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.

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.

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.

TODAY’S FEATURED BOOK is The Antarctic Forgery. Dan Kotler and Agent Denzel find themselves struggling to survive in a hidden and abandoned Nazi base, buried under the ice of Antarctica. And they’re not alone… someone wants the secrets of that base for themselves, and they’ll kill anyone who gets in their way!
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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.

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.

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!

It could be you.

It’s certainly been me, most of my life and career

But if you find yourself slogging away, pushing and fighting, scratching and climbing, and you still haven’t moved any further along the road than when you first set foot upon it, it might just be that you are the obstacle.

That’s ok. That’s a good thing to learn. Now, though, it’s time to face some hard facts and bitter truths. It’s time to examine your life and your choices, your personality and your preferences, you principles and your habits, and ask: “What needs to change about who I am, so that I can become who I mean to be?”

Hard question. Even harder answer. But if you’re casting around looking for a light for this path you’re on, that’s your 1,000 watt bulb.

Figure out how you’re being a roadblock to your own success and dreams and goals, and then start working on how to compensate for yourself. And this may look like learning a new skill or attaining a new habit. Or it may look like paying someone to do the thing you do poorly. Don’t be afraid to face it, either way. Embrace it as a good thing, a great step forward.

Know thyself, then figure out how to work around thyself.

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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!

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Yesterday evening, Kara and I hung a mirror over our new fireplace.

The mirror has a minor bit of personal history—it was a housewarming gift from a good friend of mine, back in my early 20s. It was a nice one, by my estimate. But apparently not up to modern standards. Kara asked my permission to touch it up with a bit of gold paint on the frame. I didn’t see any harm, and I have to admit it does have a whole new look, just from that.

The mirror had always hung horizontally everywhere it’s ever been on a wall. That just always made sense to me. But Kara wanted to turn it vertically, to make it more “dramatic,” and to add height above the fireplace. I didn't see any harm in this either, though it seemed weird to me.

These days I’m trying not to let my first impulse of “no, that isn’t the right way” be a barrier to trying things.

So, basically, when it came to this mirror I was already outside my comfort zone. A little. It wasn’t like I was worried it would catch the house on fire or something. It was just that “it had always been this way,” and I was having to adjust to the idea of it being that way instead.

Kara also wanted to rest it on the fireplace mantle, rather than hang it directly on the wall. Though she did want to anchor it to the wall somehow. This, too, was weird to me. I mean… mirrors hang on walls. But yeah, ok…. sure. And I put an anchor on the wall for it.

But then it was time to flip the mirror vertically and somehow attach it to that anchor on the wall. And that’s when my brain stalled.

“These days I’m trying not to let my first impulse of “no, that isn’t the right way” be a barrier to trying things. ”

When I’d first gotten the mirror, I attached two metal loops to the frame and I ran a multi-strand wire between these. I had mounted the hooks close to the top corners of the mirror, as it was oriented horizontally. And it had always been kind of a trick to get the thing on the wall and keep that wire hidden.

In fact, over the years and with dozens of moves I had tried numerous methods of doing that—from mounting two hooks a good distance apart on the wall to twisting and tightening the wire turnbuckle style, enough that it stayed below the frame. It had been like this for years. Like I said, I got it in my twenties, and as of last month I've hit 50 years old. So for almost half my life, this was the way.

Now, though, it was time to rethink things. It was time to turn the mirror on its side (from my point of view), and that meant reorienting those little buckles.

My first attempt was to just move one of the buckles so that it was relocated from what was now the “bottom” of the mirror to the corner opposite its mate at the mirror’s new “top.” This meant that, once gain, I had the buckles attached to the frame near the top corners. And, once again, I was struggling to get the wire tight enough that it would anchor the mirror to the wall but wouldn’t show above the frame. And, once again, it was going to be tricky.

And then I had what we will call “the aha moment.”

Why was I mounting those buckles so close to the top? If I just moved them down closer to the middle of the frame, the slack in the wire would work for us instead of against us. It would anchor the mirror in place, and it wouldn’t be visible at all!

Yes… yes, you’re seeing that right. This is a problem that literally took me thirty years to figure out.

Move the buckles.

That worked, by the way. With the buckles attached at a lower point on the mirror it hung like a dream—no worries, no concerns, no problem. I’d just been hanging it wrong for three decades, that’s all.

This is a lesson that’s applicable to my daily life, so I assume it will also be applicable to yours: When you’re facing a challenge, when your way of thinking doesn’t allow for an answer, start from zero and think about it in a new way.

In philosophy, this is sometimes called “beginner’s mind.” And it’s the source of genius.

Kids are great at this, by the way. For example, think of three answers to this question:

“How do I put an elephant in my refrigerator?”

