What Time is On Time?

I was once asked that question in a job interview. For that interview, I had shown up about ten minutes early at this man's martial arts Dojo for the interview, and my potential boss had shown up to open the doors about five minutes late, according to my watch. So, since he knew I was coming for the interview, it sure seemed like a dick move for him to not be on time himself, especially because it was raining that day. But the way he explained his feelings on being “on time” completely erased that feeling. According to him, it's a sign of respect to be early. The subtext is that your employer's time is more valuable than yours. As hard as that may be on your ego to think about, it's hard to disagree with. He's the one cutting the check. The Sensei told me how how he did occasional stunt work on movies. He would always show up a minimum of four hours early and wait. His scene could be in the afternoon, and he'd show up bright and early in the morning. All that waiting paid off for him, because the director knew that he could count on him. Knowing that you are the first person on someone's mind, especially when that person is making things like job or casting decisions, you can't put a price on that.

I remember the first time I heard time being described as something other than time. It was on my ill-fated few days at Vector Marketing, AKA Cutco, when I heard the phrase “Vector Time,” which meant fifteen minutes early. I've since referred to it myself as “Sales Time,” since the principal applies to any job, but sales specifically. The other person is busy, and you want something from them. So you don't keep them waiting. On time is fifteen minutes too late.

When I did Mobile DJ gigs, I would always try to show up an hour early for the gig. Note that word “try.” I didn't say “did.” The thinking is that it took about an hour to set up. Sometimes I would show up early and there'd be another gig in the same banquet hall, or just some rule, and I'd have to wait in the parking lot. I've been late, and could set up my gear in as little as ten minutes, especially if I didn't have to put on my tux. But I should have never been late. I really should have aimed to set up at least 90 minutes ahead of time for one simple reason: Murphy's Law. Whenever something can go wrong, it will. Maybe you almost forget your good shoes, or you spend a few minutes more in the bathroom than you expected. Now you're five to ten minutes late. Maybe there's traffic. Maybe there's bad weather. I remember one gig I had, before I bought a GPS, I read the Yahoo Map wrong, and confused exit 40 with go 40 miles and then take the exit. But even without that, the day was inauspicious from the start. It was a torrential downpour, and I was going way out to some part of another state I'd never even heard of. So, the smart thing to do would have been to aim for showing up two hours early, and if the trip took only a half an hour, well that's what books and iPods were made for. But, I didn't have it together, and I was late. Real late. Refund late. The customer service people at the company took the brunt of it, and it even turned out that the people I screwed up the gig for was trying to pull a fast one, asking the company for a less expensive service, but asking me personally to perform my regular service. But just because their hands weren't clean, it had nothing to do with my poor performance, and letting down a room full of people who were counting on me to do my job.

On the other side of that coin is what I call “Irish Time.” I don't say this to be prejudiced against Irish people, but the most habitually late people I know are all Irish. I dated an Irish girl, and she was always a half an hour late. At least. My brother married an Irish girl, and they literally put the wrong time on their wedding invitations because they knew her side of the family, especially her father, would never show up on time. But if you're always late, you've got a built-in excuse. They should know better than to expect you to be on time. It works better in a friendship setting than a professional setting.

But, along those lines, you pretty much have to go through the same routine, wear the same clothes for work, and take the same route. So, once you get used to getting out of bed at a particular time, it's just auto pilot. When you're going to a club, a movie, meeting your friends, going to someone's house, you have a ton of decisions to make, everything from the weather, who will be there, the chance of meeting someone new, the desire to wear those cute new shoes, and you really gotta have to coordinate that outfit, and you haven't even started on your hair. Not that I'd know anything about that. I've had the same look since 1995. Kurt Cobain may be dead, but his spirit lives on in my ugly-ass flannel and same exact style of jeans that I've worn for over a decade.

But there are times when it pays to be early. Literally. You don't want to have a doctor waiting for you, you'll just be pushed to the bottom of the list. If you're in a band and you can set up quickly, your fans won't have to wait for you. If you have a job to do, you'll have a lot more time to recover from disasters, which will, on a long enough timeline, absolutely happen. Any part that moves is a part that can break. So, if you have time to find a solution, that'll do wonders for your nerves.

Be patient. I know it's easier said than done. But be the guy who waits, and you'll find good things happening for you. I find it always helps to have an iPod with me. Helps pass the time.  

Why I'm (Almost) an Atheist

Comedian Todd Glass pretty much summed up his attitude toward atheism this way:

“I'm a hardcore atheist,” he said, “but what if I'm 100% wrong, and I get up to heaven, and God looks over my life, and says 'well, it seems you're a comedian, you've brought a lot of joy to people's lives, you've given money and time to charity, and you've been a devoted family man. You've done a lot of good things with your life,” then, Todd Glass, taking an exaggerated, sarcastic tone, said, “But you didn't do it for me!”

Both Penn Jillette, in his book “God, No!” and Dr. Michale Shermer, editor of Skeptic Magazine, have pointed out, in one way or another, that where and when you live, and are raised, makes for different beliefs and religions, but, there is no such thing as “Western Science,” or “Eastern Science;” if you found a way to somehow wipe out all of human knowledge, human beings may come up with different religions, different ways to deal with death, and the possibility of an afterlife, but, over a long enough period of time, we would arrive at scientific truths.

It's also kind of silly to base all your knowledge on a book. What's more, the Bible has been translated and retranslated a dozen times in a dozen languages, updated with a “second edition” (The New Testament), interpreted by different scholars in different ways, influenced by leaders, from priests to kings, copied by dictation in medieval times by literate monks, and then later became available to the masses through the printing press. And remember, the Bible started as oral tradition and history, it was in a language that nobody speaks anymore, no one can find the original copy (Indiana Jones made a go of it), and no one would be able to translate it, or barely even read it, due to the extreme age of document. This is a giant game of “telephone” that started about four thousand years before telephones were invented. And, remember, that's if you actually believe every single word of it. Remember, this is the same book that says you can't have gay sex in the same paragraph it says you can't eat shrimp. Strange how Jesus made a new covenant with God that allowed us to eat bacon and not circumcise penises, but people tend to leave out the part about, oh I don't know, loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek, not engaging in unfair banking practices...I could go on. As I'm fond of saying, the Bible says a lot of silly things.

But, book or no book, White-bearded man with a list looking down on humanity rewarding or punishing you—I call it the “Santa Claus God, I still can't help but feel there is “something” out there. I look up at the sky, and see all those stars, all those moons and planets, and just gaze in wonder. What are the chances that, of all the eons, in all the universe, there would be a planet that was just the right distance from a yellow sun, just the right chances that, out of a nearly infinite number of possibilities, the universe ended up the way it did, the planet ended up the way it did, the human race ended up the way it did, hell, even my family ended up the way it did.

What are the chances that evolution would end up with sentient life, self aware bipeds with opposable thumbs, who would design tools, figure out language, how to read and write, and so on. Intelligence was never a prerequisite for life on this planet we call “Earth,” the dinosaurs did just fine for 160 million years; there are over a million kinds of insects, and they don't seem to have much priorities in life besides eating, mating, and not dying for as long as possible (although, to be fair, that's what most of us humans want too, we just want a lot more). The odds of me existing are nearly zero. The odds of me having the brain I have, with my ADHD, my creativity, my bad habits, everything that lead me to where I am, emotionally, logically, financially, geographically, could it have gone any other way? I'll never know.

I never describe myself as an agnostic. Agnostics are just people who can't make up their minds. On the spectrum, I'm closer to a hardcore atheist than a Fred Phelps, or suicide bomber hardcore believer. Most people pick and choose their religious beliefs like belief was a Chinese menu (let's see, I'm pro-bacon, I'm pro-birth control, but homosexuality is a sin).

So when I look at all that history, when I get reflective looking up at the stars in the sky, I can't help but think the God I believe in is probability. Can you pray to that kind of God? Well, think about this: before a big sporting event, you say “good luck,” and afterward, the winner will usually thank God. Childbirth today is an ordeal that is more scientific than religious, what with the disinfected sheets, the pain killers, the experienced doctors and nurses, all good things to do the most natural thing in the world, all to make a tiny miracle, so everyone can say “our baby is healthy, thank God.”

Also on the subject of prayer, another comedian, Marc Maron, has pointed out that even saying “What the Fuck!” can be a carthartic, even religious, experience. So, by that token, you can say that prayer is more to make yourself feel better, and, like most placebos, it can be a good thing, under the right circumstances. Even when you pray for someone else. I saw a poster once, referring to the war in the Middle East, that proclaimed “operation prayer shield.” A nice though, but I'd rather our troops have body armor than our thoughts and prayers.

