My 50th birthday was exactly 123 days ago.

I know this because on that day—October 12th, 2022—I started writing in a special journal. Basically I gave myself homework for my birthday.

I had purchased a Leuchtturm 1917 pocket journal, on Neil Gaiman’s recommendation, and as an alternative to the nearly identical Moleskine pocket journals I’ve used for decades. And I likely would have used the Leuchtturn in the same way I use those Moleskines, as a daily journal. But it was nearly identical, not identical. And so, infuriatingly, it did not fit in the leather sleeve I use with my Moleskines.

That was too bad. The Leuchtturm wasn’t exactly a cheap notebook. I had actually been looking forward to trying it out, though, and was a bit disappointed when it didn’t fit.

I could have just relegated it to some task—maybe used it as a quick notepad for ideas, etc. I have a few of those laying around, however, and though I use them they aren’t really “special” to me. I felt like this notebook needed to be special. It needed a special purpose.

So, though my birthday (at the time) was about two months out, I decided that starting on that day I would start writing “something special.” I wasn’t sure what that would be, though. In fact, I remained unsure right up until the moment I put pen to paper.

That day, Wednesday 12 October 2022, that day I wrote the first page in “The Book of Kevin.”

Working title.

Also, kind of pretentious and egotistical, I guess. But it’s actually pretty accurate. Because for 123 days now, every single day without fail, I have written on a single page of that journal (123 of them in total). And on each of those days I expressed some philosophy or bit of wisdom that was on my mind. I shared what I’ve learned or thought about, the principles that I’ve learned to live by or that I intended to live by. Still intend to live by.

Today was the last page. Another Last Page Day. So, a celebration, and some reflection.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the past 123 days:

I can be redundant—some ideas get repeated in different ways. And I think that’s ok. Sometimes the same wisdom means different things on different days and at different moments in our lives. Learning and growing takes a little redundancy. Sometimes we need things repeated so they sink in.

I steal a lot—Not every principle I live by came exclusively out of my own brain. In fact, most didn’t. I’ve borrowed from philosophers, authors, and even just random people in coffee shops over the years. Like everyone else, my principles are an amalgam of my experiences. And that’s ok, too. As long as you are aware of who and what influences you, you’re doing your duty as a human by assembling found wisdom within yourself.

Discipline can suck—I write every single day anyway, and I have a whole bunch of journals that I keep up with. Adding one more sometimes felt like a pain. It sucked. And the good that came of that was, I now know that I can face the suck and do the thing anyway. Doing the thing is important. We should always be willing to do the thing.

I can keep a deal with myself—This is why doing a thing is important. Because if you can’t keep to the commitments you make with yourself, you’re definitely not going to stick to those you’ve made to others. But more than that, if you want confidence and a sense of personal peace and self assurance, you’ll find it once you’ve kept whatever deals and commitments and bargains you’ve made with yourself. You learn to trust yourself by being trustworthy to yourself first, as well as to others.

Filling exactly one page is hard—Because there are days when you have no idea what to say in the first place, and then days when you don’t know what more you could say, and then days when you have so much to say that a page doesn’t feel like it’s enough. This exercise of keeping to a confined space, though, is really good for you. If you’re a writer, it trains you to be both concise and thorough. If you’re just someone trying to chronicle or improve upon your life, it teaches you the same, but also that you are capable and clever.

There’s always something to learn, even if it’s from me—Some of what I wrote surprised me. Sometimes things came out on the page that felt profound and new. Ideas I hadn’t heard or considered before just flowed from the tip of my pen, as if I were transcribing them from some ancient and wise guru sitting serenely in the room with me. It’s weird. And amazing. And I think everyone is secretly capable of it.

Not everything I write is wise—Some of it is kind of cliché. Some of it is trite. Some of it is basically an expansion on a greeting card caption or a pithy bumper sticker I read once. It isn’t all profound. And yet, somehow, it is. Sometimes the dumb stuff is the smartest thing on the page. That’s why it all deserves to be written down. Dumb today can be wise tomorrow, and you’d miss it if it wasn’t there.

If you’re wondering what I plan to do with this, now that the project is done, the answer is that I will start transcribing all of it to digital. I actually intended this from the start. I plan to publish this book of principles and put it out in the world, because I think it should exist. And whatever happens to it from there, I’m ok with letting it happen.

It’s a philosophy book, in a sense. Which means that some people are going to find it inspiring, and some people are going to find it ridiculous. And at various times, I’ll end up being in one camp or the other, alternately.

Because here’s the secret about all human beings, including me and you: We are wise, and we are dumb. We are profound, and we are ridiculous. We have everything to teach, and everything to learn.

And wouldn’t it be a shame if we never shared both sides of ourselves with the world in any way? Think of what would be lost.

It comes approximately every 192-ish days. Though usually a bit longer, because I’m not yet daily-consistent. I haven’t had that streak yet.

But it’s the day I write on the last page of my current Moleskine notebook. The last entry before that book gets pulled from my nifty leather sheathe and stored in the cigar box I’ve co-opted for that purpose. Last Page Day is a bitter-sweet ceremony, wherein I usually write some self-aware observation about my journey over the past few months, about journaling and its impact on my life, about what’s changed and what’s remained the same for me in that time.

When we were doing van life full time, traveling the country, I would end up marveling at all the places I’d been over the past 192 days. It was a big list.

And for sure, I’ve traveled while writing this particular journal. Some of that travel has even resulted in profound realizations and changes for me. This is one of the reasons it’s good to keep a journal, and keep it consistently.

Journaling has done some profound, positive things to my brain, and to my life.

Years ago, even into my  junior years, journaling felt daunting and heavy. I wanted to keep a journal. I wanted to have a record of who I was, a place to put my private thoughts. I probably wasn’t quite thinking of it in such sophisticated terms, but I wanted that anyway.

I have some journal entries from that period of my life—I think as young as maybe seven or eight years old. It’s hard to tell, because when I think about that period in my life I almost invariably decide I was eight, for some reason. Eight-years-old was a very important benchmark in my life.

I’m pretty sure I was in second grade when I got my first “diary,” though, so it tracks. And that diary was a commercially created book, sold at a school book fair. What we would call a “low content book” today. It was essentially one long calendar with blank lines for me to fill in my thoughts, and a few writing prompts in case I got stuck. I still have it.

My entries in that diary are cute, and melodramatic, and mostly about being in love with a girl named Beverly. And a girl named Nancy. And other girls, whose names I don’t currently remember... you know, I was quite the young romantic.

Later years, older years, I tried the journal thing again. I have record books and spiral notebooks. I had a “Fat Lil’ Notebook” that I actually kept up quite well for a long time. And as we get older still, I had some “real” journals, leather-bound things in which I scribbled all sorts of stuff. I experimented with style and content. I skewed religious in some, and very secular in others. Some entries were long, rambling, freeform streams of consciousness. Some were very organized and precise.

But none were consistent.

There were so many entries that started with, “Well, I haven’t written in this journal for a really long time. I’m going to change that.” And then two years would go by and I’d write another, almost identical entry.

Of course, in those two years I might have started other journals. I’ve done a lot of “digital journaling” over the years. I have tons of files with extensions like TXT and WPS and DOC—some of these contain quite a bit of writing.

I was not consistent, in that I did not write daily. But I did write often, and usually a lot.

Those journals count. I don’t give myself enough credit, but they count.

Having those journals as a record of my life is pretty amazing. But I think that the value of a journal goes way and well beyond that. For one, if you can get into a daily habit of it, a journal is a profoundly good place to practice the craft of writing. If you treat a journal as a respected place, as a means of practicing and honing your craft, you may be a writer.

Journals are also a means for me to clear my head. They’re a release for all the things that run through my brain constantly—an outlet for ideas and turns of phrase and speculations that I’m not necessarily ready to share with the world. I can safely (I have to assume) drop all that stuff into the pages of a Moleskine, or the pixels of something like the Day One app, and come back to them later to tinker and perfect them. Or, in some cases, reject them. Sometimes I have thoughts or ideas that aren’t worthy.

And that’s a good point to discuss. Because a journal really should be a safe place.

We’re not always righteous, all the time. Sometimes we think unworthy thoughts. Sometimes we have vile thoughts and feelings that shouldn’t be expressed out loud. We should always feel safe to put those into a journal, without worrying about what someone would think if they ever found it.

