Life Buffet

Posted on September 13, 2023 by admin

I enjoy a good buffet on occasion. There’s something nice about being able to pick out the food I want, avoid what I don’t want, and choose the portion sizes that work well for me. That buffets are generally self-service and that there are ways to make the most of them are added bonuses. I often wish life were more like that. A life buffet, if you will.

The life buffet I have in mind would be similar to a regular buffet, except that instead of food, your life would be up for the taking. No matter how old you are or how much life you think you have left, imagine that your whole life is laid out in front of you. Everyone you’ve ever met, human or animal, living or dead, is there. Every experience you’ve ever had, every place you’ve ever been, and every version of yourself are all before you. You get to go through it all while deciding what you want to keep and what you want to avoid.

You could approach this in a variety of ways: as if you were designing a life after death that you’d want to live in forever, thinking about how a perfect year on Earth would look for you, designing something you could use to plan your retirement, etc. You might pick the times in life when you were healthiest, felt the most content, had all your loved ones (friends, family members, and animals) in good health and saw them regularly, were financially well off, etc. Similarly, you might avoid the times when you were the unhealthiest, felt the loneliest, were worst off financially, etc. Also, you could retain any lessons you learned during difficult seasons even if you chose to leave those seasons out of your life buffet.

For the general outline, I’d pick 2018, as that was the best year of my adult life. Almost everything in that year was wonderful or was moving in that direction. One of those wonderful things was getting to talk to one or two of my best friends on the phone almost every night. Another amazing feature of that year was how, despite being busy, I still had enough time and money to travel, go to weekend swing dance workshops, buy some nice things for myself and others, and have countless lovely day trips and micro adventures. Additionally, 2018 was the year my work capacity was its greatest: I lifted weights 3 times a week, danced 2-3 times a week, juggled often, and had a physical job that involved moving around heavy appliances. Above all else, my dog Sawyer was still living happily and healthily with me all throughout 2018. Even though I didn’t see him every day due to some traveling, we still spent all but a handful of days together that year.

Speaking of Sawyer, he would be back and better than ever. I’d give him the body he had when he was physically healthiest so that we could do all the fun activities again, like running around the backyard together, going on walks, playing for long periods of time, etc. However, since his health declined over the years as we grew closer together, I would give him the spirit he had when our friendship was strongest. That way he’d get the best of both worlds and we could live together in ways we never could before.

Physically, I’d want my body from when it was the strongest it’s been thus far, my hair from early high school, my beard from either 2019 or early 2022, and my eyesight from back when I was a little kid who didn’t yet need glasses. As for the inner stuff, I’d pick my current emotional intelligence and communication abilities, my indestructible sense of peace that lasted from late August through late September 2021, the memory and intelligence I had prior to a bad head injury in November 2021, and the positive sense of self I had before loads of trauma set in.

For family, I’d have my grandparents when they were all alive and well, and the close family members who’ve consistently treated me well throughout our relationships. As for friends, I’d pick the ones from each phase of my life for whom the relationships were at least good from beginning to end (or which continue to be good, for those friendships that are still going). I’ve had enough experience with abusive humans and have weeded enough of them out of my life over the past few years to know better than to bring any of them back just so they could spoil my life buffet. Only those who’ve been consistently kind to me make the cut.

There are plenty of details I’m omitting, and I might make some changes to the above if I could actually design my life in this way, but this is a good overview of how I’d approach my life buffet. The best times in my life have always been full of wonderful humans, animals, experiences, and things, in addition to having little to no negativity. That’s why I’d go for as much of the good and as little of the bad as possible. How about you? What would you include, and what would you exclude? More importantly, once you’ve got that figured out, how can you modify your current life to better match your ideal life?

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Benefits of Nostalgia

Posted on September 6, 2023 by admin

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I’m convinced it’s so strong because it’s so comforting. Let’s explore that.

Some modern adults love toys, games, movies, TV shows, and other things that they enjoyed as kids. For many, those represent good times, simpler lives, and consistency. Dolls, action figures, and stuffed animals never judge, never disappoint, and never leave, unlike humans and real animals. I think that’s why it appears to be becoming increasingly common for adults to hold onto them as ballast through the rocky seas of adulthood. This is a much healthier approach than resorting to violence, alcohol, and other destructive behaviors in the hope of coping with pain.

The stuffed animals I have, particularly the ones who have been with me since I was a little kid, remind me of being that little kid. It’s nice to recall how I saw the world, how it was much easier overall back then to be myself, and the sense of lightness I had that I’m working so much to recover. Although I mostly spent time around stuffed animals until adulthood, being around real animals brings out the best in me, fills me up, and makes me feel like a little kid again. Something else that real animals have over stuffed animals is the ability to love in unexpected ways. My dog Sawyer did this for me all the time. While we had plenty of routines and familiar activities, he always found some new way to make me feel loved.

There’s a sweet kids’ book at a mall near me called Puppy Makes Mischief. It’s about a stuffed puppy who goes out to play while his human is away. Puppy has several fun adventures and gets back to the shelf before his human returns. Nothing bad happens, there are no obstacles to overcome, and it’s lighthearted throughout. I always enjoy reading the beginning and end of it whenever I go into that store. It reminds me of the golden times of my life when things seemed effortless, everything went in the right direction, and I could simply enjoy being. So many stories across all forms of media for all audiences have bad things happen to likeable characters for no clear reason outside of needlessly manufacturing drama. Aside from making it impossible to explore those fictional worlds in nice ways, I think it also heavily influences the behavior of those who consume such media. How much real-world drama and cruelty exists because everyone who sees that in movies, TV shows, books, and plays thinks that that’s how the world has to be? I’d like to see how things would change if more media showed sweet slices of life along the lines of Puppy Makes Mischief.

Since there are often obstacles and dramatic situations that arise in reality, nostalgic works can also be useful in addition to being comforting. Some works of fiction intended for kids model how to effectively handle those difficult situations. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is the best example of this I know. The Busy World of Richard Scarry is another excellent show that features stories in which characters make mistakes, atone for them, reconcile, and get along better as a result. Because of the simple presentation of solid lessons and the respect they have for viewers, revisiting those shows at times reminds me how to effectively manage my emotions, get along with others, overcome a difficult experience, and so on. I wish others who struggle with one or more of these would also watch those shows and benefit from them. That’d quickly make the world better for everyone.