I don't believe in a God who makes “everything happen for a reason.” I believe that it's up to me to make meaning from every bad thing that happens, to learn from every mistake as best I can. No one's whispered the right answers in my ears so far. But, who can you thank, if not God? If God is just a force of nature, I can accept that. I don't think I have much say in the matter, whether God is a zephyr, or a Caucasian male looking down on the world making big, worldly decisions, like which country to smite, which football player to catch a ball, or who to bless after they sneeze.

So yes, I'll say “Goddamn it!” if I can't find my keys, as much as I try to avoid it, being Jewish and all, I find myself saying “Jesus!” occasionally, or maybe a shortened “jeez!” although, I usually say “What the Fuck!”

What Are Manners?

What are manners?

What are good manners, and what are good manners for? This may sound like too obvious a question, but I think it's one of those things that we take so much for granted, it's worth exploring.

When I was younger, my mother would tell me to do things, like cut my food with the knife in my right hand, then put the knife down, and eat with my right hand, instead of eating with the fork in my left hand, which was something I could do when I was younger. One day, I looked down, and I noticed I was cutting my steak, then putting the knife down. I was told that was good manners. But, I think that either my mom, or my memory, was wrong. I don't care which fork or spoon goes on which side. At best, it falls under etiquette, not manners, but I think they both have a “stuff” connotation. So let's push aside the stuffiness and instead, let's break down manners into two categories: Things you do to other people, and things that are done to you.

Things that are done to are pretty easy to recognize as bad manners, but we don't often call them that. When someone pulls up next to you at a red light, his radio blasting profanity-filled music, the windows rolled down in his Suburbo-Monstromobile, your first thought probably isn't “boy that guy sure is being rude and inconsiderate.” You call that person an asshole. And while I could parse out all the different subtleties between being an asshole, a dick, a cunt, or any other nickname of choice, all these are are adult words for a more basic concept: manners. When you think only of yourself, and not how your actions affect other people, you are being rude. I've been called “rude” on many occasions, and it always struck me as a quaint word. Not to mention nearly specific enough. So, if it helps, if someone thinks your behavior is “rude,” just think to yourself, “I'm being an asshole! And I didn't even realize it!”

Showing manners towards other people, well that's a little more tricky, because generally speaking, you don't know what the other person's limits are, and that can vary according to context, place, even how many people are in the room. I once had a conversation with a girlfriend about whether I should fart in her presence. Her view was that it showed how I could really let my guard down and be myself around her. I'm pretty confident that her view is a view shared with very few girlfriends and wives in the world. I've had friends (male friends, of course) loudly announce their farts, and I believe a small part of it is to establish that they were the “alpha male” of the room. And, I can think of another situation, where my college roommate would fart at his desk as he did his work. I honestly can't blame him. It's his room, too, and while you can disguise, minimize, or just plain hold it in when you're in a public setting, he has to concentrate on his work, not his bowels. And really, I did the same thing.

But things like farting, burping, and other basic hygienic habits are, again, pretty easy to understand and handle, in a professional setting. Because those limits are set out pretty early. When you're ten, you flaunt your disregard for those rules, and, in most cases, we grow out of them, because nothing will cause you to clench your asshole quite like having a lot of responsibilities dropped on your shoulders.

I've already brought up “sales time,” which is the concept that you supplicate, at least temporarily, to show that you value the other person's time more than your own. (Ironically, a good salesman will supplicate before a pitch meeting, then immediately establish his dominance.) Why would anyone wear a tie, or, for that matter, a suit, particularly, when you consider how impractical it is to wear a suit, tie and jacket in all but the most specific climate controlled conditions. And certainly there is a case to be made on the environmental benefits of not having to crank up the A/C or heat for the comfort of people wearing uncomfortable clothes. But be honest, it may take a lot more work to put on a cleaned and pressed suit, tie and jacket, than say throw on a ratty tee shirt and sweats, but you know you look better in the suit. So, just like showing up on time, it's a matter of respect towards your boss, coworkers, or whoever you're with, to be a little less comfortable for the benefit of the people who have to look at you.

So whether it's a social convention, like ties, or maybe looking down at the newspaper or your phone during a meal with someone, or just not paying attention when someone is talking to you, try to think first, how would it feel if someone did that to you? And it's entirely possible that you'd be okay with it. But then, second, realize this person is not you. They don't necessarily share your values, or have clued you in on what they are. This is why you should overdress for a job interview, and dress like the boss when you get the job.

So, as the classical philosophical argument goes, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. And those are manners. In some cases, those social expectations are clearly laid out, and sometimes, less so. But you navigate life as best you can, learn how to read people, and, in just about every case...you're better off holding in that fart till you get to the bathroom.

Know the Difference Between Leaning on Your Friends and Treating Them Like “The Help.”

Life is hard. That's kind of a given. And sometimes, you just can't make it on your own. It's important to recognize that, but there's a second corollary to that. Learn the difference between leaning on your friends for a hand, and when you need a professional to help you. This can be any kind of help: moving a couch, borrowing money, asking for advice, anything. But, sometimes there's just too much load, and you need a professional. When you need to buy a house or a car, you need a bank. Sometimes you need to see a real therapist, and if that still isn't enough, maybe you need medication.

People want to help. If they care about you, they'll be willing, even happy, to help you as much as they can. But, there comes a tipping point. That's where the “as much as they can” comes into play. The average person only has a limited amount of resources: things like time, money, and patience, are finite resources. How about physical strength, a moving van, or specialized skills that take years to learn, like being a doctor or lawyer? The simple fact is, people are only human. They have their own lives to worry about, their own responsibilities, like work, their family, their hobbies. Sometimes, they just can only help so much, and that has nothing to do with them personally, or even has anything to do with you. It has to do with the scope of your problems.

It may cost you some money. It may take a bigger psychological investment than you first want. Maybe you'll have to push yourself, physically or mentally, further than you expected. Maybe you'll even have to make a schedule, rather than just call a friend whenever you feel like it. But you'll get a better result from someone whose job it is to do whatever you need help with, than doing it on your own, or just with someone who has a free moment to help you.

But the result, be it bigger muscles, skill with an instrument, or a car that works again, is only half of it. The first half is knowing that tipping point. If you reach it, you'll start alienating your friends, and they'll want to help you less. If you're going through some rough times, and you're calling your friends left and right, rehashing the same problem, sometimes they'll just start rolling their eyes, or start asking “what do you want me to do about it?” Even worse than that, if you don't realize how far you're going, you might go way past the line and start taking your frustrations out on the very people who want to help the most.

Life, when you get right down to it, involves a series of compromises. And no one's keeping score. You might “owe someone a favor,” but unless you're a mob boss, you're not going to write that favor down in some book and cash it in later like it was a savings bond. Friendship, even romantic relationships, is an informal series of good things you do, and good feelings you share. It's closer to making a soup than it is riding a see-saw with one action being followed by an immediate and equal reaction. But, when the weight is too much on one side, that feeling starts to creep in. It may be dramatic, such as laying down an ultimatum or even fully breaking up with someone, or it could be a little more subtle.

But you never want to have that phone call that goes “every time you call you, it's always about how terrible your life is! Do you even know what's going on in my life? Have you even asked?” You can be on the verge of killing yourself, and it'll snap you into realizing what an asshole you're being.

Maybe you've been dealt a bad hand in life. It could be your life circumstances, it could be the way your brain is wired, it could be anything. But just remember, you can't always get by with a little help your friends. Sometimes, you need some “Help!”

The Person You Don't Want To Be

It's a question with infinite possibilities. There are no right answers. And I'm not just talking about what kind of job, I mean what you do with your life, the entirety of it. Rock star, plumber, carpenter, heiress, dominant, submissive, husband, father, what do they all have in common? You can't do them on your own. You can be a musician without a band, but you need an audience, preferably a paying one; any kind of skilled trade, you need training, apprenticeship, licenses, and finally, customers; want to be born rich? Too late; Want to be kinky? You can fantasize all you want, but if someone doesn't play along, you're not a Dom, you're an asshole, and hopefully not a rapist, or you're not a sub, you're a victim waiting to happen; spouse or parent? Well, you definitely need someone else's approval for that to happen.