Because what we write is not necessarily who we are. That’s a mistake a lot of people make. I see it all the time on social media. The judgement of someone for what they’ve written or said, as if their words are their selves—that shouldn’t exist.

It’s far better to write that in private, where it can first be expressed and then analyzed. Where the writer can determine whether those words do or do not accurately represent themselves.

I guess I’m saying, if someone ever finds and reads my journals, know that not every thought that ever came out of my head and made it onto the page is one I believe. That’s kind of the point.

Journals help us sort the “us” from the “not us.” They help us expel the demons. They help us refine our true nature.

They should never be weaponized against the writer. Especially not by the writer themselves.

Don’t judge yourself too harshly for the words that come out of your brain. Sometimes we say awful and hideous things to ourselves, because we’re testing it. We’re trying it out, pushing and poking at it, to try to work out how to defeat it.

Journaling is an empowering tool for shaping how we think and who we are, and improving on both.

This morning I’m thinking about identity.

We are a culture obsessed with identity. It’s a part of our cultural psychology, entrenched so deep it’s reflexive. And I think the obsession hints at a sort of cultural and personal amnesia. We don’t seem to know who we are anymore, and everything we do to define ourselves ends up ringing hollow.

I am not immune to this. When I look back at years of journals, I see trends. One of those is the ever-present “who am I?” though not necessarily couched as that specific question. Another is “I need to change.” That one, I think, may be at the core of an issue I’ve developed over the past ten years or so… anxiety.

Here’s what I’m thinking, and for the moment I’m treating it as real: Identity without intention is illusion.

And what that means, when I boil it down, is that if we are constantly trying on new aspects of identity as if they were articles of clothing, we’ll ultimately end up with an eclectic mishmash of an outfit. And that outfit will contain elements that we see as “us.” We’ll identify with every little frill and fringe, every cut and seam, every pocket and button and collar. But the whole of it will look and wear like chaos. And there will always, always feel like something is missing.

There will be a void, and we will never figure out how to fill it.

And that’s because we were not intentional about our design.

Last time, I wrote about Neil Gaiman’s mountain. And what I really liked about what he said was that he determined a goal, and set course for it. More than that, he used that goal as a metric for determining his choices and decisions. If something moved him toward the goal, he took it. If something moved him away, he left it alone.

Ultimately he determined, “I am this, and not that.” He set his identity up as an intention, and then lived according to that intention.

We tend to do the opposite, much of the time. Instead of setting an intention we pull on an affect. We decide that our identity is somehow related to the music we like, so we wear T-shirts promoting our favorite band and we dress and hold ourselves and comport ourselves according to what we think “someone who likes this music” should be. We behave according to some assumptions we’ve made, based on limited observations.

If we like reading, we dress and behave and speak as we believe someone who likes reading would do. If we question our religion, we take on characteristics of someone who is opposed to that religion, even if it means changing what we say, how we think, who we associate with.

There’s the danger of defining ourselves by what we are not. That’s always a pretty hollow experience.

That’s the illusion of our identity. We’re faking it, because we have no idea what else to do. And we have no idea what else to do because we don’t have any intention set firmly in mind. We don’t know where we’re going, so any map will do.

I’ve lived like this much of my life. Fifty years now, actually. And I can tell you, I’m not entirely where I thought I would be. I realize now, I didn’t get to where I wanted to go because I didn’t define where I was going. I had no intention set, I had not determined my goal. I hadn’t picked my mountain.

I knew a vague and general direction, and that’s brought me here. And here isn’t so bad. I’ve accomplished a lot, and have some success. Not the level of success I was expecting. And far more fails than wins, if we’re adding up the columns.

Consistent effort toward a goal will get you to that goal eventually. But you’re required to have the goal.

Our identities are tied up intimately with what we want to accomplish with our lives. But if we don’t determine what that is, if we don't decide on an intention for our lives, I promise you… I promise you… you will always feel an empty hollowness, and you will always, always question who you are.

Identity without intention is illusion.

I’ve been quiet lately.

There’s been some heaviness on my soul. I’m dealing with some financial strain—the sort of thing I really thought I’d left behind. But turns out, life is expensive. And there are any number of factors to consider here, but in general the economy is under the weather, people (you, I assume—along with all of my friends, family, readers, generally everyone I love and care about) are feeling a pinch. The sort of pinch that might just become a strangle.

So, people aren’t buying as many books. Which means I’m not making as much revenue.

So, the belt tightens.

I’ve also had to consider that I haven’t given my dream and goals and ambitions the level of faith they deserve. That’s hit me as a bit of an existential sucker punch. But it was important for me to realize.

Here’s the thing…

I spend a lot of time, too much time really, thinking about and doing things that are not writing. It’s a bad habit. One that’s nagged at me and weighed me down all of my life. A millstone around my neck, hung from a rope of my own weaving.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Always. And listen, I mean this… always.

As soon as I was able to hold a pencil in my hand and form letters that weren’t part of a writing lesson, I was scribbling tales. Or dictating them into a tape recorder. Or just babbling them as colorful little fibs to friends and family. I was telling stories, going way back.

It’s always been there. The need of it. I have always, always been a storyteller.

But I have also, always, been afraid. I have always had the fear that I was a fraud. That I did not, in fact, know what the hell I was doing. That I was just “making it all up all along,” and that this was no way to live, or have a career, or achieve a dream.

I always had this nagging feeling that the only way I could live up to my dream was if I did something else, until that something else made me successful enough that I could afford to retire from it, and do the thing I really loved.

I settled, in other words. I settled for “close enoughs and good enoughs.” I settled for the dubious, painful, soul-crushing and dream-killing plan of, “I’ll just do this until I can do what I really want to do.”

This has also manifested in other, related ways as well. Stuff like, “I know I should be focused on writing, but I could also build this course, or build up my YouTube channel, or focus on building myself up as a public speaker.”

Sort of tangentially related things—and to be sure, they’re all worthy, useful pursuits. And helpful for achieving my dreams and goals, too. But see, that’s the rub. Because these worthy and useful pursuits are good if they move me forward, but they’re not good if they only serve as diversions or distractions.

I am a subscriber to Neil Gaiman’s “mountain” philosophy. Primarily, this bit, lifted from his Commencement address to the University of the Arts, in 2012:

Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words – was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal.

And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain. I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the mountain. And if those job offers had come along earlier I might have taken them, because they still would have been closer to the mountain than I was at the time.

I learned to write by writing. I tended to do anything as long as it felt like an adventure, and to stop when it felt like work, which meant that life did not feel like work.

For the visual and auditory learners among us, here’s the video of his speech. The bit I’m quoting above starts at 3:39. Squarespace won’t let me send you to exactly that bit, but if you click that linked text it will open a new window and take you straight there.

Otherwise, enjoy the entire speech. It’s worth it.

My point (to bring us back around… hope you enjoyed that speech) is that I have always diverted from the mountain.

Oh, I have written books. Many books. And short stories, and articles, and blog posts galore. I have taken jobs that did move me closer to my mountain—I came to work for Draft2Digital because it was a step forward. And I’m grateful for that, for all of it, because I am closer to the mountain than I was, I have put food on the table, I have supported myself and my wife in the rest of what we want from life.

But the problem has always been that I haven’t pursued this dream with concentrated effort. I haven’t approached it with unwavering focus. I have kept from it the one thing that dreams need, if they are to survive and flourish.

I have not pursued my mountain with unwavering faith.

Instead, I’ve fallen back on close-enoughs and good-enoughs, never trusting my sense that the mountain was where I really needed to go. I didn’t put enough faith into it, and so though I moved forward I did it in fits and starts and prolonged periods of doubt.

Right now, things are tight financially. Maybe they always would have been. But my first instinct, when this happens, is to stop putting energy into the writing and start panic-building something else.

Did you know that if you put water under enough pressure, you can create a stream that is so powerful it can literally cut through steel? That’s the power of focus. That’s the power of pouring all of the energy you’ve got into a single-minded purpose.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Burn the boats?”