And yes, I mean a real, full-sized elephant. Not a photo of an elephant. Not a stuffed toy. The real thing, trunk and all.

Go… I’ll give you ten minutes.

Back? Ok. I’m betting you thought of all sorts of interesting things. But I’m also betting that all of them had to do with dealing with the logistics and the physics of getting a big thing into a smaller thing.

When I tried this with Kara, she came up with some… well… gruesome stuff. Like cutting the elephant into pieces, or burning it and turning it into ash. Let’s just say I’m not eager to make her mad any time soon.

Your ideas may be similar, and there’s nothing wrong with any of them. But your adult mind, with all of its experiences and years of routines and everyday problem solving, came up against the physical limits of the exercise. The problem, to you, was “How do I get the big thing into the small thing?”

When this question was posed to a group of kids, though, their answers were a little different.

“Open the door and ask him to go in.”

“Put peanut butter inside and leave the door open.”

“Ride him like a horse and go inside.”

See the difference? To these kids, the task wasn’t a problem of logistics and physical dimensions. It was about convincing the elephant. Coaxing, luring, guiding.

That is beginner’s mind in action. And it’s a powerful tool.

If we can cultivate that way of looking at things, whenever we’re stuck on a problem, new solutions may appear out of nowhere.

Give it a try, the next time you find yourself stuck. Move the buckles. Ask the elephant.

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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!

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What you choose to look at determines what you will see.

I know, that sounds profound. Or maybe it doesn’t. It all depends on how you look at it. Irony.

But the gist is this—if you’re focusing all your attention on negative things, you’ll tend to see the world in a negative light. If you’re focused on angry Tweets and scary news stories and violent YouTube videos, then the world you see will reflect those things back to you. The hologram of the universe that you carry in your head will be a very dark, foreboding, miserable place. From your point of view, everything is always turning out awful.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for the good in people, looking for opportunities, looking for examples of kindness and love and positive thinking, then that becomes your filter. Even when things go wrong, you’re more likely to be optimistic, to look for the good that can come out of it. From your point of view, everything is always working out for you.

“What you choose to look at determines what you will see. ”

These are two diametrically opposed points of view, but the key word in the opening statement of this post is “choose.” You are the one who gets to decide what kind of filter you’re going to wear in your daily life. You either put on the dark and cloudy lenses, or you pull on the rose-colored glasses. It’s up to you.

And that means you are the one responsible for your experience, and for your outcomes.

Some people hate that (guess which point of view they typically have). They can’t stand the thought that it’s them who determines what the quality of their life will be like. They want to blame someone else, or something else, for the sorry state they’re in. Everything is awful, and they have no choice in how they see any of it.

Other people get the truth of this by instinct. They see that if they're the one ultimately responsible for the choices then they’re the one in control of the quality of their experience. They’re better off choosing to look for good things in the world around them. Focus on what’s good, what’s pure, what’s right, what’s loving—focus on finding resources and opportunities instead of always grousing about what you lack. That’s up to you. All of it.

Or not. Maybe the universe is just happening to you instead of for you. That’s one way to look at it.

What are you going to choose to look at in your life? What is it that you want to see?

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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!

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I only have 465 subscribers on YouTube, as of right now. That’s up nine subscribers in seven days—which is worth celebrating! But it’s been stuck on that number now for the past four days, which is Sad Kevin.

But should I be sad?

First, foremost, and forever, I’m a writer. I got a lot of books out there to prove it. I have blog posts which, until now at least, haven’t always been regularly written and posted. But there are a lot of those, too. And daily I write thousands and thousands of words that all fit my stated mission: To inform and inspire, educate and entertain, in the service of God and humanity.

I do the work. I’m doing even more of it now.

And I’m putting in the work for YouTube these days, too. It’s been exactly one week since I started posting a video every single day. An entire week of finally sucking it up and doing what I’d been dreading. I struggled with doing even one video for months, and in seven days I’ve done seven. I’ve suddenly discovered I enjoy it.

But then there’s that number… 465. Stalled. Still. Tiny. Taunting me.

The thing is, if you’re going to be a content creator of any stripe, you need two things: An audience and validation.

The trouble comes when you start seeking validation from the audience.

I have readers. Thousands of them. They buy my books every month, and that has allowed me to keep food on the table, but also to own a table, and a house to put it in. We currently live in what I jokingly but seriously call “the house that books built.” My words get read. I have an audience.

But the words could use a bigger audience, I will admit. My income is directly proportional to the number of people who discover and buy my work. And my theory is that by producing content that is at least tangentially related to the books will help draw that audience.

That’s called “marketing,” in case you’re wondering. The term covers a lot of ground, but certainly the notion of creating content with the express intent of funneling people to your books is, indeed, a marketing tactic, and hopefully part of a larger marketing strategy.