But, what can you do, what can you be, when you only answer to yourself? The only thing you can do is start checking things off your list. Life will have twists and turns. You might want to be a writer, an athlete, an astronaut, a doctor, and any number of things can stop you in your tracks, from unexpected responsibilities, injuries, or just realizing out one day that you changed your mind. On the other hand, you can decide what you don't want to be. You don't choose to be a homosexual, but you do decide you're not going to live a dishonest, closeted, life. You can cross off careers that aren't for you, whether you've tried them or not. You can decide what kind of music you don't like. You can make a decision as to what kind of relationships you don't want, what opportunities are worth turning down, or, decide to stop being a person who is afraid to take risks. No one chooses to be an addict, but you can decide enough is enough, and it's time to change. It may be harder than you think it is, but you can be a recovering, or recovered addict. You make a decision to not be that person anymore. You become someone else. You may have the same memories of that person, but you won't think like him anymore. Eventually.

The person I don't want to be? I don't want to be the kind of person who hurts people. I don't want to be the kind of person that betrays people. I don't want to be closed-minded, live a life where I define myself by a piece of paper, I don't want to be in my thirties and still living at home. Oh wait, that last part? That requires someone else's permission, it requires money. But it also requires drive, commitment, budgeting, setting priorities, letting go of your deep-seated roots, it requires accepting living with less, it requires confidence that yes, you can take care of yourself, it requires not being afraid. All of those qualities I just mentioned...they don't depend on anyone else. They require me to have a mindset that I can accomplish a goal that is both enormous and every day. It means I must not be the person I was when I was twenty five. Or twenty seven. Or twenty nine. There will be setbacks. I refuse to let them set me back.

So I know the person I don't want to be. I don't want to be socially awkward. I don't want to be lazy. I don't want to be out of shape. I don't want to wander through life without a purpose. I don't want to go against what I know is right for me. I want to be a writer, and that means not doing a host of other things that I once thought I'd be good at. I don't want to spend my day dicing around on the internet looking at girls when I should be looking for jobs. I don't want to be I don't want to cling to stupid principals, like wanting to sleep late, or having a short commute, or not wearing a tie, or even refuse to take medication that I know I need. Grow the fuck up. I don't want to live in a state of suspended adolescence any more. And the only thing stopping me is me. I don't want to be that person anymore.

There Really Is No Try

You don't have to know the difference between Dagobah and Bajor to have heard the phrase “do, or do not, there is no try.” But even the biggest Star Wars fan has said “I'm trying.” But, you have to really examine that phrase to see how true it is. Yoda never said “Perfectly, you must do it, the first time,” or “Within you, the power already is.” (He's a Jedi Master, not a Good Witch of Oz”) No, what he said was just this: You do, or you don't. When you say “I'm trying,” you're just making excuses for your failure. Your failure to practice, your failure to believe in yourself, and yes, your failure to execute. Yoda is a process guy, not a results guy. He's always about training, about self-discipline, about preparing for all possible outcomes, even the bad ones.

Try watching a baby as he learns to walk and talk. Now there's someone for which there is no try. He makes sounds and faces with his mouth, as he learns what his own body is like, and what reactions he gets. He'll take a few steps, walk, then fall. Sometimes he'll cry, sometimes he'll get downright determined and get right back up, just to take a few steps more. He's not “trying” to walk, he's walking!

Ever try something new and completely screw up? That's OK. Ask Albert Einstein, who said “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” This is the same man who said “It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”

It's important to break down your goals into small, achievable steps, so you don't get overwhelmed by the fact that you're not achieving the results you want yes. If you do, you're better off than someone who didn't. Because who learns from doing nothing? You don't have to succeed every time, nor do you even have to achieve the results you set out to do before hand, if you recognize opportunities. (How many scientific breakthroughs started as complete accidents?) Once you can tell the difference between “trying” and “learning,” you'll learn... there really is no try.  

The Three Types of Salesmen.

I've come to the conclusion that there are three basic types of sales people: The first cultivates long-term relationships, and builds trust over time; the second will treat you like you're their best friend, then drop you like a bad habit once they get what they want from you; and the third are outright scammers.

An example of the first is Ben, my sister's husband. He's a great guy. I see the way he treats his children. He loves them, he makes time for them, whenever there is a problem, he is firm and doesn't lose his cool. He is a little scatterbrained at times, and I've seen my sister lose her temper at him, but deep down, she must love the guy to death. He owns the family business, which is selling travel-sized toothpaste, shaving cream and the like in getaway kits or gift sets. His clients, or potential clients, are big name chains like Walmart. Since he is often the representative of his company, it's to his advantage to keep his name, and his company's name, in high prestige.

The second type comes from the carny tradition; they'll make you love them, but as soon as you've bought what they're selling, they have to move on to the next potential mark—I mean customer. It makes for sad mental conditioning, as they don't necessarily make deep connections in their personal lives. At least from the ones I've known. The one I knew best was Chace. Even though I knew him since high school, I hesitate to call him a friend, since being a friend requires trust, and I never trusted him. Every time I did, I always ended up getting let down. With me, the situation that kept repeating itself was this: He would get me in some bad situation, I would react, or usually overreact, and then he'd put the whole thing on me. It's that slippery sense of being able to be able to deny all responsibility for anything bad that happened if someone else makes the slightest mistake.

The most striking example of getting someone to love you until you get what you want, then dropping them was his own marriage. I can't say he married too young. He had lived on his own since he was 18, and had plenty of girlfriends in his time. The girl he married also had plenty of boyfriends, good and bad, and they really seemed to compliment each other. So, they knew what they wanted, and they wanted each other. Great. Happily ever after right? Well, then they had a baby. They probably should have waited a few years before that one. I don't exactly know the details, but, the short version is that he just dropped a total bombshell that he no longer loved his wife and wanted a divorce. I helped him move out the week after. I didn't see much of his soon-to-be ex-wife, but she was there, with the support of her family, and she had a very bitter look to her. I can't say I blame her. Now, he says he never cheated on her, but when the same “friend” that helped him unpack was later listed on his Facebook page as his girlfriend, you draw your own conclusions. Here's the real kicker: the last time I saw him, he had just come from a custody hearing. He was awarded weekend custody of his child. “I got exactly what I wanted,” he said with a smile. Now I don't have kids, and I've never been married, but I'm pretty sure when you leave family court, you're not supposed to get “exactly what you wanted.” Since he moved, I've heard from him maybe half a dozen times. Every time, he wanted something from me, usually to show up at some show he was doing. I've done my last favor for that guy.

Which brings us to the third kind: the outright liar. The scam artist. I've covered this some in an earlier essay, but I'll go into more detail here. The most famous con artists are household names: Ken Lay, Bernie Madoff, Prince whatshisname of Nigeria. But the thing is, there are smaller pyramid schemes and con artists, and they put out ads in the paper or on Craig's List every day. Sometimes they attach themselves to a cause, something difficult to disagree with like clean water, or curing cancer; sometimes they'll sell an over-powered and expensive product, like a vacuum cleaner or blender that really has no residential use at all. Sometimes, they just panhandle.

I applied one time to the Citizens Campaign for the Environment. It seemed like a charitable notion: mobilize the community, get support, signatures, you didn't need to get any money. It sounded like being part of a democratic club or something. Well, my brother told me how ten years prior, he had worked for the same company, and all they did was get in a van, go to some rich suburban neighborhood and shake down old ladies for money. At the end of the day, he made a big stink about it being a scam in front of everyone. He told me to stay away from them, so I did.

Then, about six months later, I answered an ad about promoting clean electricity. I had done a final paper for one of my classes on clean electricity. The job was in Manhattan, not Westchester. I figured it was different. Well, it turned out the only thing different was that, instead of going door to door, they stood around in Time Square or Union Square, or wherever, and flagged down people asking for “support.” Well, so much for that.

Over the next four or five years I gained some real work experience, and so, when I wanted to try moving to another state, I secured a job as a product representative. Unlike the sales job I was doing at the time, there was a base pay, and I didn't have to worry about setting up appointments. I would come into someone's house, demonstrate the product, and either they'd buy or they wouldn't. If my other job was anything to go on, they'd probably get some kind of gift for their time. Well, it turned out, I was lied to. Plain and simple.

There was no base pay. But, if you went a certain number of demos without making a sale, you'd get some compensation money. How do you get appointments? By going door to door offering a “free room cleaning.” Or, by handing out cards offering a chance at a free prize of some kind. What I knew for sure is that the people who turned in those cards would get sales calls, and that giving out those cards on private property, such as supermarkets, was against store policy, so I got shooed away on more than one occasion. I felt pathetic.