Simplicity is a crucial aspect of effective teaching, and the best works for kids have lessons simple enough for kids comprehend. Adults can also benefit from this. James Holzhauer from Jeopardy! used kids’ books to quickly learn a lot of things. A few folks I know who speak multiple languages recommended watching kids’ shows in other languages. There are even some things I learned from watching kids’ shows years ago that I still remember to this day, such as the Animaniacs song listing all the US states and their capitols. These are a few examples of adults effectively using resources normally intended for kids.

I see no reason to abandon something that works wonderfully just because it might be intended for a different audience. Since 2017, I’ve tried out dozens of different life hacks. Some quickly fell away and others I use almost all the time. There are even useful things I learned early in life that I still use as needed. If something does the job, it doesn’t matter if it’s intended for kids, adults, or any other particular audience.

Some who feel concerned about watching TV shows and playing with toys intended for little kids (especially boys and men who do this) might do this in secret. That prevents them from having to deal with mockery, scorn, and shaming from others on top of their already existing pain. Once some of their old pain is gone, they might choose to reveal to certain individuals in their lives what helps them, or they might have already done that with some exceptionally understanding folks while the pain was still strong. Over the course of my life, it seems like others have become more understanding of those who enjoy some of their favorite youthful objects, works, and activities all throughout adulthood. That’s encouraging and I hope it continues as such. The way I see it, if A looks down on B for using something that makes life better, then A is the one with the problem, not B.

Although I only met Sawyer shortly before the end of my time in high school, I still consider myself to have been a kid when he came home. My life changed so much just about a year after that, so I easily get nostalgic for both him and the time in which we first met. That nostalgia grows even stronger whenever things are going badly for me, I’m losing important parts of my life, I’m feeling bad, or all of the above. Although Sawyer is no longer around, I’m glad to have so much that reminds me of him, in addition to still having several toys, stuffed animals, books, and other things I loved as a kid. The nostalgia around them and the fact that they are still here after all these years have been incredibly comforting to me through the humongous changes I’ve encountered since entering adulthood. Life can be difficult and painful, so why not embrace what makes it easier and lighter?

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Healing From Losing a Pet

Posted on August 30, 2023 by admin

Having a pet is one of the most wonderful experiences possible. The worst part of having a pet is the day your pet dies. Unfortunately, pets almost always die before their humans, and there isn’t always much that can be done to prepare. When preparation is possible, I have some suggestions based on my own experience with losing my dog Sawyer. Some of these I did and others I wish I had done. Most of them apply when you know your beloved animal friend has little time left, although some of them apply to any point in your friendship. Here are my suggestions.