There are several origin stories for this, but the first one I ever heard, and the one that I use for mental reference, comes from the story of Hernando Cortez—who sailed with 500+ fighting men, aimed his boats for the Yucatan, and landed with the intention of conquering the continent. There was treasure, oh yes. There was also a rebellion to be quelled. There was history to be made, and Cortez wanted his name to be recorded for. all of time.

When his boats arrived on the shores of that land he wished to conquer, he gave the first order. “Burn the boats.”

There would be no means of retreat. Either he and his men would conquer, or they would die. There was nowhere else for them to go but forward, to the destiny of Cortez’s choosing.

I have never burned my boats. I have always kept paths open, kept a safety net handy. I have always clung close to the shore, too afraid to march inland. I have always tended my boats.

And that has given me a pleasant life, to be honest. It has put me in a position where I have a nice home, a nice reputation, some small notoriety. Most of the time, money is fine. Not great, but I don’t starve. I even manage to own nice things, even luxury things. I’m not buying islands, but I do alright.

But when storms hit, I go back and wait at the boats.

If I want to conquer, though…

If I want to reach the mountain, I have to be willing to risk the route. I have to be willing to risk stumbling and falling, risk the pain of long hours of marching, the oxygen deprivation that comes from high altitudes. You don’t get the vistas at the bottom of the mountain. You only see those as you make your way to the top, and only if you’re not afraid to go up.

I haven’t been a concentrated stream of water. I haven’t risked the climb up the mountain. I haven’t burned the boats.

I’ve allowed distractions to pull my focus, chasing what I hoped would be “easy money” until I could afford to take risks. But that isn’t how it works. “Fortune favors the bold” isn’t just a catchy saying, it means something.

Writing is a quantum-entangled part of who I am. And it’s time I honor my dream and my goal by actually. embracing it.

It’s time to burn the boats.

A new year. And I think people are really embracing it. I’ve seen more posts and articles along the “new year, new you” theme this time around than I’ve seen since the early 2000s. It feels a little like a thaw, as if we’re coming out of a long and desolate and harsh winter.

I don’t really do the “resolutions” thing, but these days saying things like that is essentially a cliché. It’s almost eye-rolling to hear anyone say, “Yeah, I don’t really do resolutions. Goals are more my thing.”

Yeah… we get it, Kevin. You’re a little pretentious.

So, ok, I get what we mean by “resolutions.” This time of year is just a great excuse to double back, to realign, to make some decisions about how we’re going to go forward. We all really want to be “new,” for some reason. I am not immune.

Recently I’ve been researching con men. Or really, con people. There’s a surprising number of women who run confidence games and scams. But regardless of their gender, the people who run these schemes have a couple of impressive abilities.

Chief among these skills is something I find fascinating: They can assume a role—any role—and they know how to use social cues to get other people to believe they are who they claim to be. They craft a persona, and they know how to make people believe it.

Sometimes they’re so good a it, even they come to believe it.

Anna Delvey appears to truly believe that she’s a wealthy socialite, despite having no money. She’s convince others to believe it, too, even after being caught and called out as a fraud.

Frank Abignale, Jr.—the true-life con artist behind the book and film Catch Me If You Can, was also profoundly good at this sort of thing. He used clothes, cars, jewelry, and even just his tone of voice and body language to convince people that he was an airline pilot, a doctor, a lawyer, and and a dozen other personas.

This is fascinating stuff. I’m kind of obsessed with it. Because it hints at quite a lot about human nature. Not the least of which is the fact that we have the ability to assume an identity at will. We can choose what qualities and characteristics we exemplify.

I’m a big believer in choosing. I think we all choose, every minute of every day, exactly who we are gong to be. Today, I jotted some things down in my boring old analog journal about this idea. Here’s what I think:

• We should write down a “persona” that we can live into

• That persona should include all the books, movies, videos, and music that this person would consume

• It should include the values and principles this person would live by

• It should include the type of food they’d eat, the habits and routines the’d have, the quality of the clothing and products they would purchase

Basically, we should all be custom designing the type of person we want to be, then living up to that list.

That’s really what we already do, right? We have, somewhere in our minds, a wavy, foggy, unclear list of traits that equates to “I” for us, and we live to them. But we usually let those be determined by default.

We choose by not choosing.

So… how about we choose on purpose?

Why not write down exactly who you want to be, complete with what kind of food you eat, what quality of clothing you wear, what books you read and movies you watch, what exercise you get… whatever would go into the recipe for the perfect life, in your mind, you should write that down. And then, when you have the list, start choosing minute-by-minute to live into it.

Also, be aware that you’re going to fail. And that’s fine. Failure is a message. It’s a lesson. Learn from it, then recommit and start again. In fact, make one of the qualities of your ideal persona “Forgives my mistakes and learns from them, then happily starts again.”

I suppose I need to make this point clear: Don't scam people. Don’t try to fool people into believing something that will hurt them. That’s going to come back on you.

But you can certainly learn a very valuable lesson from con artists: We are who we present ourselves to be. Our persona is something we craft by our choices. We can either let it be dictated to us by default, or we can become intentional about who we become.

We can choose. And we definitely should.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

“Fake it ‘til you make it.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this phrase. Because in my 20s and 30s I really leaned in on this. And the result was that even when I had success, I felt like a fraud. I knew that I had started out by “faking it.” And there was a part of me that let that sour me. It made me feel like a phony, like an imposter. It’s plagued me for years.

Here’s what I’ve realized…

I only took half the lesson to heart. I was “faking it,” but what I wasn’t doing was acknowledging the second half of the instruction. I wasn’t letting myself “make it.” Or maybe I would have understood it better if it was phrased in a slightly different way.

“Do what it takes to make it real, and then it’s no longer faking it.”

I built a lot of skills and accomplished a lot of amazing things, but I never let go of the “I’m faking it” part of the equation. I just kept thinking, “I’m not really this or that, I’m just pretending.” It didn’t seem to matter that I had actually acquired all of these skills and done all of these things. Because it started as faking it, I was fraud.

I was missing the point.

Here’s the thing—if I say I’m a virtuoso pianist but I can’t even play chopsticks, I’m not going to become Carnegie Hall ready overnight. Everyone knows that getting to Carnegie Hall takes practice, practice, practice.

So faking it isn’t magic. But it is magically motivating.

If I choose to believe, deep down, that I really am a virtuoso pianist, then the next step is to start doing the things that make that shift from belief to reality. That means I practice, practice, practice, for hours every day. I learn the skills and the craft.

And I take it next level. I study YouTube videos, learn how this pianist does that remarkable thing, learn how virtuosos refine their practice, doing it better. Because the real rule isn’t so much “practice makes perfect,” but “perfect practice makes perfect.” So if I’m going to be a virtuoso, I need to practice thinking and behaving at a virtuoso level.

I would study virtuoso pianists. I would learn how virtuosos think. I would emulate them. I would dress like them, walk like them, talk like them, listen to the things they listen to and watch the things they watch. I would model them as closely as I possibly could, in an effort to replicate within myself that part of them to makes them virtuosos.

Or… if no models were available, I would create one. I would determine the qualities I believe a virtuoso should have, and I would obsessively craft those qualities in myself.

That, in all truth, is the reality of “fake it ‘til you make it.”

It’s not about lying to anyone, or deceiving anyone—especially yourself. It’s about deciding what your reality is going to be, and then systematically removing every single obstacle and barrier to that reality. It’s about aligning yourself with that reality, to make it true.

Here’s a secret: Behaving this way, deciding to be this dedicated to crafting your reality, will almost instantly put you ahead of 99% of the rest of the world, when it comes to achieving your goal.

That’s because it’s easy to reach the top 1% of something if most people aren’t even chasing it.

How many virtuoso pianists do you know?

How many acclaimed authors?

How many top-of-their field neurosurgeons?

No one’s telling you to fake being a neurosurgeon… calm down.

But I am definitely telling you that if being a top neurosurgeon is your goal, it starts by convincing yourself that you are that thing, despite any lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary, and that you will do everything in your power to make that goal become your reality.

Deciding is half the effort. The other half is living up to that decision.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

Past Kevin is kind of a dummy.

He doesn’t know anything about here and now. He looks at whatever comes up in his present experience, and then attacks it with all the solutions he’s always used. It’s like discovering there’s a screw loose, so you smack it with a hammer—because that’s how you’ve solved similar problems in the past.