The job itself called for getting into the office early in the morning, then some motivational yelling. Yes, motivational yelling. “What do we sell? KIRBY! KIRBY KIRBY!” It was exactly the sales bullshit and groupthing/sportsthink that I had tried so hard to avoid. I remember a sales strategy tip that the person who made the most sales would get some kind of free trip. It was a good idea to pass along this information to the mark—I mean customer, so they'd identify with you. The instructor literally came out and said to the sales team, “they'll buy if you say you want to win a contest, they won't buy if you say you need to pay your rent.” And of course, even though you started early, you had to stay late, because most of the sales would happen after people got off of work, after 6:00. I got a sinking feeling, and fast, but I didn't see any other options. You know, with that whole trying to move thing, and I couldn't just turn around and head back to New York for a few weeks. Then, just when I thought things couldn't get worse, my car broke down.

A few months later, I had indeed moved back to New York, and was looking for jobs. I answered an ad, and by the time I had the interview set up, I could tell from a mile away this was a scam. But this time, I knew their tricks. I was free. I had absolutely nothing to lose. So I tried an experiment: I would intentionally bomb the interview. I would see just how far I could push the boundaries and still see if they needed warm bodies to fill up the lower rungs of their pyramid. I came in completely unprepared. I filled out a questionnaire and some forms. Q: How much did I know about the company? A: Nothing. Q: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? A: Not yet. I told the guy a story that I was on trial for statutory rape. The only way I could have looked like I gave any less of a fuck is if I showed up for the interview in my pajamas. He said I was the first person to ever answer those questions honestly.

What a fucking scam.

Any Second..Something Terrible Is About To Happen

Your life is a ticking time bomb. It is only a matter of time before something will go terribly horribly, wrong. It'll happen more than once in your life, and it'll get progressively more severe the older you get. Your beloved pet could die. You could get a horrible disease, be arrested, justly or unjustly, lose all your money, have your spouse leave you suddenly, or die, you could lose your job, or your house could be foreclosed on. When faced with these intractable problems, the only thing you can do is deal with it. That's it. Live with the pain. You can want to “give up” but really, that option doesn't exist. Think about what happens when you lose your car keys. You have to tear through the house looking for them. You throw your hands up in the air and say “where are they?” You just say, “I give up.” But...can you really? Your keys are still lost, you can't just appeal to a higher authority or wish them into your hands. You gotta rethink the problem, look somewhere you haven't looked, or double check somewhere you have, and sooner or later you'll find them. Or what? You'll break down in heap and cry? Slit your wrists? Transform into a butterfly and fly away? Go into your time machine?

So let's get back to our problem. Our problem is called life, and the strange thing about it is, it can always be worse. And the less you have, the more grateful you are to have it. Everything you have is something you can lose. Can anyone realistically prepare themselves to lose everything they love in life? Of course not. But you have to realize that everything outside your own mind and your own body is an accessory. Not just material possessions, but girlfriends, wives, your job, you can lose it all. But it's all secondary to your mental health and well-being. Even more so than your physical well being. For example, while it's not a life I'm jealous of, Steven Hawking has one of the greatest scientific minds on the planet earth, caged in a body that can barely move more than his eyeballs.

The only thing that cannot be taken away from you, at least not with without some major trauma, is your sense of self, your abilities, your memories, your aspirations. No matter how low I feel, I can always look up to the sky and see the moon. Unless I go to jail, no one can take that away from me. I've got ten fingers and ten toes. I bet you do too. I can sell my guitar, but no one can take away my love for music, and my skills at playing (even if they do get a little rusty without practice.)

Everyone loves a story of redemption. How many actors or musicians have had their careers blow up in a fiery ball of doom, but came back a decade or so later? How many times has Donald Trump gone bankrupt? (I think it's four. Does he have some kind of deal that whenever he gets out of bankruptcy he also gets a new wife?) Whatever happens, you have to be strong, because you don't have a choice. That doesn't mean you can't have help. It doesn't mean you can't seek out ways to deal with the problem, be they psychiatric help, a night on the town to take your mind off your problems for a while, maybe if you want to meet someone and the bar isn't your thing, there's always online dating; there's always the library. Just know when you're crossing the line between “retail therapy” and “hoarding,” between “having a bad day” and “being a dick to everyone.” Know your limits, but also know that you will be pushed beyond them whether you're ready for them or not. Know that limits you accept are a figment of your imagination, And if you push hard enough, for long enough, anything is possible.

A girl can give you her body, but you can never own her emotions

I've learned from painful experience that you cannot control someone else's emotions. You cannot turn them off. You can never assume they will not be fluid. They will change. How you feel one moment can change, and change suddenly. There is no logic behind emotion. They are polar opposites. And you simply have to accept that, and work within those boundaries. You cannot control how someone else feels. In fact, it's almost impossible to control your own feelings. Sometimes, you can see something, or smell something, or be reminded of something in a conversation, and before you know it, you're feeling anxious, or depressed, or happy and excited.

What you can control is the way you act on your own feelings, and how considerate you are of others' feelings.

I've struggled for years to just figure out how other people think, how other people feel, how other people just plain function in the world, because my mind is just so different than everyone else's.

As near as I can figure, good therapy helps to figure out why you feel a certain way, so you can act ON the thing making you feel that way, rather than act OUT, and do something stupid and impulsive. It's rarely one thing that makes you do one other thing. It's the buildup of tension that makes you flip out, act out, act rash, say angry or hurtful things. You can get yourself into a negative feedback loop if you keep telling yourself how shitty things are for you. Or, just as easily, you can stop, take a breath, and realize, "this too shall pass."

There are a number of examples that stick out in my mind of looking for a way to vent frustration, even in an unhealthy way. One of the times that sticks out was when I got my car towed. I had been in The City auditioning for a New Year's gig. I made it clear to the host that I had to be out by 11, since they'd tow my car at 11. I said that as a figure of speech, I didn't think they'd literally tow my car at 11. Anyway, I got my spot switched with someone, so I played at 11:40 instead of 11:20, and I came to my car at about 11:02. Or maybe 11:04. Or maybe 11:06. Well, by every reasonable measure, if I met you for dinner, you wouldn’t say I was “late.” New York City cops? Well, they aren’t so forgiving. By the time I got to my car, it was already on the truck. We’re not talking about cops heading out for the night and I was the first on the list, they must’ve been waiting down the block counting the seconds. But, whatever the case, I was good and rightly fucked. I didn’t even have my jacket, I left it in the car because the club was so warm, even though it was a cold, November night.

So, despite my pleas, the only thing the cops could do is shrug their shoulders and say “get it at the pound.” Now, here comes wonder of decentralization. The guy who towed my car? He’s gone, and he’s just doing his job anyway (funny, that line worked so well at Nuremberg). The cop who wrote the ticket? Well, I shouldn’t have been late. The people behind the desk at the tow pound? They’re just trying to help, don’t give them any guff.. Basically the whole situation everybody's got one part in it, so no one person can give you a break. Of course, they do take their sweet fucking time.

So, you wait. There’s no option to do otherwise. You just wait. And pay the $185 to get your car back, and you still owe that ticket, don’t forget. There is nothing you can do about it. Period. End of story. You’re just fucked.

So, at my absolute lowest, I act out. I called up my girlfriend and started screaming at her. I was so low at that point that I just wanted a reaction. I wanted to make her cry, or feel bad, or just something awful, and maybe the worst part of it is:  I even knew it while it was happening. That's low. To hurt someone, and know you're doing it...to someone you love? I apologized the next day, but... It was wrong. She may have forgiven me, or at least said she did, but it's still wrong.

(Side note: I never paid the actual parking ticket, I pleaded "Not guilty," sent in the form, and never heard back from anyone.)

But there are other ways that I thought I could control her emotions, and again, usually in a way that favors me. One Valentine's Day, I didn't get her anything. I said ahead of time that I wasn't going to. But... why? Do I have something against Valentine's Day? Did I think it was alright that just because I was in this Dominant role, and she's submissive, well...Dominant doesn't mean being a dick, it means taking care of someone. And maybe she didn’t need roses, or an expensive, crowded restaurant , but the truth is, I should have done something. It could have been something small. It could have been something within that role, like a set of handcuffs, or a toy, but...I was just being an asshole, and I thought I could get away with it. When she called me on it, I took her shopping for shoes, but the truth is, it was a half-hearted measure, and also one that I didn't make clear was for a gift. Next time, I'll get something ahead of time. Just like you buy a Halloween costume ahead of time. Maybe it won’t be a surprise, and I’ll show what I’m thinking of getting ahead of time. Maybe I’ll play it safe that way. But, whatever it is, I'm not going to hide behind some role. Valentine’s Day might be an over commercialized, artificial holiday, but so what? Show you appreciate someone. Show that they’re who you want.