  1. Live the best life you can with your beloved animal friend. This is not limited to the end of your time together. Regardless of how much time you have left, make the most of it. Take lots of pictures and videos, travel together, nap with each other, go on plenty of walks, play, etc. The better you do this, the fewer regrets you’ll have, and the easier the healing process will be after your beloved animal friend dies. I’m glad I got as many pictures and videos of Sawyer as I did. Still, I wish I’d gotten even more, and I wish I’d thought to get some from our first day together. That said, I’m glad Sawyer and I hung out almost every day of our eleven years together. We took many naps with each other, went on several walks, kept each other company when nobody else was around, played, and loved on each other a lot. Remembering all the good times we shared gives me some comfort during the hard times.
  2. Make sure your pet is ready. As bad as it can be to make your pet live in misery longer than necessary, I think it might be worse to rush the process. If your pet is still feeling good enough to make life worth living, then that gives both of you more time to love on each other. Cutting that short robs both of you of that precious time that can never be recovered. Plus, if your pet wants to keep living, why take that away? This is a major sore spot for me since I don’t know if it was Sawyer’s time to die. He had several health scares in his life, including one about a month and a half before his final trip to the vet. I don’t know if the decision made on his final night was the correct one. He might have just been going through another bad day that would have cleared up quickly; if so, then he might have lived longer, and he might even still be alive today. I’ll never know because I wasn’t given a chance to find out. Looking back on that night, I wish I’d taken more time to talk it over with my family members. Instead, I felt rushed into agreeing with a decision that had essentially already been made. It’s always hard to tell what the right thing to do is when looking through a lens of fear, anger, or any other strong negative emotion. Unfortunately, that may have resulted in a premature end to the most beautiful relationship I’ve ever experienced.
  3. Spend extra time together. Take extra walks, extra cuddles, extra trips, extra activities (both regular and special), extra pictures and videos, and other extra opportunities to share love. To facilitate this, change and even cancel some of your less important plans to make more time for your beloved animal friend, and include them whenever you can on any of your existing plans. This is also a great time to bring back favorite activities and routines that, for one reason or another, you’ve had to put on the backburner for quite some time. In addition to giving you both wonderful quality time with each other, all of this will stretch out your remaining time together as much as possible. I wish I had done more of this with Sawyer in our final few days together. One of my biggest regrets is taking him on so few walks, both during his normal life and also toward the end. Someone else in the house gave Sawyer a walk each night before bed, and I only took him for walks occasionally; we didn’t go for a walk together at all in our final few months together. I wish that I had taken him on even a short daily walk during that time, especially during his final few days. I so regret not taking him on any walk toward the end of his life, even when I knew his time was almost up. I also regret going out earlier than usual to dance on his final Saturday and staying out later than usual after dancing on both his final Saturday and final Sunday. If I could, I would change it such that I went out and came back at the usual times on both days so that we could have spent more time together.
  4. Give your beloved animal friend extra treats. These can be animal treats and human treats, including forbidden treats that would normally sicken or kill them. Humans regularly eat so many things that would kill most pets, so why not let them indulge in their final moments in something they’ve never been able to enjoy before? I gave Sawyer a piece of dark chocolate coconut creme egg in the final minutes of life; he shared it with me and a few other family members who were there. I’m so glad I gave it to him, and I loved watching him sniff it before gladly wolfing it down. That’s a sweet memory that I will carry for the rest of my days.
  5. Arrange mementos in advance. This can include things for you, such as a bag to keep locks of fur and a request for paw/nose prints to be made after your pet dies. You can also plan to bring anything familiar to comfort your pet (blankets, towels, beds, toys, special humans, etc.) in the final moments. This is especially important if your pet is going to die at the vet; if they die at home, they’ll likely be feeling more comforted by being in a familiar place with all the usual sights, smells, etc. I brought Sawyer’s squeaky moon toy, my Spider-Man blanket that we so often shared, and a shirt that smelled like me. I hope those gave him some comfort when he needed it the most. I so wish I had arranged in advance to have Sawyer’s paw print impressions preserved in clay. As much as I love the ink paw and nose prints on cards that the folks at the vet gave me, I was hoping for clay paw impressions. Because I assumed that that would be done automatically and never considered that I would have to specifically request it, I missed the chance to get it done, and I’m still working through a lot of pain around that. So, if you want clay paw impressions of your pet, make sure to arrange that in advance. Don’t assume that’ll automatically happen as you’ll feel devastated if it doesn’t. Further, although I got some of Sawyer’s fur, I wish I had gotten much more of it, and I also wish that I hadn’t handled it after that day since touching it a lot has degraded its quality. Those were some painful lessons that I had to learn the hard way. I’ll do better with any future animal friends I adopt.
  6. Stay there until the end. Your beloved animal friend has been with you through some of the hardest times in your life, so be with them during the final moments of their life. They deserve it after a lifetime of giving you unconditional love. As painful as it was to be with Sawyer as he slowly died, I’m certain that the guilt would be even more severe if I had stayed away during his final moments. I hate the thought of him feeling afraid and being alone with strangers as he died. I’d much rather work through the pain of being there at the end of his life than the pain of guilt from staying away. Being there also gave me the knowledge that he actually did die. Seeing that for myself has been useful to me when denial arises. If I hadn’t gone there, I wouldn’t have that certainty and might struggle even more from not knowing for sure.
  7. Spend as much time with the body as you need. You might want more time with your beloved animal friend’s body than some or all of your family members. That’s ok as long as each one gets what they need. I wish I had thought to ask what the person at the vet meant by her question about Sawyer’s body. If I had asked for clarification, I’d have gotten to spend more time with his body after his death, which I think would have given me some additional comforting closure. Instead, I only got a few minutes before his body was taken away, wrapped up, and put in a box for burial. If I ever adopt another animal friend who dies before me, I will make sure to spend as much time with the body as I need to feel better, and I won’t follow anyone else’s lead or let anyone rush me.
  8. Get lots of time to yourself. Take time away from your job, business, school, and regular routine to cry, yell, and do anything else that helps you heal as much as you need. It’s ok to seek out movies, TV shows, music, and other works of art to help you bring up and release emotions. It’s also ok to spend time alone, or away from certain individuals, as needed, especially those who make you feel worse. Ignore anyone who projects their own experiences onto you by saying that “the pain never goes away.” All they’re saying is that they haven’t fully healed. That doesn’t mean you are bound to follow suit. Feel through any and all emotions that come up as you give yourself extra self-care, compassion, and love during this incredibly painful time. It helps to mourn all the things you won’t get to do with your beloved animal friend. In my case, that means mourning that Sawyer will never get to meet my future wife and kids, watch me grow old, travel around the US with me on road trips, and see me fully step into myself. There are some books I’ve found extremely helpful for healing, most notably When a Pet Dies by Mister Rogers and Losing Your Dog by Mickie Gustafson. The latter even has some good things for when your beloved animal friend is still alive. I’m so thankful I’ve been able to take so much time to heal since Sawyer’s death. Without that, I think I’d still be feeling debilitating levels of pain. I can’t imagine how anyone loses a beloved animal friend in the morning and then goes in to work an afternoon shift, or jumps right back into a rigorous school schedule, or anything else along those lines. Between the extreme emotional pain and the worst sickness I’ve dealt with in over a decade, I barely made it through last year. I might not have made it if I’d had little to no time to put toward healing. Even if I’d have made it, I’m certain I’d still be feeling a huge amount of the overwhelming pain that has mostly gone away since I’ve spent so much time working through it.
  9. Develop a routine that helps you heal. What that routine looks like is totally up to you. Anything goes, as long as it doesn’t hurt you or anyone else and it helps you heal. This is your healing journey and routine, so nobody else has to like it, understand it, or approve of it. However, if you have family members or roommates, it’s best to talk to them about what things to change and when. Most of Sawyer’s belongings were packed up and put away the day he died. That was difficult for me. Abrupt change is hard, especially when it follows a painful loss. I’d have preferred to keep his beds, blankets, towels, and other possessions in their usual places for much longer. That aside, my routine has changed a bit over time, but it’s also had a lot of consistency from the day Sawyer died. In addition to feeling whatever emotions arise, each day I look at pictures and videos of Sawyer’s final morning, talk and sing to him by his grave each morning and night, and interact with some things he loved (such as his squeaky moon toy and my robe). The last picture I look at every morning is the only one I took of his body after he died. That picture brings me some closure and reminds me that he is gone whenever I question if he actually died. My routine has been incredibly comforting to me since losing Sawyer. It’s been especially helpful around my birthday, major holidays, the anniversary of Sawyer’s death, and a few other exceptionally painful times of year. As I’ve healed, I’ve been able to slowly reduce the amount of time I spend on some of those activities, although I didn’t start doing that until more than a year after Sawyer died. Even then, I did it gradually so as not to push myself beyond what I was ready to do.
  10. Move forward on your own time. There’s no deadline by which you have to have healed entirely or have reached a certain level of healing. This is an individual process, and your journey is unique to you. As long as you feel better each year, you’re on the right track. Some find that adopting another pet right away is healing. Others wait much longer, and some may never have another pet. Animals are living creatures who need lots of good food, water, shelter, vet visits, attention, play, and love. Even though I’m probably emotionally ready for another beloved animal friend, my current overall life situation and financial situation prohibit it. That’s something that the few people who’ve told me to adopt another animal friend don’t seem to have considered. Fortunately, I’m able to visit animals at pet stores and in my neighborhood each week, and sometimes I visit animal friends who live with my human friends. From shortly after Sawyer’s death through to today, those visits have all been wonderful, especially early on in this journey. I’m so thankful for everyone, human and animal alike, who has given me those wonderful visits.
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Downsides of Being Quiet

Posted on August 23, 2023 by admin

Being the quiet one is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes it’s downright awful. On many occasions, my dog Sawyer was the only one in my life who treated me with quiet kindness and respected what I needed at any given moment. Without him, everything has become much more difficult, especially as many humans have gotten worse since he died. I keep mostly to myself at this point because it’s so hard to find any human who will interact with me in ways I like and because it’s so easy to find many who will make me feel bad. Here are some issues I’ve dealt with, whether they were only in the past or are still ongoing.

