the death of magic

Recently, a well known worship leader/Christian influencer suffered an unimaginable loss. Her 2 year old daughter Olive didn’t wake up. Her parents found her in the house not breathing, doctors pronounced her dead. I am so sorry for their loss, and I know a little bit about it. When I was in 3rd grade, my brother and I woke up to my mom screaming. In my childhood brain, my first reaction was to think we were in trouble of some kind. As we came into the living room, we saw that our sister Abigail was unresponsive on the floor. I don’t remember seeing her face, maybe it was obscured by my mom. I do remember seeing the tall EMS workers walk in in boots and carry her out in a hurry, and for a couple terrible moments being left alone in the house. This was a terrible decision for my mom to have to make but I think she made the right one. Ride in the EMS with your unresponsive child and leave your two startled children at home. Lucky for us, my mom called my sister who hauled ass and got to us very quickly.

All that was afterthoughts. All I remember in that moment was being in the living room with my brother and praying that god would bring her back. Then I fell asleep. The next thing I remember was my sister’s voice. She was going through a rolodex of names, telling people that my sister had died.

Strangely, at that time, I developed a terrible terrible fever. It made the nightmare of what was happening even more surreal. Maybe that was for the best.

The blur stretched on for days. Family and friends coming to town, big spreads of food on the dining room table, then the wake. Wake’s are always the same. The feeling of dress shoes on thick carpet, too much flower smell, people trying to small talk under an anvil that hangs over everyone. Family drama, people being upset with each other, I remember weird karate people coming to show respect. Maybe this is an exaggeration or a false memory, but I could have sworn someone came wearing a gi. Maybe I made that up.

The funeral, riding there in the car with my aunt who smoked in the back of the mortuary limo, making me think I was gonna be sick. The tombstone, the ride back home, then the long silence of life as life returns to 0.

I’ve never lost a child but I understand.

The story of the worship leader that I started with has a very macabre and upsetting problem. The well meaning but misguided family, extended church family and leaders in Bethel church are currently praying for the deceased child to be resurrected. To the average non religious and even the average religious person, this is insane. And you’re right. But to people who believe in miracles, and a god that intervenes, its not that weird.

Even in churches that don’t have practices like this, there are often times guest ministers, usually from countries that have more gullible believers in them, that claim they have raised people from the dead through the power of Jesus and prayer.

As creepy as this behavior is to some, I understand personally the internal logic of it.

You sing and pray and write and minister your whole life about a god who does wonders, now you are in need of a wonder.

I understand this because something similar happened to me.

When someone dies, families either assemble or they explode. In the wake of my dear older brother Bradley’s passing, the family exploded.

I remember getting the call in the middle of the night that he had fallen over during a basketball game at St. Andrews and was unresponsive. And my mom was once again reliving the nightmare of a child being whisked away in an ambulance.

When they say he passed out, I started praying but I wasn’t worried. I didn’t even get out of bed. Bradley was the strongest person I knew and very religious himself. He would be fine.

Another call, now he is unconscious and not responding. I got worried. I got out of bed in my tiny Copenhagen apartment and laid on my face in the floor and prayed for God to bring him back to his body.

Another call, he's dead. My mom and sister and other family in some hospital room with him. My mom pleading with me to call him back into his body. I screamed.

He was gone, and it rang in my ears like a gun fired near my head. My whole conception of the world had been stabbed. But being a man of faith at the time, I still got on my knees and prayed a paraphrased version of the prayer Job prayed when god brought calamity on him “the lord gives, and the lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord”.

I started booking plane tickets. It was $4000 dollars. My card got declined, not because I didn’t have it, I had just come from a big work trip and was essentially going to spend all my money on this trip. But the bank thought my account had got hacked. I had to borrow the money from my wife’s family.

And thus started a demoralizing process. The big loss was one thing, but the 100 little losses in moments like this are what broke me.

I could understand in concept that tragedy exists, how could I not. But the tiny injustices were seamingly never ending. I had just started Jiu Jitsu a month before, and the night he died I had hurt my neck so bad I couldn’t turn it. I had to fly for 18 hours in terrible discomfort, anxious to get home and my mind trying to make sense of this.