When you make someone feel that they aren't enough, well, it hurts. You can't make it not hurt, you can only not do it. If you're the boyfriend who always pushes for a threesome, or always wants your girlfriend to be just a few pounds thinner, or tries to change the way a girl behaves, thinks, feels... it isn't going to happen, or if it does, the change won't be the way you want it. Maybe you can get your girlfriend to quit smoking. If you’re into a certain sport, game, movie, whatever, you can get to like it too. I think that's about as far as any person can change another person.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise when she wanted to grow, and I didn't want her to, that I acted out. I wanted her to stay in this little box, and she dumped me and called me abusive. Was I abusive? I don't think so, but she had been abused in the past, and she was sensitive. I, on the other hand, was insensitive to her needs, and kept on doing what I was doing, even though now I knew it was hurting her. Maybe she realized that she wasn't going to change me. She did the right thing.

You can't force someone to love you. You can't even force someone to hate you. You can, of course, through your actions, cause someone to do either. Under the best of situations, you can make someone happy by just being yourself. But, you have to be your best self. You do have to put some work into it. People can forgive you if you slip up, but you can't be at your worst all the time. If you want someone to love you, make them happy. If you want someone to hate you, make them unhappy. Getting any more specific than that...well there's no trick to it. Just be your best self. No matter how someone feels at one time, they won't feel that way forever.

So don’t take someone for granted. Don’t make a calculated risk that you can treat someone like shit, and they won’t find someone better. Don’t make someone take the bad with the good any more than you have any control over. Just don’t play with someone’s emotions. Be genuine, make them feel safe, make them feel secure, and the rest will mostly fall into place. 

Hotness by the numbers

I remember in high school, I complained to a friend that if gelled up my hair, wore different clothes, and acted differently, that I wouldn't be myself, and I wanted a girl who liked me for me. He told me bluntly that if I wanted someone to like me for me, don't expect her to be hot. Time has proven him right.

But the pool was too small. Remember this was just high school. There were about 100 people in my grade, and I could barely consider dating a girl outside my grade, let alone another school. So I had a pool of about 100 people, do the math, we've got about 50 girls, of which let's say the top half I longed for, and the other half I more or less ignored. That makes for about two dozen hot girls. And of course I had no idea what I was doing.

But take a few years out, you've experienced college, maybe some work, maybe you've discovered your strengths in meeting people, be it on the internet, going to nightclubs, or just saying hello to people on the street. You've also got about five years age difference either direction, so that translates to ten years, even more if you're the adventurous type. And you've got a car or know how to use public transportation. Let's say you put a limit of about a half hour drive on how far you'll go to meet someone, and maybe 45 minutes to an hour if the girl really has something special to offer. So now you've got a huge pool to go after.

The next step is to change your standards. I didn't say lower them, I said change them. There's a reason most high school students fit into neat categories like “nerd,” “jock” “mean girl” and “goth loner.” Sure, you may say to yourself, you're more than (fill in stereotype here), but the fact is, you're not. You're in high school. You have the same petty concerns as every other teenager. You have no life experience. All you know is safely insulated behind the walled garden that is high school. I saw beyond high school, I knew it was all bullshit, and I was labeled, not to my disapproval, “The Enigma.” I'm sure every other high school had an enigma, too. So, you don't have much character to judge girls by. Only their looks. You're young, you're horny, girls seem like they're from another planet with a different way of talking, thinking, and oh God do you want them. Because that's all you see is what's right in front of you.

But now you're older. You're independent. Once you establish a certain threshold of attractiveness, you have the luxury of not being so shallow. You can judge a girl not by how she looks, but how she looks at you. Whether she makes you feel loved, appreciated, and special, or if she's just another bitch that gives you a hard time. I have some news for you: if every girlfriend you have is a hot girl, but she treats you like shit, maybe it's about time you changed you stopped looking at girls who look good on your arm and start focusing girls that warm your heart. They're out there. Even for a shithead like you. You might have to actually learn to accommodate, to compromise, to have a little ambition instead of playing X-Box all day. But you don't have to gel your hair.

I always tell girls, “I'm good, but I'm not nice.” It pretty much sums up what I have to offer. I've come to the conclusion there are no nice guys. There are the guys who are nice because they want something from the girl, and there are the guys who stand in the corner, jealously watching, and never understanding how girls keep going out with guys who treat them like shit. Well, maybe they make the girl feel good by having a little fun flirting with her; maybe she likes bad boys, because that sense of danger turns her on a little bit. Or maybe that guy had the balls to go up to the girl and say “hey nice shoes, they'd look great pointed toward my ceiling,” and you just stood there wishing, so you tell yourself you're a nice guy, but what you really are is too shit scared to make a move.

So stop being so shallow. Stop being so “nice.” Stop making excuses. If you like rock climbing, find a girl who likes climbing rocks. If you like playing World of Warcraft, yeah, there are nerdettes are out there, but no one's going to bust down your door and offer themselves to you. At least start with an online profile. But.. you know, you gotta leave the house sooner or later.

Whether you realize it right away or not, you do have tools at your disposal, but you have to learn how to use them, and how best to play to your strengths. And I haven't even started on the way you act, stand, talk, make eye contact. Strap yourself in, you're gonna fail, and you're gonna fail hard, but keep at it until you get it right. But you can't even do that until you take the first step. Which is to get some hair gel.  

If it Quacks Like A Pyramid Scheme.....

Entry level marketing. Sounds innocuous enough. It's bullshit. They prey on the fact that you don't have the experience to know any better. They go by different names: “MLM,” “Management Training,” (…) . Some of them provide a legitimate product, like kitchen or home tools; some of them just panhandle. They're always hiring because that's how they work. You can pretty much sniff them out just by their language. They tease you with promises of “unlimited potential,” or maybe when you reach a certain level you'll get a free car or a vacation to some island paradise. You can expect at least one of those motivational posters with a picture of a mountain cliff, or maybe hands clasped together showing the importance of teamwork. They make it sound easy. They'll definitely want you to go on a “Day of O” or “Day of Observation.” This is basically a day of unpaid training where most people wash out because they realize what it is. Some people have a knack for bullshit, and they become successful. I haven't met anyone who has yet, but they must be out there. It's a proven business model: let someone else do the work.

One thing to keep in mind about the recruiters is: they are great salesmen. It's what they do. But, unlike, say, a car salesman, what they are selling is the job itself. And the are good. They wouldn't have the job if they weren't. Whether they're chopping vegetables, talking about how much money they save families on their mortgage, or making it sound like you're just collecting money for some organization that gets cute kittens out of trees, they make it sound fun, worthwhile, maybe even easy. They make you think “I want to do that! I really could use that knife, or at least my mom could,” or “I definitely want to keep kittens out of trees, I want to be part of this!” Well, they're just preying on you naïveté. (And the fact that you have nothing else on your resümé.)

One thing I've noticed about sales: It's just words. It takes invisible skills like tone of voice and reading body language. A cold reader magician will make it look like something that only he can do because he's psychic (he's not), and a good salesman can make it look so easy even you can do it (you can't, at least not without a lot of hard work.) That's the trick of it: they're just using the same words, body language, and tone that people do in every day life. You see a professional athlete, you can just look at their body, how monstrous their muscles are, or how tall they are, and say “wow, I can't do that.” You see a magician, he's got his wand, his suit, and yeah, you might have seen that special on TV on how they do it, but I'm not talking about kids' parties. When you see Criss Angel walk on water on a swimming pool, with people swimming under him, and cameras and people from a dozen angles, you know you can't do it. But sales people? Well they walk and talk just like you and me.

There are basically two types of these scams. The first is your basic, run of the mill, either go door-to-door in a rich neighborhood, or stand in a crowded area, like Times Square, holding a clipboard, and shake people down. It's all about the hustle in those situations. You're not actually selling anything of value, you're just a panhandler with a boss and a clipboard. You're one step below a squeegee guy, and you just don't know it.