  1. Finding out everything I don’t want to know. I don’t know why, but acquaintances and strangers alike have shared some incredibly personal things with me, sometimes within minutes of our first meeting. There have been a lot of long monologues about things they hate, intimate details about major health problems (often shared while I’m eating, which can easily make me lose my appetite), everything they hate about me, and private information about others who aren’t around to defend themselves or at least hear what’s being said about them behind their backs. It’s amazing how many people will say anything and everything that pops into their head, with no apparent regard for the effect it has on anyone else or if anyone else wants to hear it.
  2. Hardly getting a chance to speak. I’ve lost track of how many times someone has rambled on endlessly while I had countless things to say building up inside me, and, when I finally got a turn, I barely got 10 seconds in before someone who had just talked for anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour or longer cut me off and started rambling again. On a similar note, someone I was once close to, who routinely took 5 minutes to tell a 30 second story, said to me “Long story short” after I took 30 seconds to tell a 30 second story, as if I had wasted huge swaths of her time. Sometimes I say “Yeah” to show agreement with what someone has just said before I say what I’m thinking but then they start talking again before I can say anything I had planned to say. It’s rare that anyone asks for my thoughts in casual conversation since they’re used to me saying little and seem to think that I never have much to say. In reality, I have a lot to say when discussing subjects I find meaningful, but it almost always takes me some time to organize my thoughts. However, I rarely get to contribute much to those conversations since the other person almost always starts talking during a quiet pause, either before I’ve got my words straight or right as soon as I’m ready to speak. They’re more interested in filling me up with all of their opinions on everything under the sun and sometimes using me as an involuntary, unpaid therapist than getting a glimpse into how I see the world.
  3. Tons of negative assumptions from others. They might think I’m interested in what they’re saying because I’m not interrupting, changing the subject, or disagreeing, so they talk at length about things I don’t care at all about because I lack the courage to speak up. This, in conjunction with the previous point, is where some get the idea that I’m a good listener. I might be better at listening now than I once was, but that doesn’t mean I want to do nothing but listen in a conversation. They also tend to assume that I don’t care about something if I don’t have a huge, immediate visual reaction to it (even when I do care but just need time to process what was said before responding), or that I dislike them if we’ve just met when I’m actually just on edge around most new folks I meet. The assumption I hate the most is that I’m implying something bad by asking a simple question. I don’t hide insults or judgments inside questions that sound innocuous but are actually devious. When I ask a question, I’m asking that question, nothing more. I often feel flabbergasted at how much someone can assume I’m implying with what I say. That always suggests to me that they’ve got self-image and pride problems to sort through. If I meet someone and we get to know each other over several interactions, they’ll gradually see how I truly am. However, if we only ever interact once, they may walk away thinking I’m awful, empty inside, or something else negative.
  4. So much pressure to conform. So many people try to get me to speak at their pace rather than mine and pressure me to respond immediately to questions that require deep thought (folks want 10 second answers to questions that would take minutes to properly answer). This applies to other conversational aspects as well. If someone asks, “What do you do?” and I start talking about my hobbies, they almost always interrupt and say “No, I mean what do you do for work?” This shows that they have no interest in what I enjoy doing in my free time, no concern for anything other than the specific information they’re seeking, and also no respect for me by interrupting me while I’m still talking. Some people don’t stop interrupting me even when I continue speaking or say “Hang on”, and others don’t give me room to speak at length even when I literally ask for it. I long for conversations that make everyone involved better off, not ones that make some better off and others worse off. Yet so often, I’ve ended up interacting with someone who seems interested solely in what they can get out of the conversation, not in how the conversation can benefit us both.
  5. There’s little to no space to just be. If nature abhors a vacuum, then humans abhor it more. When I swing dance at the Volstead, I like to sit out during the last song and watch everyone dancing while thinking about Sawyer. Often, somebody will see me sitting by myself, come over, and start up small talk with me. I usually go along with it but sometimes I’ll say something along the lines of “We’ll talk after the song ends.” Similarly, if I’m enjoying a quiet pause in a conversation and have nothing to say, it’s almost impossible to find someone who will also enjoy the pause. Most will say something just to fill a silence that is uncomfortable for them, and they’ll pressure me to respond even when I can think of literally nothing to say. This has only gotten worse the more I’ve gotten into my mindfulness and presence practices.
  6. Hardly ever taken seriously. Few people seem to be interested in listening to what the “man of few words” has to say when he does speak. I’ll often tell someone the same thing on multiple occasions (the correct name of a juggling move, that I *do* enjoy reading fiction, etc.) and they either don’t bother to remember it or they don’t believe me. This is especially the case with controversial subjects, in which they often immediately dismiss what I’ve said without asking any questions to get more information or simply giving it a moment’s thought. Other times I’ll provide a solution to a problem, get ignored, and then (sometimes) later get credit for it, although that never seems to enhance anyone’s trust of me in future situations. On a handful of occasions when attempting to understand what someone else was saying, I put it into my own words and asked if that’s correct. They said “No”, and then repeated verbatim what I said. I usually don’t say much in those cases, but, when I’ve felt extra frustrated, I’ve said, “That’s what I said” or “That’s what I just said.” I don’t understand how I can put so much effort into being clear yet so often be misunderstood.
  7. I get almost nothing to myself. So many folks make everything I say about them. It’s incredibly rare that someone will strive to understand how I’m feeling instead of saying “I know what you mean. I feel the same way because of…” This irks me because I’m still dealing with deep pain from a young age of bringing up a concern, someone taking offense, and making it all about them while ignoring what I was feeling, wanting, and needing, usually while also punishing me in some way. Additionally, when I express upset over how someone is treating me, whoever I’m talking to seems more interested in assuming how that person might be feeling and what their motivations might be than in asking me how I’m feeling about it. They’re trying to identify some of the emotions involved, but not mine. That makes me think that they don’t care how I feel, and it’s one reason I tend to keep to myself when I feel bad (the main reason being that I’ve gotten good enough at working through my emotions that I don’t need to seek out others to do this).

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Who Do You Trust?

Posted on August 16, 2023 by admin

I’ve been thinking a lot about trust lately, particularly the issue of knowing who to trust when it comes to information. So much of what I believed growing up has turned out to either be false or at least outdated. I often wonder how much of the information floating around as well as the information I now believe is similarly incorrect. Let’s explore this, shall we?