My only thought at that time was to get to my brothers widow. She wasn’t a stable woman at the best of times and we had had a falling out as I got older, but I felt like as Bradley’s brother her well being was my responsibility. I thought of all kinds of crazy scenarios. Paying for her to live with us until things settled down.

I didn’t know what to do.

I landed in America, and trouble had already been boiling. A legal battle was being staged for my brother’s body. On one side, my dad who was traveling back form Thailand, on the other side, my sister in law who wanted to remove his body so she could pray for him with her bible study group to bring him back.

I understood both sides. I was fiercely protective of my bother. But I also believed in miracles myself. And even in my heart I thought he was gone, he wouldn’t feel gone til I saw his body.

I called my brother’s widow as soon as I landed. I expected her to be in terrible grief. The first thing she said to me was “Joe..Joe..you got to be on my side on this one Joe..”. And it turned my stomach and broke my heart.

I knew in her tone that things were not good. Next, a voice came on the phone, some weird bitch from her bible study who had the audacity to talk to me in a chipper call center friendly tone. Telling me that they were there praying for Bradley to wake up.

This tension would go on for weeks. Actual weeks. In one camp, my dad, brother, and others trying to get legal access to Bradley’s remains so he could be buried. On the other, my brother’s unhinged widow trying to hold meetings in their John’s Island house for him to be resurrected.

In the middle, most of the reasonable members of my family. Trying to make everyone behave.

It was the most chaotic thing I have ever lived through and I hope it never happens again.

I’ll never forget going over to see my brother’s widow with my wife. I was hoping to bridge the gap, help her come to face the loss of him. The mental unhealth in the room was like a fever. Imagine having the worst day of your life, and going to people who are willing themselves to believe it is not happening. It was eery.

After a long, bitter, nasty process, we eventually buried him. To this day, I feel empathy for my sister-in-law. She was doing what she thought a good person should do.

But underneath this belief, was someone who was desperately and at all human cost avoiding reality. I don’t blame the other people in my family who started the legal battle. They were trying to protect Bradley’s memory. That is an honorable thing. One member of my family wanted the autopsy done right away so we could see if the heart defect he died from was possibly present in us as well. I understand that too.

At the end, it felt like everyone was killing each other to save something that was long gone.

I’ve never told this story publicly, but I think its the right time.

I’m sure my memory of this is subjective as are all memories. Honestly, I am more and more interested in having a truce with the past.

But I share this because its surreal to see someone else living this.

A network of people, spending hours with their eyes closed, trying to will themselves into a place of certainty. Trying to overcome to million pound weight of how the world works.

I wish kids came back from the dead healthy and sound. I wish people didn’t have to suffer.

I used to believe in magic. I used to believe in the impossible disappearing and appearing through the power of faith. But once life marks you with its dark lottery, you can’t un-see it.

I hope these people do right by this family and help them grieve properly by burying this child and honoring her short life.

If there is anything after this, I’d like to think kids like her, like my sister, and good souls like my brother have something to look forward to. Some great wind to blend into. Thats the best anyone can hope for.

coaching yourself

I talk to my little Jiu Jitsu babies all the time. Come to think of it, I do the white belt adults the same way. Always angling for that Full House wrap up moral point talking to. I can’t help it, its the church in me. Trying to take what just happened or what needs to happen and packaging it into a workable metaphor or framework.

When I talk to my kids, one of the themes I come back to constantly is this: “one day, you may be in a situation where you don’t have a coach, and you will have to coach yourself.”

It sounds like a dark thing to tell a 7 year old, but I think it couldn’t be more important. The point of a coach is this: the external voice becoming the internal voice. The dark room being illuminated from an outside source, and the instincts and priorities of the one finding its home in the other.

Thats everything.

Thats why you should listen, thats why you should develop modeling behaviors. You never know what detail is the one that will change your life.