The second is the inverted pyramid, best summed up with the “V” in “Vector Marketing.” I also like calling it “The Spore Method.” Basically it involves whoring out your close relatives, your friends, or their parents, and whoever they can suggest you market to as the last part of the sales pitch. Sometimes you set up house parties, like Tupperware, or the Pampered Chef, or some of those ladies-only sex toy parties. You can expect to get about two or three levels deep before you get past sympathy money and you have to do actual sales work. Some people can do it, most people can't. But the people at the top? They've already got their money. Hell, for me, I had to pony up over $100 for a set of sample knives my first day at Cutco. Supposedly, the money was completely refundable, should you decide to mail the knives back upstate, but here's what happened: At the end of my orientation – remember I hadn't done one minute of actual work, this guy who was introduced as the regional manager who had worked for the company for two weeks, (I never figured out if that was a joke), the guy was one year younger than me and dressed like Kurt Cobain, when I was wearing a suit and tie. As I was walking out the door, he was supposed to give me some shoe leather and rope, basically stuff to cut. He wouldn't give me the stuff unless I threw out the shipping box. I made the logical argument that the box was a perfect way to keep from losing any of the knives, and to boot, the garbage was halfway across the parking lot, while my car was completely across the parking lot. Logic didn't seem to penetrate for this guy, so, long story short, a shouting match ensued, and I was fired later that same day. In the few hours before I got the phone call that I was officially fired, I found out it was a lot tougher to call your family to set up an appointment than they make it sound. I did get the last laugh, though. I bought hundreds of dollars worth of knives at a steep discount, and I didn't have a box to return them in. They've worked great for me ever since.

Object Permanence

When my niece and nephew were babies, they would, as babies often do, throw things on the floor. The older members of my family would leave the plastics forks or whatever on the floor. Not only that, if we were at a restaurant, and a waiter came by to helpfully pick up a wayward fork, their parents would ask that the waiter leave the object on the floor. The reason they did this was so that the children could learn the concept of “object permanence,” the idea that if you leave something somewhere, it will stay there. This is a concept that, as adults, we learn and take for granted.

Or do we?

Other than my own babyhood learnings, my first lesson in object permanence came in college. My first year. After some squabbles with my roommate, I ended up with a room all to myself. I came back from a weekend at home to find....my room was messy.

This a bigger adjustment than you might think. When I was growing up, my mother made sure we always neatened up the house before we left on any long trip. Not only that, we had a housekeeper who came by twice a week to clean the house. So, when I came back from anything, I got used to the idea that my room would be clean and my bed would be made. Well, it didn't take more than one trip for that concept of object permanence to sink in, and I got in the habit of cleaning my dorm room before I left for home.

When you live on your own, object permanence can take a depressing turn. When you leave something somewhere, it stays there. Now that fact is well-established, but there is something depressing about how you can keep meaning to put that vacuum cleaner back in the closet, but not get to it, for no reason, other than laziness; leave a magazine on the floor of the bathroom, and there it stays. And the bathroom itself? Yeah, that's only going to get dirtier and dirtier until you clean it. But, the good news, is, once you clean it, it looks so much nicer. It doesn't clean itself, but at least you can know that the fifteen minutes you spent cleaning it was well worth it. Right now, my garage is full of things I tried to sell at a garage sale, but didn't. Now, I can either sell them on eBay or...who knows? The same could be said for some sweatshirts, I never wear.

You need to get in the habit of thinking about turnover. Merlin Mann, in his productivity speeches, talks about the concept of “inbox zero,” and having fewer distractions, fewer things you “need to get around to doing” filling up your head. I think the same thing could be said for real life. Get in the habit of cleaning up after yourself. Spend a few minutes every day or so just neatening up. Balance your checkbook. Think of your physical and mental space like a computer. A modern computer with the Internet, a trash, and a large, but not infinite hard drive capacity. It's easy to let those emails, podcasts, and web pages slowly creep up space in your hard drive. You've got enough space, you don't need to deal with it, right? Well, in the computer world, the more stuff you have on your hard drive, the slower your computer runs, and you really notice it once you fill about 90% of your hard drive. Now, there's no such exact figure in life, but let's just say that you have things you need to do, and you'll have more things that you have to do every day. So do them. Then cross them off your list. That's the quivalent of clearing your chache or your trash. And every once in a while, do a deep clean. For your computer, and your life, set aside some time to just do everything to catch up. You may have to put off some personal time, maybe some TV time, or whatever, but when it's all done, you'll be glad you did.

In terms of turnover, I think it helps to have a regular schedule. In the same way that I have a sticker on my car telling me to change my oil every 3,000 miles, I got in the habit of paying all my bills on the first of every month. I don't think about interest rates, late fees, whatever. I get a bill, I put it in the pile. The first of the month comes around, and I sit down, move my money around, and pay those bills. Maybe I'll pay them on a time-delay if I don't have the money yet, but I expect to. I check a few days later to make sure I have as much as I think I have. It's easy to think you've done something you actually forgot, or pushed the wrong button by accident and not realized it. But that's just a safeguard. The real key is the habit.

It isn't a bad idea to have “maintenance reminder” for your own life. Make sure on the first of every month, or the first weekend, or whenever is good for you as long as you do it, clean out the junk. Make a list: laundry, vacuum, clean bathroom, pay bills, etc. Your mind will work better when you stop telling yourself “I gotta get around to doing that” and you actually do it.

Any Job Worth Doing is Going to Kick Your Ass

You already know that you have to work hard to get ahead. That's a given. What I'm talking about is being successful at your craft. And your craft can be a non-traditional route like a pro athlete or some kind of artist, owning your own restaurant, or just plain working in an office. To be good at it, to get ahead, to get a real paycheck, you gotta do way more than phone it in. I don't mean just “work hard;” I mean work so hard it looks scary. I mean work that will kick your ass. Sure, you can work at Home Depot, or CVS, but if you want to be the guy in charge, well, you gotta do more than just show up on time. You gotta get used to some long hours, tired nights where you collapse as soon as you get home, and then start all over again the next day. Days where you're gonna miss something fun with your friends, or something important with your family. Maybe your girlfriend or wife will have some emotional breakdown, and you know what you're going to do about it? You're going to stay at work and do your job.

This is the difference between merely getting by and getting ahead. If you're a musician, you can play in that local cover band every Tuesday night and who knows, maybe you'll even make enough to support yourself without a day job. But if you want to be the next big thing, you gotta practice your ass off by yourself and with your bandmates, and that's only half of it. You gotta network, you gotta gig your ass off, and you'll drive so long to places you'll lose money, you're gonna have your bass player completely flake on you when you're about to play a gig opening for a major label act with a talent scout in the crowd. It's gonna happen, and you're gonna take it. You just are.

Maybe sales is your thing. Millions of people do it, it's a typical enough job. But who makes it and who doesn't? The guy who shows up for work is gonna wonder how the hell the guy at the next desk makes three times what he makes. Well here's his secret: he kicks ass. He does the follow-up and the follow-through. He takes rejection after rejection after rejection and he just takes it. He learns who's going to waste his time and who is going to make him money, and you can't teach that. You can get a few tips, but sizing up a lead in a second? Well, all it takes is 10,000 hours to learn. Better get started.

If you want to be great, like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Hulk Hogan, Lady Gaga great, well you gotta put it all out there. Family time? Yeah, look at how good Tiger Woods is with women. This is a guy who has to make his own bed in hotel rooms, because it's gotta be perfect. It's gotta be his way. Hulk Hogan was the greatest pro wrestling phenomenon of the 80's, and he had to abandon his family to do it. UFC fighters of today, they train 40 hours a week when they don't even have a fight. When they sign up to do a fight, they gotta go crazy, go away from their family, maybe go to a higher altitude to train, make weight, which can mean losing 20 pounds in a week or two. And when you're training 50 hours a week, how much more weight do you think you can lose? Oh yeah, after they do all that...then they get punched in the face.

So if you interview for a job, and what they tell you you have to do just sounds so scary you don't think you can do it, chances are you really can. You just don't to, because it sounds like work. Not just hard work, but scary hard work. Work that is going to kick your ass, and you know what? It isn't going to end. Because then you learn how to do that stuff that was originally so hard, and it becomes a breeze, and then you gotta move up. And that's gonna kick your ass, too.

When you achieve greatness, you understand greatness. Alice Cooper was the scariest heavy metal act of his day, with a huge stage show that climaxed with him getting his head chopped off with a magician's guillotine. Now he's a great golfer, almost at the pro level, and he's done some decent acting too. Justin Timberlake because one of the greatest singers and dancers in the world. Now he's an actor, and a legitimate one. And he plays golf, too. Rob Zombie went from being a rock star to a top name in horror films. He's no golfer, as far as I know, but he has written comic books.

Speaking of comic books, Kevin Smith went from visionary filmmaker, to spoken word artist, to buying a small theater, to eventually becoming a category all his own in iTunes podcasts. Any of that sound easy? And don't get me started on Henry Rollins. That man has done more in his life than ten regular Joes. And he's not even fucking slowing down.

So, just to wrap up, sometimes you gotta just pay the bills. Sometimes you don't have much in the way of options. But to be a success story, whether you're working at an office, driving a garbage truck, or trying to become a famous artist or athlete, just remember it's called a short cut because you're cutting something short. You gotta be ready to get your ass kicked. And to succeed, you gotta kick ass right back.