So when you’re not getting that audience in a timely way, it can feel a little daunting. Disappointing. Depressing, even. But see… there’s the real problem. That’s me looking for validation from the audience. And when that’s the case, when that’s my metric of success, then I’m in for a long, hard slog.

“Considering what you get out of it is important.”

Seeking validation from an audience dooms you to misery because, for a start, it makes you ungrateful or unappreciative of the audience you do have. I see that number—465—and my first impulse isn’t, "Wonderful! I’m reaching 465 people with my message!” No, it tends to be, “C’mon! ONLY 465? Why isn’t it growing!”

For sure, audience growth is a metric you should consider. There are other metrics as well, from retention to engagement to click-thru. And beyond, really. There are a lot of ways to measure success.

But the lesson, really, is that we shouldn’t get too caught up in those metrics, looking for the magic number that will make us feel good about our efforts or our lives. We sometimes fall into the trap of “No one is listening, so why bother?” That’s usually around the time we give up.

Maybe that’s something to consider, if creating what you create comes at a great cost. Just like when I wrote about ROI, considering what you get out of it is important. And sometimes the reality is that if the cost outweighs the benefit, you may be better off walking away.

But another approach is the one I’m choosing, at least for now.

First, I decided from the start that the content I’m creating is meant for really just an audience of one… and that one would be me. I’m creating content that I like, that makes me feel good about myself and my work, and that allows me to feel like I’m contributing something positive to the world.

Second, I decided that I would focus on making content creation as easy and fun as possible, to give myself some breathing room and to avoid feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. In other words, I’m creating what I like, and I’m doing it in a way that doesn’t make me want to stab myself in the brain.

And third, I decided that I would seek my validation elsewhere. Rather than pinning all my hopes and dreams on finding an audience and seeing that subscriber count skyrocket, I’m deliberately choosing to accept and appreciate and be grateful for any and all subscribers. I will welcome them, and treat them with honor and respect. And my validation will come from being able to look back at my work, seeing it grow and improve with time, and knowing that I am capable and creative. I’m letting the work be the reward.

Which is not to say, obviously, that I wouldn’t welcome more subscribers. So as always, I ask that you subscribe, that you help me share content like this blog and the videos, and that you comment and let me know how I’m doing, or what you think of a particular topic, or just anything you want. Let’s make a conversation out of it. (in marketing, we call this “engagement”)

But to be clear… if you do none of the above, I’m going to feel just as validated. Because I’ve finally come to understand that creating is just what I do. It’s the way my soul expresses itself. It’s the tool by which I live out that mission statement above. And I do it because the work causes me far less pain than not doing it.

You might look at your own life, your own choices, your work and your motives, and figure out where your validation comes from. If it’s coming from anything other than you, consider that a red flag. You deserve better.

Be your own best audience.

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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!

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The world came into being last Thursday.

Seriously… the world, the universe, all of reality is only one week old. As of today. I’m not making this up.

That was someone else.

I’m talking about “Last Thursdayism,” which is a… well, we’ll say a hypothesis that everything around you, everything you know, everything you’ve ever experienced, even you, yourself, all sprang into fully formed existence last Thursday. That includes history, archives of books and films and TV, stacks of comics you’ve read, rings in giant red oaks, all of it. The whole, complete, all-encompassing entirety of all of existence… it all started last Thursday.

And that’s why you don’t realize it. Because along with the stars and the planets and the Tom Cruise films, your memories also started that day, fully formed. And whatever argument you’re thinking, whatever you’ve come up with to contradict or disprove this hypothesis… nope. Just more fully created stuff that came up a week ago. All that so-called “evidence” that makes it look like the universe is billions of years old… that’s all fake. It was created to look that way. Sorry.

Infuriating, isn’t it?

Last Thursdayism is branch of what’s called the Omphalos hypothesis. The TL:DR version is that this was an attempt to offer a reconciliation between Creationism’s view that the Earth was really only a few thousand years old, based on the literal interpretation of scripture, and the fact that science tells us that it is much older. Current estimates are around 14 billion years, but with the Webb space telescope coming online and peeking further and further out into the universe, some folks think everything may be much, much older.

There’s another theory about that which is equally mind-frying—that reality is actually just a simulation. It’s called (wait for it) simulation theory. Maybe I’ll create content around that some other time.

But the point is, the Omphalos hypothesis solved the problem of timelines not matching up by slapping some spackle on it and claiming that all of creation came to us fully formed. That included the fossil record, rings in trees, ancient ruins and temples buried under the desert sand, all of it. On Day One, it all just appeared. Let there be light (and dinosaur bones).

Last Thursdayism got it’s name mostly from someone tossing up their hands after hearing the Omphalos hypothesis and saying, “The universe might as well have popped up last Thursday then!”

So let it be written, so let it be done.