Me. Not you. I should say “I smack it with a hammer.” We’re talking about me, here.

But you, too, I’m sure.

Here’s the secret to personal empowerment: Make intentional decisions.

We live the life that results from the decisions we make. Period. Full stop.

Don’t like your car? Decide to get a new one, and then make intentional choices that lead to getting that new car. Does that require making more money? Maybe you choose to look for a new job. Does it mean selling or trading your old, trusty, reliable car? Talk to a dealer. Take out a loan? Fill out the paperwork.

I know, I know… that’s all an oversimplification. Except it isn’t. Because it may sound and seem simple, but it’s apparently so complex that we tend to avoid putting it to work in our lives at all costs. We have a bad habit of wanting new outcomes from the same old decisions. And that just… well… it’s dumb. And it never works.

If you want something different—if you yearn for a different result—you need new inputs. And the only input we have any control over in life is our ability to choose.

And you might bring up the very valid point that just because we choose something doesn’t mean we’ll get that thing, or that it will work out for us, or that we won’t suffer some unforeseen or unintended consequence.

Welcome to existence, my friend. We have cookies.

Because it’s true. Choosing doesn’t magically make things go the way we want. But it does magically give us options.

If you choose, and you act on that choice, and things blow up in you face, choose something else based on the new inputs and data you’ve gathered. Make a new decision, take a new action, try a new direction, and leverage what you learned from the failed choice. Do it again, but different.

Choose the outcome you want, and then choose the paths you’re willing to try for getting to that outcome. And if it all seems lost by the end, or you get to what you thought you wanted and it turns out you really didn’t want that, then choose a new outcome and start again. Persistence takes your farther than insistence. Keep working toward what you really want instead of insisting that what you have is “just reality.”

You don’t have to continue living in the world created by Past You.

And you don’t have to make all your decisions based on what Past You knew, or didn’t know, or tried, or didn’t try. What does Past You know, anyway? They’re the one who got you into this mess.

You. Present You. That’s who has the real power. Be present, and make choices. Live intentionally.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

I don’t want to write this post.

In fact, I’m having trouble doing anything at the moment that anyone might consider productive or useful. Instead, I feel overwhelmed. Sad. Weary. So very weary.

Tired right to my bones. Exhausted deep in my soul. Weary, and in some ways hopeless.

Do you feel that, too?

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The thing is, I sometimes get like this the closer we get to Christmas. There are a lot of factors. I start thinking about all the family I’ve lost since I was a kid. I think about the kids we never got around to having. I wonder about my legacy. I wonder if I’ve done anything that will have any lasting impact on the world. I wonder if any of my work matters.

It’s not just Christmas that triggers this, by the way. Sometimes I wake up wondering these things, feeling hope drain from me like water from a cracked glass. Feeling that bone-depth, soul-hollowed weariness.

This post is not a cry for help (or is it? … no). It’s a note. It’s a reminder. To me. To you.

Hope shows up for the people willing to look for it.

I have a heavy workload right now, and things pulling me in all directions. I “don't have time” to feel sad or anxious. Those things suck all the energy and life out of me. Maybe you can relate.

But what can I do? It’s not like I decided, “Today I’ll be depressed.” Or… did I?

I think maybe I did. Maybe not consciously, or even willingly. But it’s me who decides what I focus on, what I think about, what actions I take.

I know, absolutely, that if I hold myself in the right way, if I smile, if I breathe well, if I read or watch or listen to something uplifting and inspirational, I can shift my mood. I can become more “me,” instead of letting myself drift into a miasma of anxious and sad thoughts.

I also know that if I take time to do the work—do a bit of journaling, do some writing, take a walk, listen to some uplifting music—I know that makes me feel better, too.

It’s just that, sometimes, I don’t feel up do doing any of that. Have you ever felt that?

Sometimes the default is the most I can muster. I know what will make me feel better, but it’s too uncomfortable an experience for me to commit and do it. In fact, doing the thing that would make me feel better feels more painful than just letting how I feel be dictated by whatever is happening around me.

There’s a sense of comfort that comes with wallowing and letting things just happen.

So it’s understandable, when we get into a funk or feel sad or depressed, or when we feel overwhelmed and anxious and weary in our bones, that we might just withdraw. We might let things “just happen.” Even though that makes us feel powerless. Even though that makes us feel even more exhausted. It still, weirdly, somehow feels comforting.

So what do we do?

We fight. And by fight, I mean we take some action. Any action. Small, tiny, seemingly insignificant, that will do.

For me, it’s been writing this post. And up next I’ll even make a video. I had decided not to make a video, but by this point, by God, that just feels like the right thing to do.

Because when it started, I did not want to write this post. But by doing it, I showed myself—I felt weary, I felt it down to my bones, but I was able to do the thing anyway. And the same can be true for you.

You are stronger than you gave yourself credit for.

And you do not have to let anything happen to you by default. You can choose. Because choosing… ultimately that’s who you really are. Be the glorious you that I know you can be.

And I’ll do the same for you.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

I’m pretty obsessed with the idea of a mindscape—the perspective that our minds are an ecosystem all their own, and that we are daily (maybe even minute by minute) presented with a choice. We can either allow the outside world to determine the texture and quality and nature of our minds, or we can determine those willfully and for ourselves. We can be deliberate in what our mental ecosystem looks like and how it operates.

There’s a lot of science to back this up. Look into things like neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and cognitive behavioral therapy, just as a start. But in principle, the entire field of psychology and psychoanalysis is built around this concept. Freud and Jung may have parted ways philosophically, but each believed in the mind as a landscape, filled with symbols and archetypes that, if analyzed properly, could give insight into the inner workings of the mind. They could also be altered, manipulated, assigned, or installed to shape the mind.

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This idea of the mind as a “place” actually goes way, way back into our history. Study philosophy for even a short time and you discover that Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca—they all saw the mind as a “territory.” It was a battlefield or it was an ocean or it was a temple. The very concept of the “mind palace,” most notably attributed to Cicero, is built on the idea of virtually reconstructing a known physical space within the landscape of your mind, and using it as a memory aid. That’s an effective one, by the way. You should study how that works.

For thousands of years, at any rate, there has been philosophy and science building on the idea that our minds can be “structured,” and that this is a process that can be intentionally implemented. In fact, if we allow it to happen by default, as a result of whatever random stimulus we encounter throughout our lives, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that this contributes to mental illness, depression, anxiety, and a host of other maladies. Letting the world determine the landscape of your mind will likely lead to trouble.

One of the ways we can shape our own inner landscape is through controlling what we allow ourselves to dwell on. For example, if the only media we ever consume is negative, fearful mainstream media news stories, those are going to shape our inner world into a dark and frightening place. If all we watch is crime documentaries, in which the worst of humanity is typically glorified in some way, that’s going to shape us, too.

It’s important to look for and consume media and experiences that empower us and nurture within us some form of hope. Look for things that encourage thought and intelligence. Find content that makes you feel inspired, and makes you want to improve yourself and the world. Eat a steady diet of that.

It’s ok to indulge in a bit of the dark side from time to time—it’s a bit like having a chocolate after dinner. It’s when the chocolate becomes dinner that we start getting into seriously negative consequences. The world is complex—our inner world is much more so. It needs tending.

Be intentional about crafting your mental landscape. Guard your thoughts. Only allow in those things that bring you joy, rest, and peace. Be diligent about the shape, the tone, the atmosphere of your mind, and regardless of what happens out here in the “real world,” you will always have a place to retreat to and experience joy.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

Memory is a funny thing.

For example, I have this memory that nags at me, and I can never quite convince it to come fully to the surface. It just every now and then flashes partially formed into my mind while I’m doing other things. It’s a fairly intimate memory, so not something I think I would easily forget if it actually happened. But for the life of me I can never quite extract all the details.

And that leads me to believe that it’s actually the memory of a vivid dream I had at some point. I’m getting just enough specific detail to make me think it really happened, but it falls apart when I start looking too closely. Things don’t quite add up. The circumstances are kind of… well, not impossible, but very unlikely.

Stil… when it pops up I spend days trying to piece it together, without much luck.