How can anyone know whether or not someone who claims to be an expert in a given field is speaking the truth unless one is also an expert? In some cases, there is the possibility of testing that person’s claims. Anything that one can try out in one’s own life can be tested to see if what is being said holds any water. When that’s not possible, the only options I see are to either believe the person or disregard what they’re saying.

Blindly believing anyone is incredibly risky. There are legions of skilled persuaders and manipulators in almost every large organization who routinely distort the truth for their own benefits. It’s hard to trust what someone says when they’re getting paid to promote it. When someone isn’t getting paid or rewarded in another way for promoting something, then it’s easier to believe they’re telling the truth. It’s even easier to believe they’re telling the truth if they’re risking their jobs, their friendships, and even their lives to put this information out there. It takes no effort to go along with what is popularly believed, so someone who deliberately swims against the tide of popular opinion demonstrates that their commitment to the truth is larger than their fear of nonconformity.

Further, among the many logical fallacies, there is one called “appeal to authority”. This involves believing that what someone says must be correct solely because of that person’s position or status. The reason appeal to authority fails is because everybody is incorrect at least some of the time and nobody has a monopoly on truth. If something is correct, then it doesn’t matter who says it. If something is incorrect, then it doesn’t matter who says it. The accuracy or lack thereof of the information is all that matters, not the source of that information.

Honest mistakes are another problem. When someone makes a mistake and it’s brought to their attention, watch how they proceed. If they apologize, own up to it, correct it as best as they can, and strive to avoid making mistakes in the future, all is well. Although there may still be harm from their mistake, their response shows that it was unintentional and that they are committed to doing better moving forward. However, if they react defensively, deny that they made a mistake, attempt to justify it, or attack whoever points out the mistake, that shows that they are untrustworthy due to being more committed to protecting their egos than getting things right.

Anyone who’s done a deep dive into multiple subjects knows how easy it is to find conflicting information on any issue. This can also easily be seen in any online fight in which participants share links that support their own points and oppose each other’s. Someone who is dedicated can find a way to make any viewpoint appear correct. This can even happen subconsciously since everyone tends to gravitate towards information that supports their predetermined conclusions and ignore information that contradicts their beliefs. How do you objectively decide which information is trustworthy and which is not, especially when you can’t see behind the scenes to verify everything you’re being told?

I love things that anyone can verify through their own experience. When I did a PowerPoint Night presentation earlier this year on the present moment, I led a short guided meditation toward the end. Those who followed along felt calmer afterward. That did more to show them the value of meditation, mindfulness, and being in the present moment than any book, article, video, or other resource for them to analyze ever could. I’m sure that it was also more effective than the presentation itself, which, while brief, was much longer than the meditation. By seeing firsthand that this works, they don’t need to take anyone’s word for it, including my own.

For another example of experiential verification, I’ve heard repeatedly that static stretching (putting a muscle into a stretched position and holding it still for a certain length of time) does nothing beneficial. Yet my own experience with stretching my lower body this way is that it reduces pain in my lower back, makes it easier for me to stand up straight, increases my comfortable range of motion, and makes me feel calmer in general life. Stretching my wrists has also been crucial both to prevent overuse injuries in juggling and to recover when I’ve overdone it. Every time I’ve gone without stretching for months on end, all of those benefits go away; they come back a while after I’ve resumed a good stretching routine. Since static stretching has been so beneficial to me, I’ll continue doing it regardless of what anyone else thinks about its effectiveness.

Even my dog Sawyer verified things by personal experience. If we were hanging out by ourselves and he thought someone else had come home, he’d bark and run over to the door to the garage. Only after I showed him that nobody was in the garage did he know it was just us at home and settle down. I figure doing that for him improved my ability to do similarly with humans. That sums up my current thinking on this subject: verifying things for myself where I can and not fully taking anyone’s word on anything I can’t independently verify. It’s taken me a long time to get to this point and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’m ok with that since learning to trust myself has been an important part of my healing journey, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Humans Are Strange

Posted on August 9, 2023 by admin

Humans are strange and unpredictable. I could leave it at that, but, as usual, I have lots more to say. Here we go.

So many humans bring drama, hostility, and other kinds of extreme negativity into a situation out of nowhere. As soon as their pride is even lightly scratched, they’ll respond aggressively to anything they see as a threat to their identity, regardless of whether that threat is real or imaginary (it’s imaginary far more often than not). I’ve been randomly accused of ignoring others, laughing at them, thinking they’re drunk when they clearly weren’t, not caring about them, etc. Some accusations are downright unbelievable, such as the drunk one, but they all arise from fear. All it takes is a small amount of fear to distort one’s perception of reality to the point that the most impossible scenario seems to be occurring.

It gets worse. Some humans spend much of their time figuring out how to scam, con, swindle, and otherwise manipulate others into doing their bidding (at times even resorting to violence). Sometimes they even do this for a job. They can do it by themselves or alongside others. Those who both lack the ability to feel bad about doing this and also don’t fear the consequences of getting caught will do it no matter what happens to them as a result; others may feel bad and fear getting caught but still do it any way. Either way, they intentionally make the lives of others worse so that their own life gets a little better.

How do you tell who will treat you well and who will use you for their own selfish ends? Unfortunately, there isn’t a quick way to do so in most cases. It takes time to find out who actually cares about you and who has no real regard for your wellbeing. Some keep a low profile for years before gradually revealing their true colors. By then, it starts becoming clear that they’ve done a lot of harm to you over the course of your interactions, and it can also skew your perception of yourself. When this happens, it often results in good people thinking they’re horrible monsters and horrible monsters thinking they’re good people.

It’s taken me years to fully realize the worst part of all the abuse and trauma I’ve endured. The worst part isn’t how I was hurt in the past, it’s how that pain has continued to haunt me into the present and negatively shapes my view of the future. Since I’ve repeatedly experienced betrayal from those who’ve gotten close to me, I subconsciously expect that to continue throughout the rest of my life. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop, whether by learning how someone I thought was a friend is essentially a complete stranger or by seeing the gradual removal of a friendly front that reveals someone’s true abusive face. That’s why I often feel stressed and scared even around some of my closest friends. I never know what will set someone off and put me at ground zero of the full force of the massive ego that lurks just under the surface of most humans. It’s like being around a bunch of Bruce Banners while hoping desperately that they don’t Hulk out and destroy me.