The reason this argument is so infuriating is because you can’t actually refute it. No matter what you think of to counter it, your argument can be shunted aside by “God did it.” And hey, I’m a believer. God is real, in my book. But I haven’t read anything in the Bible about God being a troll. And this would certainly be some universe-level trolling.

The point here is that there will always be theories and arguments that we can’t refute. There will always be a perspective so bizarrely alien to our own that we will want to shut it down, drown it out, grind it up and run it down the garbage disposal. But we won’t be able to. It will always survive, as long as someone—anyone—is willing to believe it and insist on it.

It’s what’s known as a “circular argument.” A logical fallacy in which someone states a fact, then uses that very fact as support of said fact. And if that confused you, then you’ve got the right idea.

We see this sort of logical fallacy—and many others—in our everyday society. In fact, with the prevalence and growth of social media, it’s just increased. Billions of people now routinely share points of view that are no more grounded or provable or disprovable than last Thursdayism. We see it in everything from arguments about politics to assertions about vaccinations or conspiracy theories about protests and insurrections (or the lack thereof…?).

Sometimes I kind of wish the world really was created last Thursday. It would explain a lot.

How do you overcome circular reasoning? Mostly, just don’t participate in it. Don’t let yourself be drawn into the argument. Just let that circular reasoner go rant about their ideas in the void. Maybe toss them some Crayons to draw with.

Because in the end, a hypothesis that can never be proven or disproven benefits no one. It may have some impact, but that impact tends to be isolated quickly. Cooler and more logical heads. usually prevail. Or, we really hope they will.

You’ll never be able to control that impact anyway. All you can ever control is your own response. So, focus on that.

See you next Thursday.

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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!

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We have a real temptation to celebrate when someone we don’t like fails at something.

Yesterday was an Election Day, and I can’t think of a better example of this idea than what tends to happen around every election. One side typically tends to dominate over the other, and then they like to rub it in by crowing and castigating and cat-calling. The failure of the other is cast as an indication of how right the winners were. “See? We’re right, because we won!”

Kind of nonsense though, right?

Because win or lose, what was at stake in an election was whether the people voting believed in one philosophy or another, or were disappointed by the actions of one side, or were alarmed at what one side was doing or not doing or proposing to do… there are a lot of factors. But what is not true is “winning mean’s we’re right.” We can look at a couple hundred years of elections and see that.

Now I’m as guilty as the next guy when it comes to this. I have my own perspective on things, and there are outcomes I’m hoping for. And when I (or my team, or my party, or my business) “wins,” that is absolutely something to celebrate. Celebrate every success.

But why would you ever celebrate failure?

Well… ok, maybe you’d celebrate failure if you were more like Thomas Edison—who famously told his son to go find his mother and bring her to the site where Edison’s Orange County workshop was burning to the ground. “Go get your mother! She’ll never see a fire like this again!”

Edison had the debris and ashes cleared by the next morning, and started right back at it. Failure was a setback, but it wasn’t the end.

“Celebrating someone else’s failure, or misery, or pain is like telling the universe, ‘I like this stuff. Give me more of that.’”

And of course, Edison is famous for other failures. Like the lightbulb. I mean, I know… the lightbulb ended up being a huge success that literally changed the world. But to get to that success, Edison had to wade neck deep into a sea of failure. Thousand of tries, thousands of duds. And then, finally, he had his literal lightbulb moment. The idea that evolved humanity into creatures who could see into even the darkest spaces.

Failure can be worth celebrating. It tells us what not to do, to get the result we want. It marks our progress. It gives us feedback.

But the failure of others… celebrating that is the worst idea.

I don’t know what you believe, but here’s a guiding principle in my own life: Celebrating someone else’s failure, or misery, or pain is like telling the universe, “I like this stuff. Give me more of that.”

Our highest command is to love, and celebrating someone’s pain isn’t love.

Of course, nobody said we had to like each other.

But the decision to exclude your annoying neighbor from your Christmas card list is a very different thing from popping champagne and toasting to the fact that his business failed. You believe what you want, but I think it’s dumb to tempt fate. Or karma. Or God.

So as election results roll in, maybe (maaayyyybeee) those of us who got what we wanted from those results can have some empathy toward those who are feeling a keen loss and an existential sting. We do not have to agree with each other, but we should at least go out of our way to avoid hating each other.

Don’t tear people down for what they’ve lost. It’s always going to come back to bite 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!

I’m listening to Leonard Da Vinci, the excellent biography written by Walter Isaacson and narrated by the incredible Alfred Molina. Who, obviously, will always live in my mind in the duality that is both Satipo, the betrayer from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and as Doctor Octopus, from the Spider-man films. I know he’s had other roles… these are the roles that live in my head. AND MY HEART.