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That’s the weird, cool, even scary part about memory. If we really put some effort into it, we can literally rewrite our memories. This happens frequently in therapists’ offices, actually—some resurfaced traumatic memory is later discovered to have never happened, and is instead something the therapist planted (hopefully unintentionally), and the patient made “real.”

Reality is a funky thing. It seems solid to us. It seems concrete. But we have to remember that we are experiencing reality through a filter—our five senses. There could be a lot more information there than we know, since we are limited to taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell.

In fact, we do know for absolute certain that there is more happening around us all the time than we can sense, even if we’re just talking about things like the electromagnetic spectrum or light that is a higher frequency than we can see. There’s a universe of activity happening around us at all times that we simply can’t notice.

But let’s get back to memory…

Because if you can plant false memories, even by accident, then you can certainly do so intentionally. And though there are some nefarious uses for this sort of thing, there are also some benign and beneficial uses.

Imagine reframing a traumatic memory into something more pleasant. Imagine rewriting a bad day into one where you behaved better. Imagine altering your failures until they become success stories, and encourage you to keep doing better.

Reframing is a powerful tool.

And it can be as simple as relaxing, calling up the memory you don’t like, and visualizing an alternative. It helps, in fact, if you can lower the volume on the “bad” memory, dim the lights on it, shrink it and make it further away. And then, with the new “good” memory you brighten it, make it louder, make it close and bigger.

Do this a few times, swishing back and forth between the old, unwanted version and the new, better version, and you can start to rewrite the emotional reaction you’re having to the memory. In effect, you’re tossing the memory you don’t want and replacing it with the memory that you do.

Weird, I know. But handy. Helpful.

There is, of course, a lot more to this than what I’m describing. There are also cautions to consider. If you’re interested, try looking into Neuro-Linguinstic Programming (NLP). There are tons of books, videos, articles and more on the subject. It’s been around for quite a while, and it’s at the heart of a lot of work from people like Tony Robbins.

What I like and appreciate about it is that it gives us a way to control who we are in response to our experiences. We get to choose. And choosing… that’s empowerment.

Choose your own life. Program yourself to be exactly who you intend to be. Reframe what doesn’t work for you into what does. You can live the life you intend to live, and reframing your experiences is one path to that.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

Today feels “heavy.”

It was 38ºF when I woke up at 5 AM to take Mini out for her morning “business.” That meant having to pull on not just whatever clothes were on the chair by the bed but something extra to help keep me warm. Extra effort when I’ve just woken up… bleh.

I could tell the morning was going to be “heavy.” And by that, I mean I felt a tinge of anxiety about my workload, about the holidays, about various health issues people I love are having. I felt a tingle about money, about the email promotion I keep forgetting to set up, about the writing I’m not doing because of other things that have intruded on that time. It just felt like everything was an extra effort today. Even coffee felt like work.

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When I feel like that, it’s hard to face the morning routine. Each morning for me starts with a series of tasks, including some journaling and even writing this blog and making a video. All of that takes time—usually about two hours. And that’s time I could be working on the next novel. But I do the things. I keep up the habit. Because despite being able to justify shrugging it off in the name of “more time to write,” this morning routine has become a vital part of my mental health regimen. I do this for you, but I also do it for me.

So what I’m saying is, right around this time each morning I have to make a choice. Do the thing, or don’t do the thing. And when I’m feeling a little “heavy,” making the choice is just one more weight to bear.

But I have to make the choice.

When you’re facing things like anxiety or feeling overwhelmed or over burdened, the easy thing is to say, “Eh… I’ll let life decide for me.” You back off of making choices—who needs extra work? And you let life happen to you by default. Not choosing lets you ditch one more burden, drop one more bit of weight from your day.

But that’s a problem.

The thing about anxiety, and feeling overwhelmed, and feeling burdened is that these things all naturally rob you of any agency in your own life. You lose autonomy when you can’t make your own choices. Or when you allow choices to be made for you.

For sure, there is something called “decision fatigue.” Famously, this idea has dictated things like fashion trends (or lack thereof) among the Silicon Valley entrepreneur set. Steve Jobs may be the most notable example—he wore jeans and a black turtleneck for a big chunk of his life because it was easier to just have a bunch of those hanging in his closet and pull them on by default. He knew what he was wearing every day, so that was one less decision to fatigue him.

And if your life is just jam-packed with decisions every minute of every day, maybe streamlining and automating some of your baser choices isn’t such a bad idea. Kara loves to point out that I have a “uniform” myself—usually cargo shorts and T-shirts. I’m usually working out of my private home office with no one around, so I don’t really need to “dress to impress.” But maybe I’m thinking of that the wrong way. Maybe I should shake things up, spend a few minutes each morning choosing the look that will convey to me, at least, that I’m successful, or that I’m living a certain lifestyle. How we communicate with ourselves is every bit as important as how we communicate with others.

And that may sound like a bit of a digression, but it actually proves my point.

Every choice we make is us engaging in our own free will, our own agency, our own autonomy. That’s a habit we should cultivate, every minute of our lives.

We can either let life dictate who we are, or we can choose who we will be minute by minute.

I have certain goals and dreams. I have always wanted to be a writer and author. And I accomplished that dream. I did it by changing my mind about accepting what I was getting, hoping one day I’d “get my shot” or I’d suddenly discover pockets of time for writing. My writing career didn’t become a writing career until I made a choice and followed through.

And every time I’ve exercised that ability to choose, it has been me living.

So on days when things feel “heavy,” when the last thing I want is one more decision to make, when it would be so much easier for me to just let the universe happen to me instead of me living in it—those are the days when I most need to choose. Even the small stuff. Especially the small stuff.

I started this post wishing I didn’t have to write it. But I chose to lean in, to get it done. And right now, I feel amazing. I chose to live, and life rewarded me by saying, “You got it.”

Make all the choices.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

In Avengers: Endgame there’s a scene, at the climax of the film, in which Thanos is facing off against the battered and bruised Avengers, on a field of battle that used to be the Avengers compound. Thanos has just beaten the snot out of a bunch of superheroes, his army of ne’er-do-wells is wrecking the place, and he has managed to slip his hand into the Infinity Gauntlet and is preparing to repeat the snap and end all life in the universe. In that moment he snarls at Tony Stark, who is laying injured on the ground, raises his hand for the snap, and says, “I am inevitable.”

It’s a bookend to earlier in the movie, when the Avengers tracked down their timeline’s Thanos and put an end to him. His final words were “I am inevitable.” And the rest of the movie was essentially proof of that.

Ultimately Thanos is defeated—bested by one of Earth’s most brilliant minds, in a moment of heroic self sacrifice. Thanos’ ego, that unrelenting self assurance that he and his cause were right and just, and that resistance was futile (borrowing from the Borg on that one), ultimately gives Tony the window he needed to pull off a one in 14,000,605 chance to save the universe.

Don't get me wrong… I love it when the heroes win, especially against impossible odds. But that line from Thanos has stuck with me. It’s even become a cornerstone of my philosophy. Because… God I hate saying this… Thanos was right.

He really was inevitable. He was one guy, with a twisted but driven philosophy, dead set on doing what he set out to do because he knew it was the right thing to do. For him. Maybe not for the rest of us. But in his view, he was saving the universe by destroying it. Kind of like cutting off a limb to save a patient, or cutting your losses and moving on when you’ve been scammed. You can either put all your energy into pushing back against the the overwhelming reality of the problem, or you can accept that reality and turn to building a new path and moving forward.

Or you can time travel and solve everything, obviously. Chronos ex machina.

So there’s a whole philosophy we could dip into there, but let me turn this around a bit. I think “I am inevitable” is maybe… just maybe… the single greatest success strategy there is.

Yesterday I did a livestream for the 100th episode of Self Publishing Insiders, the official Draft2Digital Podcast. The show is aimed at what I like to call “authors and will-be authors.”

At one point in the show we got a question about getting books into brick and mortar bookstores. There are a lot of challenges involved in this, and ultimately it’s just simply not an easy thing to do. Bookstores are used to having certain controls and terms—like the ability to return books for a full refund if they don’t sell—that indie authors usually can’t offer. So that makes it difficult to convince a bookstore to carry your books.