Adding to this fear is a major shift in how humans interact with each other. For much of the twentieth century, emotional suppression was both the expectation and the norm. That has changed over the past few decades. It seems increasingly common for humans to act less as sentient beings and more as opinion machines. In addition to having opinions on seemingly everything, they also appear to feel compelled to share those opinions everywhere. They often do this in an angry way, especially if whoever they’re talking to has a different opinion on a sensitive topic. An alternative approach involving managing emotions in a healthy way without hurting oneself or anyone else still seems to be practically nonexistent.

Around animals, I either feel excited or at peace. They give at least as good as they get when it comes to love, and they often give more love than they receive. Animals bring out the best in me and make me feel safe enough to be my true self with them. No animal has ever traumatized me, condemned me, or made me regret our time together. In contrast, many humans have done all of those, especially the ones who learned of my vulnerabilities and then intentionally pressed them, whether to make me do what they wanted or to hurt me for no clear reason. So many humans have an ulterior motive behind their interactions with others: making money, looking down on someone else in order to feel better about themselves, putting the responsibility of managing their own emotions onto someone else so they don’t have to do it, causing others pain because it brings them pleasure, etc. Anyone who does one or more of those doesn’t value other humans as human beings, they value others as human doings. Once someone is no longer capable of giving that kind of person what they want, they cease to be valuable in that person’s eyes. It takes a long time to get to know someone well enough to tell if they have one or more dark ulterior motives. By then, so much harm has been done, harm that might take a lifetime to heal.

Abused animals often act skittish when an unfamiliar human approaches. I met two dogs at someone’s house in Arizona a few years ago. One was a big, sweet dog who plopped down on my lap while I sat on the couch. The other had been abused at a previous home and mostly avoided me, although he did sit on the other end of the same couch I was on for a bit. Similarly, I often close up around humans I don’t know and may leave an event early if there are few to no folks I already know there. It can take many interactions with someone before I feel safe enough to open up. That process can be expedited if I’m around someone who shows vulnerability early on and avoids condemning or shaming me for what I reveal about myself. Having small gatherings in which I already know one or more people and am only meeting one or two new people also allows me to feel comfortable more quickly around new folks. Despite all of that, I still feel far more comfortable around animals I’ve never met than humans who are among my closest friends.

My trust in humans is quite low overall, though it does ebb and flow based on my mood. Fear does more than anything else to determine how I feel around others and how much I trust them. I have less fear when my parasympathetic nervous system is in control and more fear when my sympathetic nervous system takes over. Still, I don’t know if I’ll get back to the same level of high trust and low fear that I had before the final few months of 2021, or before my dog Sawyer died in the first few months of 2022. Losing him was such a huge blow for many reasons, one of them being my complete trust in him as he always had my back. Another reason was that he was always there for me even when I ended up in some incredibly bad situations. Without him, I have lost a huge advocate for my health, especially my emotional and mental health. I’m still working through the pain of losing him and having to live without him. As I do, I find my fear going way down and my courage coming way up. I hope that continues happening as I keep working through this and other kinds of pain. I’ll find out sooner or later.

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My Take on Rules

Posted on August 2, 2023 by admin

Although I do my best to avoid identifying with anything outside of myself, I still feel drawn to the Chaotic Good alignment. Whether fictional characters or real humans, I’ve always loved those who do the right thing even (or especially) if it requires breaking the rules. Fictional characters who do this are nearly universally celebrated and recognized as heroes by real humans. In real life, however, someone who puts morality above rules usually isn’t lauded for it until after they die (and it doesn’t always happen even then). The expectation to follow all the rules, no matter what, is so strong that those who break the rules to do what’s right are often considered to be worse than those who do what’s wrong by following the rules.

The notion that all rules must be followed, and the accompanying notion that the only legitimate way to avoid following a rule is if it gets removed, are both so odd to me. I don’t understand them at all. Beyond the trouble of knowing what all the rules are in any given area of life, it’s also strange to me to follow rules that exist for no good reason (such as rules at a workplace that make it all but impossible to do one’s job). If there’s a good reason behind a rule, I’ll most likely follow it. If there isn’t a good reason, I may or may not follow it. And if there’s either a bad reason behind a rule or following that rule will cause trouble, I’ll most likely break it.

Some rules may always be good. Other rules may only be good in certain situations; when the situation changes, so must those rules. If the rules don’t change to match the situation, then all kinds of bad things can happen. There are countless examples of trouble that occurred from following bad rules to the letter, whether those rules were outdated or were never any good in the first place. Some will even die or kill to uphold rules that don’t benefit themselves or anyone else. That’s the opposite of how it should be: humans aren’t supposed to serve rules, rules are supposed to serve humans. Many of those who brought about some of the worst atrocities in history were “just following orders”, “just doing their jobs”, or something else along those lines. Whatever the excuse, the damage they’ve done remains. If nobody followed awful rules that “required” them to hurt their fellow humans, then those rules and all who create them would be powerless to cause any harm.

Experimenting with breaking rules often shows me which ones are worth following and which ones aren’t. At all of my jobs, I started off doing things as I was trained to do them. In time, though, I gradually discovered better ways of doing many things. These new ways often allowed me to get things done both more effectively and more efficiently. Whenever the new methods didn’t work as well as the old methods, I went back to the old. At least experimenting showed me when to diverge from the established systems and when to abide by them, which is something I wouldn’t have gotten if I had never taken a chance.

This flexibility applies to my self-care. I take stock of how I’m feeling on any given day and what that day has in store for me to know what to do, in what order, and when. There are some things I do every day, but I often vary the order and the intensity to match what each day demands from me. I’ll do a lot on easy days and very little on extremely busy days or recovery days (such as this past Monday, which I mostly dedicated to recovering from a full weekend of juggling, martial arts, magic, and dancing). This allows me to still feel satisfied and make progress while giving myself time to rest and recover from whatever life throws at me. This is so much nicer than trying to stick to exactly the same routine every day no matter how bad I feel.

The more relaxed approach I’ve developed with regard to my routines dovetails nicely with a video I once saw. The guy in the video said, “Don’t be too hard on yourself if you didn’t do the thing today. Go to bed, and when you wake up tomorrow, it’ll be today again, and there’s another chance to do it.” I often remind myself of that during busy, stressful, or otherwise challenging days. Sometimes I’ll do a barebones version of my routine just to say I did it and stay in the habit, but I’ve gotten good at knowing when to stick to that instead of pushing to do everything I do on a good day.