I’m enjoying the book, both because it is well researched and well written (and well read), but also because the subject has always fascinated me. Leonardo was the prototype of the “Renaissance Man”—the well rounded, self-disciplined, self-educating soul who masters an array of skills and who becomes expert in an eclectic, decentralized wealth of topics. Leonardo was an artist and painter, a sculptor, an engineer, an anatomist… he did it all. He mastered it all.

And the body of work he produced, through journals and sketches and paintings over a lifetime, was just astounding. Not just in quality but in quantity, and more importantly in the range, breadth, and depth of it all.

I’m just in awe of the man.

But this post isn’t about Leonardo.

I mean, it is, but it isn’t. What I really wanted to dive into today was more about the fact that Leonardo—artist, inventor, genius—was not a specialist.

You could argue that he was. His art, after all, was kind of a central component of all of his life and work. He used his powers of observation and his skills in illustration to explore the world at the smallest and greatest levels he could perceive, and he used his unfailing curiosity and patience to ask questions of the natural world, to ferret them out to their deepest secrets, and to document them to the finest detail.

The guy did autopsies and drew illustrations of the workings of the human body that are still in use in the. medical discipline today, 500 years after his death.

But again… this post isn’t about Leonardo.

It’s about the fact that Leonardo was a generalist.

Another book I’m reading at the moment is David Epstein’s Range. Though I’ll confess, I only started reading the book last night. So I’m barely into it. But I’m already excited about the topic. Because it, too, is about generalists. In fact, the sub-title is the big draw: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Epstein has pulled together.

But the topic itself is one that I’ve thought about a lot over the years. Because, honestly, to paraphrase Norman Osborn (yet another Spider-Man reference…), “I’m something of a generalist myself.” And I always have been. In fact, I kinda got dinged for that during my thesis review, in college. But who’s laughing now, dean? Who’s laughing now!?!?

We live in an increasingly specialized world. One in which not only does someone go to medical school to be a doctor, they specialize in heart medicine… and then specialize further as an electrophysiologist or a cardiac rehabilitation specialist or a heart failure specialist. There are probably some specializations happening below that level, too. What do I know? I’m not heart doctor specialist.

Now again, I haven’t read much of Range yet, but I know that part of the exploration of the book is into the way the specialization can actually be a detriment. Maybe even harmful.

“To be fair, though, the flip side of this can be summed up as “details matter.””

Among all those heart doctors, for example, there can sometimes be the “hammer for every nail” problem. You know the one… when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. And that really is a problem, because if you’re just going around smacking nails into dry wall, you could miss the signs that the real problem is a rotting infrastructure, or a broken water pipe, or maybe just that the house itself is on fire.

A generalist view is a top-down view. It’s a wider angle, a sweeping look, and exploration. If you think like a generalist, you’re taking in the whole picture.

To be fair, though, the flip side of this can be summed up as “details matter.”

Leonardo was a generalist in his interests and in his skillset, but he was also meticulous in his exploration. He asked questions about the general object he was studying—the human body, for one of thousands of examples—and then he started using those questions, that curiosity, to delve deeper. He tried to understand the process of the whole by understating the minutia of processes underlying it.

The key to greatness, right there.

I’m a generalist, but I tend not to be patient enough to go into the details. I like the big picture, and get stressed out by the pixels. But cultivating that willingness and ability to look closer, while also maintaining the ability to keep a broader view, creates opportunities and grants me insights I would miss, if I specialized.

I guess to sum it up, think of it this way: If you are the world’s foremost expert on brake systems, specializing in them to exclusivity, then you may not be the best mechanic in the world. There’s a whole car there. Widen your perspective a bit, see how the brakes integrate into the rest of the machine. Expand your understanding by being willing to generalize and then drill down.

I’m sure I’ll come back to this subject, as I read Epstein’s book and think about these concepts more. But for now… that’s the general idea.

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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!

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More important than time

Look for the simplest path and conserve your energy.

Simplicity. Brevity. Directness.

Man, we tend to overcomplicate things. And to overthink them. We tend to create more pressure on every decision and more anxiety over every interaction simply because we’re overthinking it.

The most recent example for me is video.

For a long while now—years, really—I’ve wanted to make YouTube a regular part of what I create. I wanted to have a show that would draw in millions of subscribers, and become part of my platform, extending my reach and helping me find more readers and sell more books. And I’ve done a lot of YouTube stuff over those years, including a regular live show for Draft2Digital. But for some reason, I kept flubbing it with launching something of my own.

I couldn’t decide what the topic should be, for a start. I had the Wordslinger Podcast, which was mostly aimed at indie authors, but I really wanted to branch out from the author-centric audience and create content that appealed to the sort of people who would read my books. So I dabbled with posting content about the things I learn in my research, such as bits of weird history or science, tidbits about human psychology, that sort of thing. So that was a general topic.