I have had, currently have, and will probably forever have coaches in my life. Sometimes in sports, sometimes in life. I love it, I love learning from someone else’s experience. I prefer it.

But you also have to develop the ability to coach yourself.

To me, that means knowing what tone to take when you talk to yourself. If I’m honest with myself right now, I don’t like the way I am talking to myself these days. My expectations have been and will remain insane and out of reach. I expect myself to make bricks without straw to use a bible phrase, and I expect to do it over and over again.

When that goes well its a high, when that falters, its easy to turn on myself. All of this proving behavior is a mix. I imagine some of it is garden variety insecurity, but I know some of it is correct and exactly where I am supposed to be.

But today I’m reminded that I need to talk to myself better. Not to let myself off the hook, but to support myself as crazy as that sounds. When I do this, when I give mercy to myself and push in a fair way, I feel my brother’s voice in mine. When I don’t, I feel like a prematurely old sour man. One who can never be happy.

I am a pusher. I know it in every part of my being. I have an intuition for where the goal post is and its almost never where other people think.

But when it comes to me, I need a new tone. I need to push myself from a place of acceptance and not from a place of lack.

I love talking shit to my training partners in the gym as a way to keep things fun. One of my favorite things to do is wait til one guy is hanging on by a thread and do the “get that or you suck” challenge.

Lets say someone has an armbar attempt, I’l wait til they have 20 seconds left, or they are loosing the elbow and say “get the arm bar or you suck, get the arm bar or you suck, shhhhhh” cause usually they don’t get it.

But honestly, I probably do myself like this. The problem is this is based on a logical error that this is my only at bat. If the game ends there, then yes, if you don’t get that arm bar, its over. But if you are in your bone marrow committed to the game and its perfection, this arm bar barely matters.

Giving yourself credit

Its hard to give yourself credit.

When most people tell you to give yourself some credit, what they mean is that you should recognize what you have done. Look at the doughnut and not the hole. Thats what a good friend should say.

But every person I know who is accomplished hates to hear that. To be accomplished means that you will always live with disappointment. On your best days, you can ignore it, on your worst, it feels like an air ball that hangs in the air forever. You know its not going to end well, and still you have to wait. Its a constant game of managing the downside.

The reason I feel this way at times is because my conception of what I’m capable of is very high. And yet most of the time I am falling under it. I am missing deadlines, losing matches, bombing sets, not saving money etc.. its hard to master yourself. We have to fail to be great, but at some point you hope the failures have an upward trend. Chasing that version of yourself that you think you could be. And the crazy thing is, you probably could be that man. You are not, not even close, but you could be one day. And thats the whole game.

We all contain strangers. And like all strangers, they are the best and worst.

To me, the strangers are your potential. You don’t really ever know what you could be. For every time I have ever done something I was proud of, or ashamed of, there is a similar element of surprise. When I listen to my comedy sets, I can’t stand listening to jokes I’ve done a bunch of times, I am most interested in the times when the show gets weird or I go on a riff or get heckled. One thing that delights me lately is going back and listening to old songs that I forgot I wrote. I hear and enjoy them for what they are/were. Darts thrown at a dart board. Attempts.

Its very easy to shame yourself for your attempts. But honestly, its the worst habit. The attempts are what the wins are made of, like humans are made of water. You can’t comprise a success without many particles of failure.

I guess thats the only way to take comfort. I don’t want anyone to reframe my fails. Don’t tell me it was close, or almost.

Tell me that if I try again, I can have it. Maybe not on the timeline I hoped for, but still.

Persistence is the only virtue when you are doing hard shit. I hope you keep going, in whatever you know you’re supposed to be doing. And you don’t let your own standards drive you crazy, or the lesser standards of your naysayers become your norms. And I hope you find a way to keep a corner of happiness and gratitude to occupy your heart in while you struggle. Despite how it feels, its never all dark. Its never all dark. Dark is a time thing, even with no effort it passes on its own. In the mean time, do what you can.