There are ways to work with this, but they typically take monumental effort, and usually put a level of cost and overhead on the shoulders of the author that can be untenable. Most self-published authors don’t have the budget to spend on the pursuit. So the dream of having your book front and center at a Barnes & Noble or at an indie bookshop or on the shelves of your local Kroger or Walmart… for most authors it’s a dream that just isn’t going to happen. It can… but it isn’t likely.

Once we’d answered that question, I offered up a bit of advice drawing from this particular cornerstone of my philosophy: “Personally, I want to be like Thanos… I want to be inevitable.”

“If you make yourself big enough online, if you put all that marketing money and energy into making yourself undeniable online, you will have people approach you about putting your books in their brick and mortar store.”

In other words, make yourself big enough and they’ll come to you.

The idea is simple: Stop putting your energy into trying to be everywhere, stop stressing that you aren’t making it big in all the places, and focus instead on being excellent on one platform. Come to dominate that platform. Become too big to be ignored.

Be inevitable.

Beyond marketing your work or becoming famous or being the top person in your career, being inevitable also applies to your personal character. I have a scene from my book Shaken, in which the protagonist Alex Kayne is a fugitive on the run, and the FBI are starting to close in. Kayne is innocent, but she’s also determined to stay out of prison. And doing so means bending rules and doing things that are outside of her character.

But where Kayne becomes inevitable is in her decision to come back around and assert her principles after the fact. Her principles are, in fact, summed up by the final line of this passage:

It was technically stealing.

Alexandra Kayne—call her Alex, or she probably wouldn’t answer—had the usual moral and ethical qualms about taking things that didn’t belong to her. But these days she tended to live by two core principles: survive and, maybe more important, finish the job.

She’d make up for the bad karma later.

When things settled down, and she was out of immediate danger, she’d make up for all of this. She’d send money. She’d make things right. Sometime, somehow, she’d balance the ledger.

For now, she had to do things the wrong way to get the right result.

[Pick up a copy of Shaken and let me know what you think]

Kayne, in my mind, is an inevitable character. She’s been framed, is being chased, faces impossible odds, and has essentially no hope of clearing her name. But she keeps pushing, keeps fighting, keeps running. And more than that, she keeps being herself. She doesn’t lose who she is, or the principles she believes in, just because things got really hard. She’s inevitable because she knows herself, and she refuses to lose herself to the challenge she faces.

That’s called “having character.” But what I want for my own life, and for yours, is for us to always think of it as being inevitable.

Because in that, at least, Thanos really was right. When you are true to who you are, regardless of the obstacles and challenges you face, and when you learn to rise and dominate on a platform that allows you to extend your reach and pursue your goals and dreams, being inevitable is what will make people take notice. It’s what will see you through. It’s what will make you someone who can’t be ignored.

Be inevitable.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

I have a secret. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

A short time ago I had a problem. The way I phrased it to my friends and family was this:

“I’m just not excited about anything anymore.”

You can see what a conundrum that is.

I wasn’t just talking about getting my heart racing over something—the sort of Christmas-morning excitement I felt as a kid, the nervous energy of going on a first date, the thrill of going to an amusement park. It’s true, none of that stuff was doing it for me anymore. I haven’t had a first date in 17+ years anyway. My wife doesn’t let me. Boo.

It was just that life had lost its spice. Nothing interested me anymore. I used to get excited about movies and TV shows and books, and all of that was a drag now, too. I got to a point where I was just numb, letting the days go by without noting much about them. I wasn’t what I’d call depressed… or maybe I was, but didn’t realize it. Mostly, though, I just felt an overwhelming “is this all there is?” feeling. Is that depression? That could be depression.

See someone for help, if you feel like that. Don’t get all your mental health tips from a novelist.

In some ways, I’m still feeling this. But it’s starting to turn around. And, most important, I’m starting to understand why it’s turning around.

It all started when I became curious.

I’ve always been interested in certain topics. But sometimes the effort of digging into them takes a lot out of me. I mean, I sort of do “research” as part of my living, exploring various topics in history and science and human culture so I can write about them. So… it’s kinda “work.” That turned out to be a nice starting place, though.

What I started doing was allowing myself to go down rabbit trails. As I was researching one topic, I would allow myself to veer off into another. I’d read some tasty little tidbit on Wikipedia or in a news article, and I’d let myself have the leave to run after it and see where it led me. Sometimes it would give me an idea for the current book, or sometimes it would inspire something entirely new. Sometimes it was just a satisfying snack between meals.

Then I started letting my curiosity branch out from my writing and just become a regular part of my day. If I saw an actor in a movie that looked familiar, I’d go track down his or her career to see where I might know them from. That would lead to reading or watching YouTube videos about a movie I haven’t seen in decades, which would lead to exploring other similar movies, which would lead to looking at the history or events that inspired the movie.

We live in an age of wonder—anything you want to know is right there waiting for you.

But curiosity comes in handy away from screens, too. I discovered that my new neighborhood bumps up against an entire network of abandoned country roads that aren’t in use anymore, but are perfect for cruising along on my mountain bike. I’ve learned that within a short ride on my motorcycle are hundreds of miles of state and national park land to explore. I found out that there are dinosaur tracks within walking distance of my home, and an entire network of caverns just a short drive away.

Curiosity—cultivating it, nurturing it, willfully engaging it—was suddenly giving me back what I’d lost. I was finding myself engaged in my life again. I found myself wanting to see more, and getting excited when I had the opportunity.

Not dance-on-the-table excited. Not nearly-pee-myself excited. More subdued. Excitement tempered by experience. But there’s a joy in it, nonetheless. And funny thing… that joy grows, the more I let curiosity reign.

Oh… my secret. Well, I’m writing a book. And I know, that’s nothing new. But this one’s special because I started it on my 50th birthday—a page per day in a journal, hand-written, exploring my personal principles and philosophies. See, I was curious (comin’ back around!). I wondered, “What are my principles and philosophies? And would anyone else be interested in them?”

I’m answering the first question with every page, day by day. I’ll answer the second question when the book releases. Since my goal is to write a daily entry, and there are 123 pages in that journal—and I’m on page/day 49 at present), it’ll be a bit before it’s finished. I still have to type those entries up, maybe write some sort of introduction and/or author’s note. Then there’s the whole publishing process. But I figure it should be ready to release sometime around February 2023.

The reason I’m sharing this now, though, is because curiosity is something I’ve written about in the book. And it inspired today’s blog post. It’s basically inspired every blog post I’ve written for the past few weeks. Curiosity got me back to this blog, and to other content. Curiosity gave me the will and the desire to do something, just to see what it would come to. And in doing something, I’m discovering something. Or maybe rediscovering it.

I’m finding my mojo. I’m getting my groove back. I’m finding myself engaged in the world again.

Maybe curiosity can do the same for you.

Take the time to indulge in your own curiosities. Give yourself permission to “geek out” over any topic that interests you. Don’t listen to haters or naysayers or scoffers (even if they’re you). Do yourself the unending favor of becoming willfully curious, and follow that curiosity wherever it leads. People have been known to change the world by doing this. Maybe you’ll be one of them.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

A few months ago I was riding my mountain bike on the street when I decided it would be safer to take it off road a bit and ride on a well-groomed fairway. The grass was mown, landscaping was clean and groomed, limbs had been picked up beneath the trees, and there was plenty of space—maybe around 40 feet of gap between the street and the brick wall running behind a row of houses. Much safer than being on the very busy road, with cars whizzing by.

I was moving at a decent clip when suddenly I was thrown from the bike, right over the handlebars.

I hit hard. I was winded, and I could feel sharp pains in my chest, my side, and my shoulder. I had some scrapes on my hands and arms from automatically bracing for the fall. And as I crawled back to the bike and managed to stand, I limped along my path to see what the heck had just happened.

A few feet back I found a hole, about twice the size of a basketball. It had tall grass growing in it, and this had been mown level with the rest of the grass nearby. From every angle, the thing was functionally invisible.

I ended up with some cracked ribs that made my life a little spicy for a few weeks. But before I knew that, before I limped home and Kara drove me to the ER, I stumbled over to the shade of a tree, wheezed through the pain, and finally prayed. And I decided that I would not only pray to be ok, I would pray my gratitude for what had just happened. Nuts, right?