The problem was, I get bored talking about the same thing all the time. But there was an even bigger problem than that—I couldn’t decide on a format.

Time and energy are really valuable commodities for me (aren’t they for everyone?). And really, I’m finally realizing that it’s about energy more than time. Because it’s true, we can’t make more time. But we actually have loads of it, if we’re willing to stop lying to ourselves. There are pockets of time everywhere. We convince ourselves that time is short, though, because what we really lack is the energy to use that time.

Think about it this way: You get up at 6AM, go to work, spend all day doing work things, and when you get home you’re exhausted, ready for dinner and some TV, and then it’s off to bed by 10PM.

“Energy management is more important than time management.”

That’s sixteen hours of your day. If you’re being truly honest with yourself, was every minute of that sixteen hours filled? Or… and hear me out… was there an hour her, fifteen minutes there, half an hour of driving and three hours of idly watching TV that you might have put to use on something productive? True, right?

But you didn’t. And the reason you didn’t use that time is because you didn’t have the energy.

See what I mean? Energy is the key here. Energy management is more important than time management.

Now, back to the video thing… what kept me from doing video more often was the absolute dread I felt ever time I even thought about it. And that dread came because I kept thinking about all the steps I would have to do in order to record, edit, post, share, respond to comments, yada, yada yada, etc.

I dreaded all of that because the process I came up with, the format I landed on for any given show, demanded a complicated set of steps. It demanded that I expend energy and (yes) time, both of which I felt were in short supply. And of the two, mostly energy was running short. I have books to write! I don’t have the energy to do that AND record, edit, post, share, respond to comments. And all those yadas? Fuhgetaboutit!

Now I’m going to confess that I’m still dealing with that sort of thing. I’ve posted exactly one YouTube video since August, and that was yesterday. So to be completely transparent here, I do not have a track record yet.

But I do have a simpler idea.

“The truth is, real professionals are consistent.”

Yesterday I was able to get up and run right through my entire routine. Make the coffee, write in the journals (there’s a lot of journaling… it’s kind of the biggest chunk of my morning), do some marketing, do some work on the book, write a blog post. And then I recorded a video. And to make it easier, I made it simple: Talk about the blog post, edit that in the simplest way possible, post it.

And for comments… I have the app on my phone alerting me when one comes in, so I can reply to it then and there. Or I’ll circle back around once per day and answer all the comments I’ve left unanswered.

My previous attempts at doing YouTube stuff revolved around building a very complicated and complex show. I wanted it to be like the sort of thing I used to produce for radio and television. I wanted it to be “professional.”

But I realized that adding complexity doesn’t increase professionalism. The truth is, real professionals are consistent.

By keeping things simple, I’m increasing the odds that I’ll get more done. The work becomes an easy thing to manage. I enjoy it more. I’m able to do it more consistently, with less energy and less anxiety.

Will I keep this up? Well, let’s see. But I think the key to all things is to examine what you’re doing to see if you could remove some of the complexity. Find the simplest way to do what you intend to do. You can always complicate it later.

Manage your energy. Be precious with it. Energy is the resource we need most, and the one that lets us better utilize all that time we 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!

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I’m not sure how long ago I listened to it, but a few years back (maybe four or five years ago) I took an early morning walk while playing a podcast episode from Tony Robbins. It was a weird “special episode,” if I recall. He was in a sound booth, and I think he had just finished a session recording an audiobook or something else “official.” The producer kept the audio recording going, and captured Tony talking to the sound engineer and anyone else in the room about goals and success.

At one point he addressed the “problem” of not having any ideas about what to create, how to market something you’ve built, what to do with your life, etc. I won’t try to recall the exact wording or even the exact topic, but his answer was something that hit home for me.

“Get a journal and every day write down three ideas. And at the end of 30 days you’ll have 90 ideas to work with. At the end of 365 days you’ll have over a thousand ideas (1,095, to be precise).”

At that time I was trying to think of ways to market my books, beyond the typical “pay for ads, engage in social media” blah-blah. That stuff works, by the way, but there’s a sort of diminishing return. Maybe I’ll got into that some other time. But “build a mailing list” is still the best marketing advice I’ve ever gotten.

I spent 30 days writing down three marketing ideas, every morning. I was already keeping a daily journal by that point, so I just made that part of the routine. And, true to Tony’s word, I had 90 ideas for marketing my books by the end of that month. Some of them were good. Some weren’t. Some worked. Some didn’t. But the point was made for me: This is the way.

You can mine your own wisdom, three chunks at a time, and get results.

“You can mine your own wisdom, three chunks at a time, and get results.”