Who knows who you could be if you push a little more.

return to zero

I bought a house from a wholesaler, most of y’all know that. I did it because I’m trying to be my own sugar daddy. I want to have enough income from property/air b&b income that I can try my hand at being an artist in Chicago without the suffocating existential money dread of being a broke loser at 40.

Good plan, hard to execute. I’m not handy, never have been, still don’t feel handy. I only can feel how much I’ve learned when I get asked to help on a friend’s project, thats when I realize that I’ve been learning something. I digress.

Part of this experience with renovation is about stripping things down.

Every house is a nest of decisions.

Some of them carefully made and forward thinking, some very clearly were rushed through to appease someone else or just to buy time.

If you work on a house long enough, you become suspicious of everything. And you should be, lots of people don’t know what they are doing, and even good work will one day fail. Sometimes the first step is to pull up everything that was done before.

My kitchen floor is such an example. Its basically a seven layer bean dip of shitty linoleum and backer board and carpentry staples and adhesives, 5 levels deep. I could smell moisture under the floor, and I needed to know how bad it was. At one level, I had to hand pull about 200 staples out of the floor in order to dislodge it.

Even though this is a lot of work, I like it. I like knowing how bad it is. Once I see the subfloor, I can rest assured that whatever we build from here on out will be on sure footing.

I call this process returning to zero.

When things go bad, the natural tendency is to not look. I know I am like that. I avoid knowing all the time. I am trying to shield my psyche from pain. But there is an intense relief in quantifying the bad. In knowing exactly how bad something is, to the ounce. To the penny. Because once you have measured the bad, you know exactly how much good it will take to overcome it.

I hope for you that you find a way to return things to zero, to estimate the down side, and start right away on building the upside.

Obstacles

Because I have felt overwhelmed lately, I feel this creeping wish that blossoms up sometimes. I wake up, some bullshit happens, I have to deal with it, and the wish comes up and says some nonverbal version of “I wish I had no problems”.

Honestly, after all the plumbing issues, money issues, existential stress of moving, and sorting through the people who love me/hate me/have unfinished business with me and are reacting to my move, its been a fucking season y’all.

There is a constant duality in my life right now. Salt and sugar back to back.

Case in point, the other day in my mailbox I had two letters, 1 from my tenant giving me some bullshit and problems that I will have to work on, and literally right next to it was a letter from someone who I care about saying they love me and that they will miss me.

I think this happens a lot when you leave a place you’ve been rooted to for a while. Its a mock form of a death bed. My time here is dying, and people come to pay their respects, or disrespects as it were.

Its a lot, and every day I wake up to the smell of one fire that I have to put out and some version of this polarity of reactions to me.

But despite this feeling that I’m just treading water, I know that wishing for no problems is childish, self pitying and impossible.

The only people who have no problems are dead people. As long as you are alive, there will always be something falling under the standard of good that you would wish.

If you are a control freak or if you are under a lot of pressure, this is unbearable. This is one reason why people withdraw from the world, and boy oh boy does that sound good right now.

But I know for certain, that once I have some time to breath, maybe a vacation, I will long for challenges again.

I know that I am impatient as fuck. I know I always have this lingering feeling that I might be in trouble. I know that thats silly. I know that I often blow things out of proportion emotionally. If I’m not careful, every inconvenience is a scheme from the world to bring me down. I know that to get where I want to be I will have to adjust to a life of obstacles.

I’ve probably had some anxiety lately. Anxiety is still a novel concept to me, and I don’t think most people recognize all the ways it can show up. For me, it is this deep seated fear that I won’t be/have enough to solve XYZ problem.

Through the smoke of all these feelings, I know that the problems we choose to solve is what determines the person we become. I am trying to solve game changer problems for myself. The game does not change without a fight.

My strategy for now is to do the things I want to do every day, and do the things I have to do, and accept that some things will fall off in the pursuit.

I’m 36 today. I want to write blogs and jokes every day, I want to study jiu jitsu and train every day, I want to make money every day, I want to read every day, I want to help people every day. I want to dive deeper into shit instead of less deep. The world is overwhelming, but positive emotions are overwhelming too.