But here’s the thing: I’d been reading and studying a lot of material about the idea that everything happens to us for a reason. Scripture would say “I have plans to prosper you and not to harm you.” Other spiritual philosophies express a similar idea, that the things that happen to us aren’t necessarily good or bad in and of themselves, it’s only our take on them that gives them those values. So anything could ultimately be for your good, even if it hurts at the time. There’s a lesson you’re meant to learn, or some growth that this will assist with, so be grateful even in suffering.

So I thanked God for whatever it was I was supposed to take from the experience. And it turned out that a number of good things have come to me as a result. Mostly in the form of insights. But also in showing me that I’m capable of remaining cool under that kind of pressure, if I allow myself to choose my response rather than default to a reaction.

Another example happened yesterday.

I took the motorcycle out for the first ride in the past two months. It was a bit chilly, but I bundled up. And really, by the time I’d made my second stop at a Barnes & Noble, things had warmed up to a very comfortable level. I stowed the winter gear and went inside for a latte and some relaxing.

When I came back out, I saw that my headlights were on. I had inadvertently left the key in the thing, and so for the past hour or two it had sat there with the lights on and the battery slowly draining.

When I hit the starter, it chuckled and informed me that no, I wouldn’t be going anywhere.

In times past I would have panicked at this point. I would have gotten stressed, cursed a lot, and really just expended a lot of energy in the most useless way possible. But instead, I remembered an affirmation that I literally write every day: Everything I need is right in front of me, and everything is always working out for me.

It’s part of a set of affirmations I write daily to remind myself that God has my back, and that whatever I need is already there. Out of the abundance of God’s wealth a solution, a resource, an opportunity will present itself. And if I’m calm and cool headed, I’ll spot it easier and faster.

Fall it faith. Trust in the divine. But it’s also common sense, right? A cool head makes you more open to finding a solution and capable of implementing it to solve your problem. Anger, fear, panic—these have never solved a problem. They’ve only ever made it worse.

I’m also a big believer in synchronicity—the idea that the little string of coincidences that happen in our daily lives are a communication from on high. I have this theory that synchronicity is the language of God. So when you notice that several people in a row are wearing an orange puffer vest, and then someone spontaneously brings up Back to the Future, and the conversation then turns to something relevant to your life, it’s time to pay closer attention.

That morning I had been tinkering with the a mobile phone mount for the bike, which has a built-in phone charger. I had installed this to the battery on the bike, and in the process I’d discovered that there’s a little secret compartment where a tool is hidden. It’s meant for opening the clip that holds in the battery in place, and for adjusting the battery terminals so you can do things like wire something in. I had no idea it was there, but it was fun to discover it. I didn’t need it, of course, because I have a whole set of fancy tools in my garage. So I tucked it back into its hidden spot.

Turns out, I don’t have my fancy tools with me when the bike breaks down. But thanks to the coincidence of finding that tool earlier, I had a way to open things up.

That didn’t quite help me get out of my predicament, because I had no way to jump charge the battery. But that was fine, too. I repeated, “Everything I need is right in front of me, and everything is working out for me.”

A couple pulled into the spot across from me and was entering the Barnes & Noble. As they got out, the guy sneezed a few times, and I blessed him. Then the guy said, “I really like your bike!”

“Thanks!” I replied, smiling. “I really wish it would start!”

He laughed and said that if he had known anything about motorcycles he’d be happy to help, but he was clueless. I told him that was fine, and I appreciated it anyway. They went inside, and I continued to tinker and ponder.

I moved the bike to a shaded spot, since the sun was now getting a little intense. And I started considering my options. I could call Kara and have her bring the van, but we didn’t have any jumper cables inside (I know… I’m going to fix that). Still, I could drive somewhere and buy some, and drive back to jump the bike. It could work. It would mean I wouldn’t be home for another four hours or so, but it would work.

It was then that the couple came back out with a stack of books (none of them mine… bummer), and on a whim I asked, “Do you happen to have any jumper cables?”

They did. And because I already had the battery case open and the terminals exposed, it took all of three minutes to reposition the bike and do the jump. And huzzah! The bike started right up.

I thanked them profusely, blessed them let them get on their way, and then I tinkered the battery case back together. Soon I was on my own way home, where I had more resources to help me get things fixed.

In all of that, I willfully and purposefully stayed calm and even grateful. I was thankful for the message of the thing. I wasn’t sure what the lesson was at first, but now I know. It was this. It was so I could produce this bit of content around it. And that helps to enrich me and, hopefully, you. Ripples.

When things go wrong, when it hits the fan, when we’re in pain or we’re afraid, it’s useful to us to fall back on a habit of responding instead of reacting.

We choose our response, and we act. But if we react, where letting the problem choose for us. And what does the problem know?

You form a habit by practice. And the only way to practice for the big catastrophes is to put these things to work during the small ones. When you run out of coffee, when you break a dish, when you stub your toe, when you forgot to send the receipts to your boss—decide to keep calm instead of reacting. Decide not to get mad back at the person being snotty to you at the UPS Store. Decide to let the rude employee have their moment without your participation. Decide and act. That’s a response.

And when you slip and fail, when you react instead of responding, make a decision to make that right. Be grateful for that slip, too. Use it as practice as well.

Soon it just becomes habit. And you end up discovering you’re far more capable than you ever thought you were. Anger and fear were never good for solving a problem, but choosing to stay cool and grateful, to look for resources and decide that whatever is happening to you is happening for you—that will give you far more power in the world.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

Here’s a weird suggestion—be grateful for the pain and suffering in your life.

I know, that’s crazy. Gratitude for suffering? It feels wrong. It feels like you’re saying, “More, please.” Pile on the pain. Stuff my life full of hurt. Break my heart one more time.

I’m not making a call for you to become a masochist. I’m not telling you to enjoy pain. What I want you to do is look at the suffering and anguish and hurt in your life, and recognize it as a driver of change and growth. I want you to see every dark night of your soul, every rock bottom moment, every humiliation as something that propelled you in a new direction, on a new path, that led you to right here and now.

And of course, right here and now may not be so great either. You may be suffering even as you read this. First, my very sincere sympathy, because I don’t want you to hurt. I want you to be full of life, health, joy, and hope. But what I’m proposing is that you may be in the very best place, right this second, to launch into a new and better version of your life than you’ve ever experienced before.

You can embrace it, and grow. Or you can resist it, and suffer greatly. Maybe even do some permanent damage.

Think of suffering like an arrow in your shoulder. The tip is sharp. It goes in with a pretty clean cut. But the barbs prevent it from going back out from the same wound. Your choice is to either push it on through, suffer a bit more pain but keep the cut clean, or yank it out and let the barbs tear the flesh and make the wound ragged. A clean wound heals faster. A ragged wound may never heal at all.

Either way, the arrow is already there. You’re already hit. What you choose next determines the outcome you live from.

That is to say, tragedy and suffering and pain and humiliation—those are all going to come to your life. They’re unavoidable. And you can either see them as something to resist, spend all your energy resenting and regretting and fighting the reality of it, or you can choose to embrace it as a teacher. You can choose to accept that the pain and suffering is happening or has happened, and study it to learn what you can from it. You can use that pain to grow, instead of allowing it to put you on the ground for good.

Easy? No. It’s not. It won’t be. It never will be. It’s hard, and it hurts, and it sucks. But it’s the moment of decision. It’s the choice you and only you can make—”What will I do with all of this pain?”

If you’re a Biblically spiritual person, you might think of this in terms of Jeremiah 29:11—

“For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”

If that isn’t your thing, maybe you can just realize that all the good and growth you’ve experienced in your life came as the result of the pain you experienced anyway. If you choose not to spend your energy and reserves fighting it, you can learn how to use it. You can learn to be a better you because of it.

Resentment, regret, fear, anxiety, worry—these are all choices. I know, they may not feel like that in the moment. But that’s because they’re the easy choices. The default choices. They take no effort on our part, so it’s simple to fall into them. But if we choose instead the harder choice, the tougher path, the route of embracing our pain willingly and learning from it obstinately, we will grow. We will become so much more than we ever thought we could be.

We will still feel pain. But we rise from it strong.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

"How did you market your books this week?"

