circles. Or at least, to start there. Don’t like ‘em? Don’t care. Your co-workers and classmates might all seem like nerds, but they could have some cool friends. And also, maybe you’re a nerd and you fit right in. Either way, it’s easier to make new friends when you have friends in common. Don’t discount the benefit of being vouched for, and don’t turn your nose up at someone you don’t know yet.

Use the things you like to do as another starting point. Play sports? Find co-ed adult recreational leagues. The co-ed part keeps the fighting down and makes them more social. Like books? Join a book club. It’s like reading, but with other people. Into yoga? Find a good studio. This is how your Mom and I both made some great friends. I met all the guys from Cincinnati that I paddle with after going to one paddling group swap meet. I met two people there, who introduced me to their friends, and so and so on. Your Mom’s closest friends in Nashville came from her yoga studio. Shared activities are a good commonality for friendships, and even if you don’t make any friends, you’ll be doing something you like.

Go explore your new city, and don’t be afraid to do it alone. In fact, when you don’t know anybody in a new place, don’t be afraid to do everything alone. Go out to eat by yourself and grab a seat at the bar. You’ll almost always have a bartender and a few other bar patrons to talk to. Venture out in public to festivals and parks; you never know who you’ll bump into. Also, it’s really hard for serendipity to work its magic when you’re on your sofa. The more things you do, the better off you’ll be.

If you want to get to know a place, you have to see it, to experience it. That’s how the unfamiliar becomes familiar. Before you know it, a couple years will pass and you’ll find yourself welcoming someone new to your city. Just remember how it felt when you were in their shoes.

Finally, if you end up like your Mom and me, you’ll get to repeat this cycle several times. This might seem extra scary, but with practice, it gets easier. Once you know what to do and how to do it, it becomes part of the rhythm of relocating. I’m not saying it’s something you’ll look forward to, but you learn how to do it efficiently. Now, get out there and explore.

I love you, 

Dad

There can't be only one

There is no such thing as “The One.” That is, the one person on this planet who you find physically attractive, is physically attracted to you, and will complete you so completely that they satisfy your every emotional, romantic, and sexual need, and can be your best friend, and is waiting for you and only you. 

This is good news.

What? How can this be good news? What about all those romantic comedies and romance novels and princess fairytales? What about Jerry Maguire’s “you complete me” speech or the incredible forbidden passion of Romeo and Juliet? Well, all of those stories are fiction, and both Romeo and Juliet end up dead. 

Also, if there was a “one” person out there for you, what if they were born on the other side of the planet and you never met them? Or, what if they got hit by a bus? What if you met and dated “the one,” but then you somehow screwed up the relationship and that meant you could never find true love after that? That would suck.

Giving up the myth of “the One” is good news because then you get to choose the right person for you to be in a long-term relationship with. For better or worse, it’s up to you. 

It took me a long time to figure this out; I’m a bit of a romantic, and I bought into the fairytales. There were times when I thought I was in love with girls I barely knew. “What if she’s ‘the one’ for me?”, I’d think. There were times when love led me to overlook giant red flags in women I dated. “So what if she’s mean to all my friends? She might be the one.” And there were times when love led me to ignore situational problems that spelled sure doom for a relationship. “It’s okay that we live in different states and want completely different things from life. Love will overcome!” That’s because love is intoxicating and just like intoxicants, can lead to do and say really dumb shit.

I’m not discounting love, it’s amazing. What I am doing is pointing out mistakes I made while love-drunk and inexperienced in the hope that when you make them too, (because what the hell do I know, right?), you’ll remember what I was talking about. And maybe it’ll help you then.

If “the One” doesn’t exist, then what? Well, there are some people who will be more right for you, and some people who will be less right for you. And the key to a happy marriage or long-term relationship is finding someone who is more right for you, committing to them, and working at it. I’m not talking back-breaking physical labor work at it. If dating feels like working on a chain gang, she’s not right for you no matter how hot she is. But, love and relationships do require some work. Lots of compromise and some work on communication, understanding, and relationships.

How do you find that “more right for you” person? Meet and date lots of people. Figure out what you like and want in a partner. What are you attracted to, what do you not like, and what can you live with and without? Keep in mind, people don’t really change that much. If she’s crazy fun but also crazy argumentative, she’s not going to stop arguing with you just because you marry her. If she’s the more right for you person, you can enjoy the fun, but you also better get used to arguing.

After you figure out what you want in a partner, figure out what you want in life. Not to gloss over this, because some people go their whole lives without figuring out what they want in a partner or what they want in life, but these things factor into finding the right person for you. 

For example: Do you want kids? How many? Do you expect your spouse to stay home with them, do you want to stay home with them, or do you think you’ll both work? What kind of career do you want, and what does that mean for your family? What kind of stuff do you like to do for fun, and do you expect your spouse to do it with you? Where do you want to live, and what kind of lifestyle do you want to have? This is an incomplete list that’s up to you to finish. 

Once you do, figure out a way to make what you want from life and what you want in a partner fit together. How? Tradeoffs, that’s how. You trade things that are less important for things that are more important. Because no one person is going to be everything you want and agree with everything you want to do.

Your Mom doesn’t like being cold, wet, or dirty, all things that are by-products of whitewater kayaking. I really love kayaking, so we agree that’s an activity I do without her. Having her in my life is more important than having a wife who would go kayaking with me. 

Your Mom and I both wanted to have a child, hence you. That’s not something either of us would have traded for something else; a girl who loved kayaking but didn’t want kids would not have been a good match for me. 

Unfortunately, it’s always going to be more complicated than that. Part of dating is presenting the best version of yourself to potential partners; and for some people this means being less than truthful about what they really want and who they really are. And truthfully, most of us don’t always know what we really want and who we really are. If you manage to figure out either of those by the time you’re 18, you’ll be ahead of most people by twenty or thirty years.

The key to a happy long-term relationship is using your intellect to temper your emotions and compromising accordingly. Spark and passion and being attracted to someone are awesome. It’ll get you up in the morning and keep you up late at night, but that passion doesn’t care if you and that person are life compatible. It’s hard to tell your heart what to feel and who to feel it for, but there will be times when you’ll need to do just that. Just remember, there’s more than one option out there.

I love you,

Dad