I’m starting at 0 in my comedy and writing new jokes, I had a good set last night with all new stuff. And I know once I build a long set of that and kill with it, that will be an overwhelmingly good feeling.

In the mean time, I’ll choose my problems, I’ll be patient with myself, and I’ll not bitch when things don’t go my way.

advice v.s. motivation

There is a big difference in between the sign on the side of the highway telling you how far you are from town and the music you listen to in the car as you drive. To me, that is in a nutshell, what the difference is between advice and motivation.

Why is it worth splitting hairs on this?

The reason for me, is because any time we attempt to ascend to a higher level, we need of both. Its not wrong to look to others who have scaled the mountain we hope to scale. Ask for pointers, ask for pitfalls. But there is no amount of advice that will tie your shoes for you.

Thats the job of motivation.

I am a huge huge fan of both. I hate wasting time. I am a creature of authority. I am always looking for the highest voice. I am looking for the best way. As we get older, we learn that most of the time that does not exist, but out of the myriad of voices, certain themes or narratives emerge.

The problem is most people shut down their dreams because they either don’t look for any input, or they look for so much input that they hamstring themselves. Most of us tend towards one or the other, my tendency is the latter. I am afraid of making mistakes. But eventually, the pain of trying and failing is overwhelmed by the pain of doing nothing and I just go.

I love advice. I love getting it (when its good), and I love trying to give the most helpful and insightful advice I can when asked.

But advice is the start. Motivation is everything else. We have to have fuel. My whole life i have known that i listen to music as fuel. I listen to music based on what I am trying to do. I think about how I need to feel to do whatever I’m doing, and I pick that. I’m really judicious about it. I know that music can be my motivation. Other times i know that I am plenty motivated, and I need to distract myself while I work. Times like this I will listen to dumb shit like debates or Dr. Phil.

As I am attempting big things in my life right now, I am reminded of this polarity. I want input, but then I know there is a time when input has to be replaced with long difficult protracted effort.

I hope you find the voices you need to be motivated, and I hope you find signs to guide your way. And then I hope you do the same for others when you can.

Charleston I love you Charleston I’m leaving

For once in my life, this headline is not a metaphor. I am currently planning on moving, tentative date somewhere between late January and early February.

Why

I am a restless person. I don’t know if its some type of low grade manic depression, being an artist, being more aware of death because of the siblings I’ve lost, wisdom, folly, bravery… I don’t know what it is.

I just know that the hardest thing in the world for me to do would be to do the same thing every day for a year, a decade, a life time. Because of this, I feel out of sync with Charleston. I always have. I love so many things and even more people here, but my rhythm has never matched.

One of my earliest stand up bits was about how everyone in this city lives in a prescribed timeline. IF you are 18-22, the only thing anyone expects of you is to get wasted and look for a phone charger. Then from 22-27, the expectation is to get into your first failed marriage, one that involves at least ten brides maids and groomsmen. Then the 30’s are a god damn wasteland here.

People have either completely given up, are deeply committed in families or marriages (which is great, just obviously not me), or meandering with no traction. Then there are many amazing capable, but even they can feel the unease. Its a wind that blows off the shoulders of many people here.

I was never going to be on beat here. I feel it all the time. I’m too old and too young. Lucky for me, I have had enough experiences in other places that i have some conception of what is possible, and the chance of change.

As I’m writing this I feel like all my pretty words just sound like a long winded version of me not wanting to grow up. There is a meme out that says that starting stand up is the guy’s equivalent of a girl considering to grow out here bangs. If thats true, then moving away to pursue stand up is joining the circus for middle aged men.

But for me, I never even meant to be here. The first phase of my life was marked by my loss of everything. Starting at 0 again in Copenhagen. Getting into Berklee, not being able to afford it, and being forced to be here. I always wanted the road, but I also wanted my independence. I can’t be the dude that needs drinks bought for him. I want to be on the stage, and I want to pay my own way.