I was tired of trying to come up with purely marketing ideas by that point, so I tried it for other things. Three daily ideas about how to be a bitter husband; three ideas about losing weight and getting fit; three ideas about improving productivity. If I spent 30 days writing three ideas about any topic, I came away with a month full of things to try. And the result is always the same—I always find something that helps.

Somewhere along the way, I decided I would see what else this method was good for. And what I landed on was “three pieces of wisdom.”

I have always been a “pantser.” In the writing world, that’s shorthand for “writing by the seat of my pants.” Meaning I don’t plot or outline, I don’t pre-plan. I just sit down and write. This post, by the way… also a pantsed post. I did what I do with most of my books, and started with a title. And then… words happened.

It’s like magic.

So much like magic, in fact, that I wanted to see what would happen if I just decided to write down “3 Pieces of Wisdom” every single day. Since my writing is somewhat automatic, and I figure my subconscious is responsible for steering the ship when it comes to the ideas I express, I wondered if I could tap into that to learn and record some innate wisdom—some piece of spiritually refreshing thought that might be a useful guide in life. Basically, 3 Ideas from My Soul. Though this is literally the first time I’ve ever referred to it that way.

Every day, then, I started my journal entry with “3 Pieces of Wisdom.” And I did that for 30 days.

The result was… profound. There were ideas there that I couldn’t believe came from me. I mean, I would really like to think of myself as a wise person, but I don’t always prove that out with my actions, or with what I say out loud. But when I looked at the results of this daily exercise, it struck me that I was somehow sitting at the feet of a wise man, getting answers for questions that only my soul could ask. And, apparently, my soul could also provide.

This was so profound to me, in fact, that I passed right by the 30 day mark, and just kept going. And for years now, every single day (with surprisingly few gaps), I sit down with my little pocket Moleskine notebook, I write the page number, date, time, temperature, and location across the top of the page, and then I write three pieces of wisdom. Every day. For years. It’s stacked up.

For example, here are three pieces from just a couple of days ago:

• In the end, as in all your days, it’s just you and God.

• Build an inner place that relies on nothing to exist.

• Many have and will lose their way, so be gentle and lead.

Here’s set from a few weeks before that:

• Stand for what is right, even if it makes you fall.

• Refuse to kneel to tyrants—even if they force you to your knees, your spirit will not bow.

• Know that not all victories are evident in the moment.

And this set, from the day after I returned from a conference in San Francisco:

• The right answers only come from asking the right questions—questions are more important than answers.

• When you don’t know how to solve your own problem, solve someone else’s problem.

• Journaling gives you a way to spot the patterns in your thinking.

I could definitely go on. I don’t even think these are necessarily the best of the best. There have been times when I wrote something that sounded so unlike me, that was so far outside of my usual thinking, it shook me. It changed my direction. It made me try to be a better human.

Over time, I’ve added more “3 Things” to my daily routine. In those Moleskine notebooks, I have the three pieces of wisdom, but a couple of years ago I also added “3 Things I’m grateful for and bless.” These can be literally anything—”I am grateful for my Moleskine notebook, and I bless it.” But I feel like it’s helpful to start my day being grateful for things big and small in my life, and blessing them. We don’t bless things (or people) enough.

“I feel like it’s helpful to start my day being grateful for things big and small in my life, and blessing them.”

More recently, just a few months ago, I created a new journal in the Day One app called “3 Ideas.” This is where I daily type up 3 ideas (go figure) about any given topic. The topic changes from day to day, and sometimes the ideas are kind of mundane. But it helps me get my head in the game, and to occasionally get that aha! spark—the moment of excitement when something occurs to me that I’ve never really thought about before.

Here I jot down three ideas about marketing, or about products I could create, or about story ideas, or about what to have for lunch. It can be anything. But the regular practice and routine of doing this helps put my mind in an open and receptive state. Plus… well… I have a whole journal full of ideas I can mine, if I need them.

Doing them in Day One lets me tag them by topic. So if I ever need marketing ideas, I can click on that tag and scan through all the entries I’ve written that talk about marketing, and see if there’s anything I can put to work.

The power of three.

I can’t explain why it works. I have theories. But it does work. It’s useful. It’s something literally anyone can do.

Try it yourself. And let me know the results you get. You can leave a comment here.

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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!

NEWEST RELEASE

I never used to have anxiety. It’s kind of new. It started for me around 2011, when I was working for an ad agency in Houston. It wasn’t my first agency job, but for some reason it had a bigger impact on me than the others.

The place was a small, boutique shop, aimed mostly at creating marketing materials for clients in the oil and gas industry, and in the medical industry. O&G and hospital systems are the biggest business sectors in the Greater Houston Area. You don’t work in marketing without working for them, at some point.

This little agency wanted to be rebellious and creative, though. It was part of the reason I was attracted to them. And I went in hard—I made demands for salary, for remote work, for benefits. I gave them my background and experience, and we all seemed to like each other.