That’s a good question. It’s a tough question, too. And doggone it, I have no one to blame for that question buy myself, because I’m the one who put it on a reminder for every Friday morning at 8:00 AM. Answering that question every week is a pain in the backside, but it does force me to think about what I’m doing and whether or not it’s working.

By the way, I know that not everyone who reads this blog is trying to market something, but bear with me. You might find this interesting anyway.

Most weeks, my answer to that question is fairly soft. “I sent some emails, I did some social posts, I made some videos.” Sounds light. Sounds boring. No data? No long-winded diatribe about audience engagement and market research?

But the thing is, marketing (like a lot of life) doesn’t have to be complicated.

My personal definition for marketing is this: Marketing is any action that increases the odds that the right person will discover your work at the moment they are ready to make a purchase.

When you think of it in those terms, it opens your mind to the reality that marketing can be literally anything.

When I have a conversation with someone I just met at a coffee shop, and I inevitably make a casual mention that I write books, that’s marketing. When I post something on social media that relates to the topics I write about, that’s marketing. When I do a talk to an author group or at a conference, that’s marketing. When I place an ad it’s marketing, but also when I comment on someone’s ad or post on social media it can be marketing.

If it puts you and your work in front of a potential reader, it’s marketing.

The thing about marketing, too, is that it’s not just about “selling stuff.” It’s about forming relationships. It’s about engaging with people, to your mutual benefit.

So when I attend a meetup or networking event, just to make friends in the area, that’s marketing. Or when I go to a church to connect with people. Or when I take a cooking class. Or when I join a group of people to play board games. That’s marketing, if only to expand my circle of influence. Making friends is marketing, too.

As the Thanksgiving holiday wraps up and our families all go back to where they came from, we might want to venture out into the world and do a little “personal marketing,” to help us find new people to relate to. Do that. It’s good for you, it’s good for them. And doing good… that’s the best kind of marketing.

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You’re reading Side Notes…

If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

That’s a crazy thing to say, I know. But hear me out…

Sometimes I feel what I like to call “social reluctance.” Basically, I sometimes feel dread about doing things that have me engaging with other human beings, outside of my home. Going to conferences can trigger this for me. Gong to networking events. Doing phone calls and livestreams. Or just playing golf with friends or family. It’s silly, but it can feel crippling.

What I’ve found, though, is that if I can push myself to experience the discomfort of that social engagement, I always benefit. I almost never regret doing the thing, whatever the thing happens to be.

Yesterday I played golf with my family. It’s something that’s been in the works for more than a month. But it was something I didn’t volunteer to do. My wife signed me up, and I found myself sort of “obligated” to go.

I love my family. They are all, to each individual, amazing people that care for and respect me. I love spending time with them. I look forward to it. But this engagement wasn’t one I was enthusiastic about, mostly because I’d just gotten home from a week of socially engaging with a few thousand authors in a town I do not particularly like, in a casino filled with smoke and noise and distractions. I was socialized out.

But I went. I faced the discomfort of it. And I came away feeling happy.

If we can embrace discomfort, become comfortable with being uncomfortable, we will find a path to joy.

Every time we push ourselves to embrace that discomfort we are resetting our tolerance. We are able to face even more uncomfortable situations in the future. In essence, we are improving on ourselves as we go. We’re becoming better versions of ourselves, because we are gaining experiences and exceeding our limits.

Discomfort is a sign. Reluctance is a sign. Reluctance is the path.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

And check out the YouTube Playlist associated with this blog—my show about everything. Kevin Tumlinson Wants to Talk about Something Else, exclusively on YouTube! Make sure you like, share and subscribe today.

Here in the US, our Thanksgiving holiday is tomorrow. It’s a time of family and friends gathering to see each other, sometimes for the first time in months or even years. And of course, there’s all the eating. This holiday is a carb bomb.

But the core of the holiday is in the name: “Thanksgiving.” Traditionally, the day is an observance of the first settlers breaking bread with the native people of this land, making peace and agreeing to live and work together. History shows some ups and downs on that score, of course. Opinions run hot about what actually transpired. But none of it can change what the day has come to mean for millions of people in this country.

The reminder to be grateful is one we should take to heart.

Gratitude is a super power. Everything’s a super power these days, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that few things will actually change your life and the world more than the act of gratitude. It can open doors that were closed, resolve conflicts, start negotiations, and create opportunities. If it’s sincere, gratitude is a world changer.

It also changes the way we see the world itself. The way we interact with the world. It creates hope and faith and love. Gratitude, sincerely felt and expressed, tells us as much as anyone, “I have an abundance. There’s no lack in my life.”

You may or may not celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. But the practice of gratitude should be part of your daily life. The more you are able to express it, the more you’ll see its power in your own life. Feel it and express it, and it will evolve you into someone who is joyful and fulfilled and empowered.

Gratitude is evolution.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

There. I said it. And I mean it.

The personal energy you have at your disposal is way more important than the amount of time you have. Because let’s face it—you could have all the time in the world, but if you don’t have the energy to use that time then it’s wasted. On the other hand, if you have limited time but limitless energy, you can still get a lot done. It’s a weird dynamic.

I absolutely believe that time is precious. But I think it’s less precious than the energy we bring to that time. What would be the point of living forever, for example, if you’re bed ridden the entire time?

No… energy is the key.

Willpower can get you through some rough patches with your personal energy. I think of that as “reserve power.” It kind of sucks, honestly… having to force yourself through is painful. But it’s there. And it highlights my point: You can’t willpower time, but willpower can boost how you use time. Your personal energy makes your time more valuable.

I’m thinking about all of this on a morning when my energy is a little low. I got “con crud,” in a small dose, after being in Vegas all of last week. Nothing major… I just have some congestion and my energy is a little low. But already, as I do my work and sip my coffee and let some cool, fresh air into my office, I’m feeling better. My energy is at least high enough to do the work I love. And that’s good energy management. That’s a good use of my time.

Take care of yourselves. Manage your energy well. Treat it as a valuable commodity, because it is. The most precious commodity you have.

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!

I’m fascinated by the mind. You should be, too. But chances are you probably don’t even think about the mind.

Which, by the way, is a head trip in and of itself—the mind can contemplate itself, and still may not understand what it’s looking out. I’m going to write a book called The Inception Matrix someday, just you watch.

But the mind…

How could anyone consider this thing mundane? I mean, the human mind conceived of all the wonders of technology surrounding us. The mind invented the language I’m writing in, the letters and words that represent that language, the keyboard I’m using to type, the computer I’m using to connect to the internet, and the internet itself. Plus all the billions of other technologies and concepts and conventions that are required just for me to write down my thoughts and you to read them. Start thinking about that… it’s a bottomless rabbit hole, I assure you.

The mind has no limits. True, our minds may be limited. We may have trouble visualizing things, may have memory problems, may be incapable of doing complex equations in our head. But those limits—I’m just going to put it out here—are largely self-imposed. Barring some catastrophic injury or mental disability, you know deep down that you could learn to do those equations. That with practice and a lot of effort, you could train your mind to give you the exact results you want. You do know that, right?

Some would disagree. I’ve certainly met people in my life who were adamant that this was all false. They argue for the weakness and limitations of individuals. But we’re talking about the human mind here. There are no limits. Weakness is just something to push against, to become stronger.

Einstein, Tesla, Leonardo—know what these three had in common? A lot, actually. But one of the biggest shared attributes was their ability to visualize and express complex ideas in simplified terms. They used their minds to see through the evolution of some theory or technology or invention, and they expressed that into reality for all us mere mortals. Einstein conceived his theory of relativity by imagining what it would be like to ride a particle of light. Tesla was known for building his inventions first in his mind, experimenting and perfecting them before building them in the real world. Leonardo was adept at the observation and understanding of real-world phenomenon, and visualized everything he encountered first in his mind and then on the page of his notebooks.

Brilliant. I love brilliant people.

But I’m convinced—absolutely convinced—that every thinking human on the planet is capable of doing the same. I’m convinced that every human mind has the ability to conceive of the unreal to such fine degree that they can manifest it into reality through their efforts. I’m convinced that all humans possess the power to explore the universe itself just by visualizing it in great detail in their minds. Theories can be tested. Inventions can be designed. Entire cultures and civilizations can be built. It all starts in the mind.

How could we ever treat that as mundane?

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If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!