Something I’ve found incredibly useful is focusing on a handful of rules that cover a lot of ground. A few rules cover emotional intelligence, others apply to communication, and some are reserved for how I relate to myself, both around others and when I’m alone. That’s much easier than attempting to follow dozens of individual rules, an approach that has always given me subpar results.

Losing my dog Sawyer last year threw literally everything off track for me. Things I had done nearly every day for years suddenly stopped, and other things I had never done before started up right away to help me navigate the deep grief, sorrow, anxiety, and other painful feelings that arose. Sawyer’s death forced me to adjust my entire life. Thank goodness I somehow managed to do that and use it to heal. That wouldn’t have happened if I had tried to hold onto the old and reject the new.

It’s been incredibly freeing to loosen my relationship to rules. I used to be so tightly bound by my own rules that I could barely do anything. Occasionally I go a bit overboard at this point. Part of that is overcorrection from past rigidness, part of it is figuring this stuff out by doing, and part of it is being human. As long as I don’t go too far overboard, I’m fine with going a bit over the line at times as I strive for a balance between following good rules and ignoring bad rules.

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Static and Dynamic Art

Posted on July 26, 2023 by admin

For a few years now, I’ve noticed that art can be put into two broad categories: static and dynamic. Static art is anything that exists fully on its own once it is finished, such as a painting or a sculpture. Dynamic art requires someone to continually create it, such as a dance or a song.

Neither type of art is better than the other. Both can be beautiful, and they both have their own unique features. Static art is the final physical expression (or at least the closest physical representation) of what the artist had in mind. While other artists may make their own versions, the original remains long after the artist dies. Dynamic art, in contrast, is ephemeral. Musicians all over the world can play a particular piece of music, and, even if they’re all going off of the original composer’s notes, each one will produce a slightly different version. The “original” performance is lost to time; even if it was recorded, that is still a copy of the original, and listening to the playback is quite a different experience than witnessing the original live performance. Also, nobody can ask a deceased painter about his masterpiece, while anyone can talk to a juggler about what’s going on inside him when he juggles and even influence how he juggles by interacting with him. Those features give dynamic art a much greater degree of fluidity and audience interaction than static art could ever have.

Since most of what I’ve done falls under the category of dynamic art, I’m more drawn to that type. I love seeing others do things I can do, whether they do them differently than me or, especially, at a higher level. While I do enjoy experiencing static art, I sometimes enjoy the creative part of it even more than the finished piece. It’s fascinating to watch someone draw, paint, sculpt, and otherwise bring something into being. Something as simple as watching the words appear at the end of a pen when I write has long been intriguing to me. There’s something intriguing about the fact that static art can be completed while dynamic art can never be.

Most museums I’ve been to mainly feature static art. At street fairs, renaissance festivals, and arts markets, dynamic art is the primary attraction. However, both types can also exist in the same place. A museum may have a short film that talks about a particular artist or style of art, and arts markets often have paintings for sale near performers. It’s always nice when the two complement each other.

Pictures and videos make dynamic art more enduring than it once was. I’m so glad for this as it’s allowed me to remember my dog Sawyer more accurately than I otherwise could. I consider him to be both static and dynamic art: he looked cute in static ways by sitting or lying still, and he looked cute in dynamic ways by running around, playing, jumping, and rolling on the ground. I love that his legacy is preserved in both forms. Similarly, I love that I can watch many videos from incredible musicians, jugglers, dancers, singers, and other talented performers of dynamic art who died long before I was born. Although we never walked the Earth at the same time, I can still enjoy their incredible gifts through modern technology alongside the works of past talented painters, sculptors, drawers, furniture makers, and other creators of static art.

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The Value of Variety

Posted on July 19, 2023 by admin

It’s always fascinating to watch someone who has dedicated a lifetime to one major pursuit. I’ve seen some incredible things from those who’ve given juggling, strength sports, magic, or any other activity the lion’s share of their effort. However, as much as I enjoy watching what they can do, that isn’t my style.

Rather than focus all my efforts on one thing, I prefer to give a bit of my attention to a variety of things I enjoy. My loved ones are high in priority on my list, as are my main hobbies of juggling, unicycling, swing dancing, and card tricks. Some interests, such as Rubik’s Cubing and martial arts, are lower down on the list, although they have been higher up in the past as my list changes from time to time.

Some think that they have to make something their number one priority in order to become the best in the world at it. Even if that’s true, it doesn’t apply to me since I don’t want to be the best in the world at anything. I enjoy learning things for fun. I also enjoy sharing them with others, seeing the overlap between different activities, playing, watching myself improve, and using my experiences from learning one thing to help me learn another thing. Plus, it’s wonderful to get into an activity, listen to others gush over it with each other, and talk with them as a fellow enthusiast once I’ve learned enough about it. Since I have several hobbies, I can do this with far more people than if I only had one. All of that is more important to me than besting anyone, let alone everyone, at anything.

In some cases, the idea of getting famous for being one of the best at something makes some people dedicate their whole lives to it. However, becoming one of the most skilled persons at a particular activity is no guarantee of getting famous. Sometimes moderately skilled people become much more famous than those who are among the best in the world. With any kind of performance, a moderately skilled yet highly entertaining person is much more likely to become a household name than a highly skilled yet moderately entertaining person. None of this is a concern for me since I enjoy living a simple and private life to the point that I don’t want to be famous.

There is also the issue of making an activity one’s entire identity. If someone who does that ever becomes unable to participate in that activity, it can send them into an existential crisis from which they may never recover. In some cases, folks have taken their own lives when they couldn’t separate their identity from what they once did. Pursuing multiple interests makes me much less likely to identify with any of them, and it also gives me other things to do if I ever stop doing one of them, so those dangers are minimized.

I’d rather have a little bit of several wonderful things than a lot of one thing and little to none of anything else. My whole approach to this can be summed up by the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one”. This came in handy during a gig shortly before last Christmas. I had only planned on juggling during the show. However, in addition to juggling, I was also asked to dance during a few of the numbers. I gladly did, first with someone I’ve regularly danced with since 2017 and later with a member of the audience. The fact that I could both juggle as planned and dance on short notice that night delighted me. I’m far from alone when it comes to having multiple talents since almost everyone I’ve met through swing dancing has at least one other hobby outside of dancing. A handful of us have enough hobbies that we could put on a variety show that features around a dozen different acts. I love that.