Accept yourself, improve yourself

It's no surprise that people become depressed, sometimes even kill themselves when they, say, get dumped, lose a job, or lose a lot of money. You build up an identity, and it's wrapped up in responsibility, in money, in material things, in the people you interact with and the things you do. All these overlapping, tightly woven strings, and when one is cut, it's easy to think everything will come loose. But keep yourself together, because it won't. Your family will love you, you'll learn to make due with less money, and so on. You are your experience. Dust yourself off, take what you've learned, and move on. People go to jail for decades, and they find redemption somehow. The people who have learned to define themselves by their future and their present, not their past, these are the heroes. Even religious people call it being “born again.” The top movie, according to IMDB, is “The Shawshank Redemption.”

It's easy to think the past mistakes have held you back. But the truth is, what holds you back is making the same mistakes over and over again. Anyone can do it, because chances are no one gives you the feedback you need. Maybe you'll have to seek out a professional, be it a therapist or a job coach, maybe even a marriage counselor, if that's what you need. Maybe you can just do it on your own, but I wouldn't count on it. Anything you have can be taken away: your house can catch on fire; someone you love can leave you. Hell, you can be arrested and lose the most valuable commodity you have: Time. But if there's one thing that time does, it is go on. Life won't wait. Whenever you have a setback, no matter how large, take a moment (metaphorically, that is - that moment could go on for months), then, accept yourself, improve yourself.

It sounds heartless, I know, but the sad part is, the universe doesn't know your name. There's no big conspiracy against you, any more than “thinking” success will bring it about. It's just life. Everyone goes through it, and no one makes it out alive. Every experience is a learning experience. If it's a mistake on your part, look at it extra hard not just to learn the obvious lessons, but the deep lessons that caused the real mistake. If it's just something that happens to you, well, that's why they call it luck. But you can still take something positive away from it if you choose. No one can take away your passions, your loves, your observations, the private things that make you chuckle at yourself. No one can take away the moon. Just look up, and there it is. It reflects as brightly on you as every one else in the world, whether they look up at it and appreciate it or not. The sun is even worse. It shines just as brightly on desolate desert sand as it does lush jungles, and just as brightly on farmers as it does air-conditioned buildings. But you, on the other hand, can choose who you shine on; you can even choose who you want to reflect back on you. So choose wisely.

You are what you do. You are not what you have done. Your past made you, but it cannot define you. You may have to face what you've done, but you're better off if you can look to the future. The future is right in front of you. You better start moving, the past is creeping up on you...right...now.

The Person You Knew is Gone

The greatest distance between two people is always time.

This works is both an objective sense, and a subjective sense. Certainly, when a friend is a five minute drive away, you'll see him more than when he's a half hour drive away. And if you have a relationship, even a long distance one, there's a difference between even a four-hour car ride and a four-hour plane ride. And similarly, two people can be busy and not be able to see each other for a while. But what I really mean is time itself. You know, the time that keeps marching on. Over time, you lose the people who are closest to you. People go off to college, get jobs, get married, have kids, move away, or even die. People change over time, priorities change, personalities change. It's a very difficult thing to hang on to a friendship for a long time, to have two people change enough in the same direction.

The past is like a walled garden: It looks inviting, but you can't go there. I look at pictures of my ex-girlfriend sometimes. I have to remind myself that the person in those photos is gone. She's changed. I even heard she's better and happier than she's been in a decade. I don't know whether to take credit for helping her, or blame myself for hurting her. She had to leave me to change. So, the person I loved more than anyone in my entire life is gone. She's someone else now. A better person. But still gone. So I end up missing someone that lives more in my memory. Maybe part of her always did.

My father changed over time. Over time, he became unhappy with his marriage, and snuck around with other women. He deliberately hid his changes from his family, and even when we saw the evidence that foreshadowed his abrupt departure, we ignored it, because we didn't see him as that kind of person. Then, all at once, he revealed himself, and bolted for the door. On the rare occasions that I talk to him, what strikes me the most isn't how he changed, but how much he hasn't changed. With his marriage an abysmal failure, you'd expect some humility, some other changes, some regret over what he's done. But instead, he's the same old Dad. Ask him about any topic, from cars, the Middle East, tax rates, he'll spout out the same factoids and know-it-all attitude that I've heard for three decades. But ask about his marriage? He'll just change the subject.

My mother, on the other hand, has changed a lot since Dad left. It hurt, and she had to look at all the things she had spent years not paying attention to. She had to relearn everything from paying bills to dating. But, she did it. It wasn't easy, but I think, at least with the dating, and with the overall emotional support, I helped. Now, she's stronger, more independent, happier, and seeing someone that really makes an effort to appreciate her, and have a good time with her. Thanks for all you've done, Dad.

You can even make a similar observation about online dating. If you talk to someone online for too long and don't meet, your imagination fills in the gaps. If it turns out that the person you eventually meet doesn't match up to your expectations, you essentially have to let go of the person you thought you really liked. The person you thought you'd be with and the person you actually meet aren't quite the same person. So, that illusion is shattered and the person you “knew” is gone.

And yes, you can say the same thing about yourself. I wouldn't recognize myself at half my age. I was full of rage, full of potential, convinced myself I knew better than everyone around me, but didn't have a clue as to how people interacted. High school is this strange world where you get rewarded academically for spending your time studying and knowing all the answers, or you get rewarded socially by ignoring your studies and hanging out with friends and girlfriends/boyfriends. At fifteen, I had all of one, and none of the other. By twenty five, I had worked so hard to fill in the gaps that fifteen-year old me had, that I had gone the other way. Now I'm thirty. After all I've been through, I don't know if my past self would even know what to make of me. The person I was is gone. Sometimes I like what I've become...sometimes not.

But in one year...five years...ten years... maybe that will all change. The person I am will be gone, replaced by a smarter, happier, more satisfied, richer (in both life and money) me. And I'll be the person I want to be. Or...maybe I won't. But I hope you'll be who you always wanted to be. And maybe reading this will help you get there faster. Your past and future self will thank you.

It's better to have nothing than less than nothing

You will be told over and over again that it's good to have a job. You can hate your job, but people will tell you it's better to have a job than not to have a job. As someone who has held rewarding but underpaying jobs, jobs that caused me nothing but heartbreak, being fired from jobs for being short-tempered, just plain not having a job at all points in between, you need to ask yourself a simple truth: What is this job costing me?

This is not a question to be taken lightly. Many people have good jobs. Perhaps you're one of them. But you have to ask yourself, what are you gaining, and what are you losing? If your job is costing you fun time with your friends, then you're missing the point. If your job works you to the bone and leaves you tired and feeling hollow, what do you get in return? Do you get a big fat paycheck? That paycheck is nice, but there's a part two: when you've got those Beatles-style blisters on your fingers, will it pay off? Or when you stop, will it all go away? It's an admirable goal to work hard for your future, but you have to make sure you're actually doing what you think you're doing. Working for the present moment is not the same. It's up to you if that's what you want, but you absolutely have to ask yourself the question, not just devote yourself to an unappreciative boss, or pay dues in the wrong direction “because it looks good on a resume.”

A resume is not you. It is not your experience. It is barely a summary of your experience. It is a concise highlight reel of where you have been. You are your experience. You carry it around with you everywhere you go. Your resume will not tell anyone what you really learned from a job. Use enough fancy language and you can make getting coffee and putting a bunch of files in alphabetized cabinets sound like you really contributed to the success of the company, rather than just be just another in a line of disposable interns.

What you really learned you will never put on your resume. You won't make any check marks next to what jobs gave you the most shit from customers and coworkers, or how you learned to put up with it. Your resume won't say if you take personal calls or check your email at work. Your resume won't say what job taught you to tune out the stupid music you had to listen to over the PA. Your resume won't say if you really have the drive to make sacrifices, or if you don't; only you know that.

Which brings me back to the question you have to ask yourself: are these sacrifices a worthwhile gift to your future self, or are they just made in vain? There are sales jobs where they literally pay you nothing unless you make them money first. With gas, tolls and lunch, you might be out thirty dollars before you get out of bed in the morning. There are jobs where, as lucrative as they make it seem in the interview, you're just part of a big pyramid scheme, or some other scam, and you might realize it, and you might not. We're not talking about petty principals like “working for the man” or “having to wear a suit,” we're talking about jobs that literally will not reward your hard work, or are morally reprehensible. Remember, they don't have to give a shit, because they can find ten people just like you in a day, but you can't take back whatever you give up for that job until you quit, and you have to weigh the consequences of quitting too.