Lately I feel like life is squeezing me. As I write this, I have 13 minutes to finish before I have to be at another meeting. In the process of sitting here, I got an email from Air bnb where they reversed their own decision on a borderline racist review someone left on one of my listings. Shit is a time vampire and frustrating. At the same time, I ran into someone who I love just sitting here and got to catch up.

In a nutshell, thats how this season to me feels. Pressed, in a hurry, and surrounded by good and bad extremes.

I have been so resentful for how busy I feel lately. Then recently it occurred to me that maybe the press is the universe pushing me. If you know me, you know I don’t believe in signs or things like that. But sometimes even bad feelings can be traced back to good overall goals and targets.

I first contemplated leaving at the start of the year. I did the Marie Kondo thing. I cleaned my house, and I realized that stripped of all its extra clutter, it felt like a rental and not a home. This just connected more to this deep sense of movement I’ve always had in me. The need to get on the road, to see what I can see.

I am moving to Chicago, and I’m doing it practically blind. I’ve been once, and had a blast. I know maybe 4 people tops. I have 0 connections. I will be going up when the weather sucks the hardest.

I’m moving there to see what I can be with stand up. I want to see if I can develop a pro skill set.

I fully expect it to not work out. I expect it to not be what I thought. I expect to discover I’m less good than I imagined. I would not be surprised to discover that maybe I’m not really a comic, but more of a writer. I half expect it to all blow up in my face.

I am willing to risk what I have now because what I have now is built on this fault line.

The only unacceptable outcome is to not try.

Practically, i will be turning over my school to my mentor in the sport and my amazing teammates who have all helped me be a better man. I will ensure that no one gets lost in the shuffle.

I have a lot more to say about this. But I guess the only thing is to say I am thankful for all the people in my life who have made this season what it was.

We are all a story with a pulse. All stories have origins, Charleston will always be that for me.

When you reach for the new level, the old one crumbles underneath you.

When you reach for the new level, the old one crumbles underneath you.

When you look at ending a relationship, the flaws in it bubble to the surface like a sea monster.

When you start the journey, you realized there is something you forgot and its too late to go back for it.

When you are about to step on stage, you are most clear about how you could have just sat in the darkness of the crowd.

When we attempt to expand, the first thing we feel before relief or joy is constriction. Like an injured rib cage around an expanding lung.

This matters because most dreams don’t get killed at the end, they get killed on day 2.

You make a target, you wave to your friends and set out, then all fucking hell breaks loose.

I don’t know why this is. Maybe those problems were always there. Maybe its the law of averages. Maybe god is seeing if you were serious. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the infrastructure of who you were starts to crumble, and you have to keep moving.

I know a lot of divorced people. I am divorced people. Its natural, but it never ceases to amaze me how people change for the worse in the death throws of a marriage. I get it. Ive been hurt, and I’m sure I’ve hurt others as well, but sometimes when you end what you have, what you have displays every reason why you were right to leave.

I’m living through this right now, and I am sad and uncomfortable every day with random spikes of joy. I’m overwhelmed, and I feel under-accomplished, which if you know me, is my form of depression.

As I’ve taken on this new renovation project (which is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken and way out of my league), my old house has had in no particular order: several separate plumbing leaks that went undiscovered, an AC compressor issue, these issues combined to give me a $1000 power bill for two months and a $500 power bill for the water loss, plus the cost of the plumbing and ac repair which are thousands of dollars. All these issues metastasized into a crawl space wet rot/mold issue under said house that will be another $3000. I can’t believe my luck, and by that I mean how shitty it is. And this is just one situation in my life that is fighting me.

Its really upsetting, and it feels unfair. At the same time, if I take my own medicine, I realize that this is exactly as it should be. I am a responsible homeowner, I did nothing to cause this, I didn’t take any shortcuts. Shit just goes bad sometimes, often times at the worst possible time.

The heart of the matter is I’m not doing this renovation to be afraid of a couple thousand bucks worth of bad news. I’m doing this renovation as a long term play, and as a gateway to making millions. I hate the way things are going right now, but I recognize that this is now, this is not forever. This isn’t even next month.