Here’s the thing about working for an agency—any agency, in any creative field—there are certain unreasonable expectations.

Work/Life balance? Forget it. It’s a marketing talk point, not a real thing. Because every agency I ever worked for had certain unwritten rules that superseded the jargon you found on their job listings. And the number one rule was, “We own you.”

I’m not even exaggerating here. Throughout the agency part of my career, I had employers tell me all sorts of absurd things. One agency sent a memo to everyone on staff to tell us that we were not allowed to participate in creative things outside of the office, such as participating in the 48-Hour Film Festival or exhibiting work in museums or art shows, or even writing novels or short stories. “We’re paying you for your creativity, so if you’re doing creative work outside of the office, you’re stealing.”

I kid you not, that’s a real quote.

That bothered me, but I gave it the middle finger at the time, and carried on. Because it was a ridiculous thing to say, and it was unenforceable besides. I mean… I didn’t sign any contract saying I couldn’t create outside of work. And even if I did… sue me. There are some things contract law can’t mandate. I’m betting that’s one of them. I was willing to roll those dice, anyway.

The boutique agency, though, somehow they got to me in a different way.

There is, in the agency world, a long standing tradition of creatives being effectively chained to their desks. There’s an expectation that everyone will gleefully arrive early and work late. Very early. Very late. And on weekends. On holidays. I was once asked if I could come straight to the office after a family member’s funeral.

That’s the kind of place this was. And it didn’t seem to matter that I was generating content faster than anyone could ever reasonably expect a writer to produce it. The fact that I was checking in at 6AM but leaving at 5PM was “concerning.”

Even when I was getting up and starting my work day at 4AM, from my home office, then zipping to work to be there by 6AM, and working through lunch every day, it was still “concerning” that I wasn’t there past 5PM. My explanation that I had a wife and home responsibilities and a life outside the office was rejected as “not committed enough.”

So, eventually, they fired me for not being enough of a team player. And they cited that I had asked for more money as something that offended them as well. They had agreed to all of this, of course, when I came onboard. But it was my fault, and I was greedy.

The thing about me—and I think this may apply to a lot of creatives—is that I take criticism hard. I have a very solid work ethic. And I produce. A lot. My writing output is easily quadruple that of most writers. And I do it again and again, every day, always. But when people tell me that I’m letting them down, it haunts me. It kills me. Because I have this work ethic built into my DNA.

I will work on those weekends and holidays and funeral days. I do work. Work often consumes me.

That’s no way to live, I’m just putting it out there that it’s how my life has been for a very long time.

I started feeling anxiety while I was working for that little agency. I would wake up in the middle of the night, feeling so much dread and existential horror, all I wanted was for God to kill me. I was never suicidal. I could never go to that. It’s not in me. But I was fine with God giving me the mercy of sweet, sweet oblivion.

I no longer feel like that. But it feels like that time in my life altered my DNA somehow. Because before that experience I could shake off stress and just live, feeling happy with my life. And since then, I… can’t.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression. I have joy in my life. I love that I have become—am continuously becoming—the author I always dreamt of being. I have good family, good friends. We’re starting over in a new community, so there’s some room to grow in all these areas. But I have a good life.

The anxiety is just something I can’t quite figure out how to get rid of.

I study this. I study philosophy, at least, and I’m always looking for the cure for this. If I ever find it, I’ll let you know. But for the most part, I am continuously suffering from this nagging sense that refuses to resolve into anything solid or concrete, that I can actually deal with.

It has no cause. It has no target. It’s simply there.

I can’t even describe it in terms that make sense. Sometimes I feel like I’m “bad” or “doing something wrong.” Sometimes I feel like a fraud. Sometimes I feel like bad things are happening, or about to happen. Sometimes I feel like no one likes me or loves me or wants me around. Sometimes I feel like I can’t relate to anyone or anything, no one understands me, I don’t even understand myself.

A lot of the time I feel like a failure. Like I screwed up, missed out on all the opportunities I had.

The thing is, my rational mind tells me the truth about this: None of this stuff is real. There’s nothing here for me to be afraid of. I didn’t screw up. I didn't fail. I am loved and respected.

But this isn’t something rational. And it won’t be reasoned away.

And so every single day, I start over. Every day, I try to figure it out, I try to find the path out of this muck. And I think back on the time before, when I never felt afraid or felt dread or felt like I was worthless. I remind myself that those are the lies, and that the truth is something brighter, lighter, more nourishing.

It’s a work in progress.

Anyway, there’s no real point to this post. I don’t have any words of wisdom to offer on this. But maybe you feel like this, too. So, we feel it together. And this post… it’s therapy. For me. Maybe for you.

Maybe, one day, all this anxiety just stops.

I’d be very grateful.