As much as I enjoy watching folks who’ve put everything they have into a chosen activity, hearing them talk about what that has cost them puts it all into perspective. Some put everything that doesn’t get them closer to reaching their goals on the back burner. Later on, they lament the damage it’s done to their bodies, the reduced quality of life they will have for the rest of their days, and, especially, the time they have lost with their loved ones, some of whom have since died or become estranged. The point about loved ones in particular always reminds me that I want a healthy balance in my own life. I’d take that any day over going all in on one thing to the detriment of everything else and the regrets that I know would follow.

Although I spent a lot of time with my dog Sawyer during his life, I could have spent even more time with him if I’d arranged my priorities differently. Sometimes he’d come knock on my door in the morning. I’d usually let him in but not always. On several occasions, I told him to come back after I’d finished writing, meditating, doing breathwork, or whatever else I was doing at that time. Toward the end of his life, and especially after he died, I wished I’d let him in every time he knocked and resumed my previous activity after our visit was finished. Similarly, I wished I’d taken him on many more walks and focused more on the present moment when we were hanging out. As guilty as I still feel for all of that, I’m certain I’d feel much greater guilt if I’d spent hardly any time with him due to focusing almost exclusively on one main activity.

Perhaps the only thing stopping me from pursuing one thing at the expense of everything else is the boredom I feel after spending too much time on any given subject. Even when something becomes my main focus, it never stays that way for long. Since I’ve become much more thoughtful and intentional with all of this, I’ve gotten even better at balancing a variety of activities without any one of them taking over my life. I’m glad that, overall, I’ve gotten here fairly easily; even the lessons I learned the hard way still weren’t nearly as hard as they could have been. I hope that I’ll get even better at maintaining a proper balance of everything that’s important to me as I go through life.

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Decisions and Consequences

Posted on July 12, 2023 by admin

The book Boundaries talks a lot about consequences. One of the points it makes that has stuck with me for several years now is that when you prevent someone from receiving their natural consequences, those consequences instead fall onto you. I’ve seen that play out repeatedly in my life.

Consequences can sometimes be good. In those cases, it’s easy to let others receive them. When the consequences are bad, however, it’s tempting to intervene and attempt to “save” others from the natural outcomes of their decisions. Something that helps me remember the importance of doing this is how I’ve seen firsthand that those who don’t learn their lessons keep repeating them. I have plenty of examples of this.

A good example originates from one of my past jobs which involved a lot of cleaning. I’d often go in for my shift to find that whoever worked the previous shift had done little to no cleaning during that time. In most cases, instead of asking the person to work on it before clocking out, I’d jump right in and do it all myself. That sent the message to everyone else that they didn’t have to pull their own weight because I’d pick up all the slack. In addition to making my job more difficult, that also meant the place ran much less smoothly whenever I had time away. This hardly ever changed, regardless of how much I talked about this with my coworkers and employers individually or at team meetings. Even those in charge would still often leave large amounts of work for others. The only times I recall any of that changing were whenever anyone had to experience the full consequences of either failing to do their job or making a horrible decision. In those cases, they learned a lesson, shaped up, and did better moving forward by avoiding those bad decisions.

Unfortunately, not everyone learns. Some folks get caught up making one bad decision after another. Even when the decisions they make are obviously going to turn out badly, they go ahead with them anyway. Only once they’ve hit rock bottom do they fully realize that, without major help from others, they are unable to make good decisions. Unfortunately, as happens with hitting rock bottom, this realization only occurs after doing major harm to themselves and, in most cases, several of their loved ones.

For the kinds of decisions that almost always go well and hardly ever go wrong, it’s understandable when something unexpected makes it go badly. This happens to nearly everyone at some point and is no cause for alarm. However, with the kinds of decisions that almost always go wrong and hardly ever go well, it’s to be expected when something goes badly. Anyone caught off guard by a series of bad decisions that each turn out to have dire consequences is often the only one who didn’t see it coming.

To almost anyone looking in, it can be baffling as to how those consistently making bad decisions could think that they’ll turn out well, especially when they want to do things that are mostly painful and have little to no reward. Someone I once knew had gotten out of an awful situation after being in it for almost two years. Upon hearing that person’s plans to finalize the exit, I immediately sensed that it would turn out badly. My warnings were ignored, and the person ended up right back in the exact same situation. Even after pointing out how I had correctly warned them, they remained in that bad situation for just under six more months. This taught me the powerful lesson that I can only do so much to save someone from themselves.

It only takes a small amount of consistent movement in a particular direction to eventually end up living either a wonderful life or a miserable life. Those who start making small decisions to do things they know are bad and keep doing that each day soon wake up to a mess, while those who take small steps each day toward a better life will quickly see everything falling into place. Get the small things right and the big things will take care of themselves; mess up the small things and the big things will fall apart.

One bad decision in the right place can snowball into such a huge mess that it creates a lower quality of life for the rest of that individual’s days on Earth. Similarly, one good decision in the right place can lead to an incredible life. Because making one good decision can also prevent having to make many other decisions, and because it’s much easier to make one good decision than many good decisions, deciding wisely in key areas will pay off massively in the long run.

It’s best to be around those who make decisions that are overwhelmingly likely to end well and avoid those who make decisions that are overwhelmingly likely to end badly. I’ve learned that the hard way after getting dragged through seemingly endless drama by those who keep making bad decisions, especially when they’re deciding to do things that are all but guaranteed to turn out badly. Only after getting away from them has my life become steady and peaceful. At this point, when I do hit the occasional pothole in life, it’s small and easy to handle. I’ll gladly take that over the hugely problematic situations I kept finding myself in thanks to the various drama queens and kings I’ve known.

I no longer dig myself into a deep hole in the hope of getting someone out of the hole they dug themselves into. Losing my dog Sawyer last year immediately put everything else in my life on hold and forced me to put healing the pain of his death as my number one priority. More than a year later, that pain has gone down tremendously. However, I haven’t forgotten the lessons I learned both before and during 2022 about being extremely careful who I trust and even more careful with who I let in my inner circle. I might occasionally cross paths with those who consistently make bad decisions, but I no longer call anyone like that a friend or let them influence me. I’m blessed to be close to a lot of people who are consistently making good decisions. That, in addition to all the other positive changes I’ve made over the past five years, gives me hope.

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