Not easy questions are they? But when someone tells you, “it's better to have a job than to not have a job,” well, they're talking about a different time. Jobs today aren't like they were thirty years ago, when you could work your way up in a company for decades, get good medical benefits, and all those other relics of a bygone era. A job either makes you money, or makes you lose money. And I'm not just talking about not being reimbursed for gas and tolls, either. If a job doesn't have enough hours and high enough pay, and it's costing you opportunities at better jobs, you're losing. But, if a job that works you too hard, and isn't in the field that interests you, and ends up taking away not just from hobbies, but from your real passion, or costs you opportunities to further the career you really want, you're losing. If you're losing, you need to get out, and get out fast. Other responsibilities are going to pile up fast. You're gonna look at that fat bank account and buy a big screen TV or a fast car; you're going to start dating, get marries, have kids. You're gonna have to pay those bills, or, even worse, have people depending on you, and you'll be more entrenched.

I'm not talking about giving up dreams to have a life of humble accomplishment. God loves the common man, that's why he made so many of them. I'm talking about not believing in bullshit that passes for common sense. Maybe once it was common sense, but it's not any more. It's not bullshit to hit the eject button when you can't get ahead. Stop pushing yourself further into the big muddy. Find a different path. Take what you've learned, write it in a stupid blog, and move on.  

The Kindness of Strangers (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Keep My Middle Finger On The Steering Wheel)

The Kindness of Strangers (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Keep My Middle Finger On The Steering Wheel)

I was riding my bicycle once, when I saw a car make an illegal left turn, and was now heading towards me. Keep in mind, we were in opposite lanes, so I was in no danger of being run over. But, he did make an illegal turn, and, with no police officer to pull him over, I dutifully gave him the one-fingered salute.

About an hour later, I was walking my bike across a busy intersection, when I turned my head and realized that the light had turned green. I was now in the way of traffic. Angry at myself, I yelled “fuck!” at the top of my lungs and hurried the rest of the way across the street. I got to the other side of the street, got on my bike, and started pedaling. Behind me, I heard a driver yell out his window “hey! Fuck you too!” I didn't even turn my head or slow down.

It occurred to me as I rode down the street the silliness of it, the pointlessness of the interaction. What was I going to do, turn around, follow the guy, and say “I'm sorry, kind sir, but that loud exclamation was directed at myself, not towards you, and I humbly apologize if I offended your constitution in any way.” No, he had gone his way, and I had gone mine.

If I had to guess, the guy who made that left turn had the same reaction to me as I did towards the second driver...none. As surely as he failed to see, or care about, the no-left turn, I'm sure he didn't see me. But, even if he did, I think it's a pretty safe bet that, upon seeing me, he didn't think to himself, “Gee, maybe it's about time to reexamine my lifestyle choices.”

So why even bother? There's no real interaction when it comes to driving or biking. You're in one of two modes: ignoring, or open hostility. It's very binary, and very much a one-way communication. At best, you'll get a wave to say “whoops!” and that only moves you in the mind of the other driver from the category of “fucking asshole” to “fucking idiot.”

You could make a similar argument over breaking the rules of grammar, and your mental, or even out-loud, attempts to correct someone else's spelling, writing, or speaking. It's really pointless when you get right down to it. The other person communicated something, you understood it, even if it burns your brain that you had to do some of the thinking for them. When it comes to correcting someone else's grammar who did specifically ask for it, you're kind of limited to your own children and your immediate family members under the age of twelve. After that, you just gotta cringe and suck it up.

The real root of this frustration comes from a sense of unfairness. You see a person breaking a rule and getting away with it. Or perhaps you're right about something and someone else is wrong.

Either way, what you really wish for is some higher power (be it God, a judge, a cop, whatever) to do some smiting...or at least point a finger, or raise someone's hand. You want a judge, not in a legal sense, but of a boxing match sense.

But the truth is...no one is keeping score. In life, there's no grand scale where your deeds are measured against someone else's, or some grand inquisitor who lowers his chin to his shoulder or strokes his beard and then points to a winner. It's just life. We're all “that asshole” at some point or another. And if you get your blood pressure up, what did it accomplish? 

Believe it or not, when you extend your middle finger, or correct someone who doesn't know the different between “you and me” and “you and I,” you're trying to take power over the situation, that, in reality, you don't have. It's a sort of vigilante justice, but unlike Batman, who has his utility belt and years of martial arts training, you've got...well, you've got an attitude. And if your attitude is always seeking a reaction, you only serve to lower your value. Just like that guy who yelled at me and got nothing in return. Just like me, too. And depending on just who you mess with, that attitude might get you into trouble. What it won't get you is some kind of apology, or any change in behavior from its recipient. So just live with the fact that people have their own standards, and they don't have to live up to yours. In the end, you really are better off adding value to other peoples' lives instead of taking value away from yourself.   

The Process and the Result

I've always defined “talent” as the ability to appreciate the process, not the result. See, anyone can appreciate the results of hard work, but most people don't understand the hard work it takes to get there. Anyone who thinks talent is something you're born with, I think is only right in the sense that the ability to stick with something over another thing is something you're born with. Sure, you have a few true child prodigies, like Mozart, but those are rare exceptions. In fact, they're so rare that they make the history books. Even if a sports star or an actor or musician “bursts on the scene,” they did a ton of work to get there in the first place. The ability to do that ton of work, that's what I consider “talent.”

The ability to appreciate the process, and not focus on the result, goes far beyond sports and music. Consider dieting. I've always maintained it's easier to lose fifty pounds than it is to lose five. If you want to lose five pounds, you'll skip desert, do a little bit of exercise, and once you lose those five pounds, well, then what? If it's to look good for an important party, or a trip to the beach, you just say no to fatty foods for a while, then you pretty much fall back on your old habits. But what if you really want to lose a lot of weight? Then it's not just a temporary behavioral change, you have to change your mindset. You pretty much have to change everything about how you treat your body. If you really get into it, you can really study how weight works, how food, exercise, even your sleep patterns affect your weight. If you can really enjoy the process of exercising, and put a positive spin on eating healthy, you won't be saying “no” to those cookies, you'll be saying “yes!” to healthy fruits and vegetables.

You don't have to be professional to appreciate the process. Some people enjoy eating good food, and some people really get a kick out of the slicing, dicing, and frying. These are the people who, if you let them, will talk about their fifty-year old cast-iron cookware that's been perfectly seasoned. You'll see the same kinds of behavior when computer nerds talk about how they can overclock their CPUs, or car people talk about how they can turbo-charge their engines to be louder and faster, and yes, when it comes to cars, people can go the other way, too, talking about how high their mileage is, and sharing how they do it. Comic book collectors buy comics they never take out of their boarded plastic bags.. They care more about the collecting than the comics! Two people on the same wavelength can talk for hours about it. Two people that aren't? Well, eyes will be rolled.

“The process” is where progress is made. Whatever skill you want to master, be it playing an instrument, wiring a home theater, or talking to hot girls, you just have to keep at it. You've heard that practice makes perfect? Well, almost. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. More to the point, going through the process is what makes you understand how your body feels under stress, develop muscle memory, understand what works and what doesn't, and why.

Hopefully, you can develop these skills in a low-pressure environment, build up the pieces, then bring them together. This is known as “practice the parts, and rehearse the whole.” Not all situations work like that, unfortunately, but you can give yourself an edge by mentally preparing, rehearsing the whole in your imagination. For example, you won't learn how to do job interviews until you've been on a few, and then you've got high stakes. But you can go to job coaches, learn about the company, ask yourself the questions you think they'll ask, and even take note of what questions stump you in an interview, and what to say better next time. Keep at it, and there will always be a next time. Maybe you don't have the confidence to go up to an attractive girl, but you can build up to it with online dating, even if not every conversation turns into a date.

In most cases, skills are built on top of other skills. You can practice a song, then learn to play with other musicians, then learn to play in front of a crowd. There's a skill to learning to find jobs, and write a good cover letter and resume, then learning to interview, and only then can you learn what it takes to actually hold down a job, which is a whole other set of skills that you learn over time. This is why many jobs list years of experience in years, sometimes you'll need a decade or more of experience to even be considered. Same with dating, although no one will ask that you have been in a relationship for five years to be considered dating material. That one you're on your own for.

So look at what works, and what doesn't. You should have a goal, but don't focus exclusively on the goal. You'll only look at what you haven't accomplished. Concentrate on the process. Appreciate it. Make working towards the goal the goal itself, and you will achieve greatness.