Theres a really beautiful verse from the new testament I never forgot. The disciples come upon a man that was born blind. At the time, the belief was that the man himself or his parents must have committed some great sin, and thats why their son was born with this disability. His disciples asked him “rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Jesus replies “neither this man or his parents sinned but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him”.

When the step behind you crumbles, my hope for you, whoever you are, is that you keep climbing. And that one day, you realized you didn’t need the steps at all, and could have flown the whole time.

the power of knowing how much things cost

Everything that appears to be a symbol of success has one dirty secret. That secret is, that no matter how exclusive, everything has a price tag.

Usually when people say this, they mean it in a disgusted way. To me, its comforting.

I grew up in a lot of financial uncertainty. I used to dream about money. Finding it in an old wallet, or day dreaming about winning the publishers clearing house sweepstakes. I knew on some subconscious level that a lot of the misery in my life was financial. If you are going to school with jeans that don’t fit, and trying to pull them down so they don’t show your ankles, you know that you have a jean problem. Which is at its roots a money problem.

The most common response to lack is usually the least helpful.

Opting Out, Shrinking of Desire, Mythologizing.

Instead of taking this lack as a moment in time, we construct a narrative of how this is the way it is, this is how it will always be. We do this to avoid pain. Short term, it can be comforting to think that I am suffering because of things outside of my control. Long term, this is the dream killer.

At the same time, some things are outside your control. You can’t help your skin, gender, accent, orientation, your natural preset brain chemicals, your parents, your country of origin, your generation. We are all born into some kind of stacked deck, some have it way worse.

But still, in the world where all objects have a price tag, mythology won’t help you. it has never helped me one day in my life to learn that the 1% of our country controls most of the wealth, even though its true. It has helped me immensely to learn to set goals, read voraciously, and surround myself with people whose life I want to model.

When I act like everything is out of my hands, I am undone. When I act like everything is under my control, I wake up earlier and work harder. Both are extremes, but the latter is the one I think most people lack.

For me, learning how much things cost, has helped pop a balloon in the growing dread that creeps into my heart when things aren’t going well. My car breaks, I don’t feel $50 dollars worth of fear, I feel $2000. But when you learn its a battery issue, it goes back down.

Walking down the street seeing people eating in a fancy restaurant, you envy them. Then you look at the menu and realize its about $100 total for two people. All of a sudden this snapshot of unimpeachable wealth is a joke.

No matter who you are, someone will always have more. But a lot of times, if you scrutinize their “more”, you realize that you could create the same thing if you really tried.

I have to believe that I am a man without limits. Its the only way I know to not become a bitter old asshole and age prematurely. If I’m willing to pay the price tag, I can have anything I want.

living the wrong life

When I became non-religious, there was a period where I felt like my mind was being torn in half.  The scaffolding that held up the structures of who I was had crashed down, and  I was forced to reconsider everything. 

That takes one sentence to write, but let me assure you, it was an overwhelming amount of work.

 When I was a small child, I used to have a fear that I would walk downstairs and discover that my entire family had turned into monsters.  Still watching tv and lounging in the house, but all untrustworthy villians.  That’s a little bit of what its like to go through that process I went through.  Things you once felt kinship with now felt like they were out to get you. I don’t mean that I then (or currently) view religious people as villians.  Some of them, but not all and not even most.  I do view some of the things I used to accept as villainous. 

 Its very uncomfortable to reconsider, and that’s why none of us ever do it, unless forced.

 So why even try? One reason is to rid yourself of that sewer line of ceaseless existential dread.

People worry about little things, thats normal. But the big questions of life and what everything means, they can never be silenced. For me it manifested in strange ways.

I remember being 22, newly married, living in a house we just bought, well liked in our church and playing on a worship team. And yet somehow, there was this panic. This submarine alarm system going off that I had missed something. That I was being cast incorrectly in the play of my own life. It was nobody’s fault. My ex was/is a good person, so were most of the people we went to church with. And yet I felt trapped.

Luckily, we got the chance of a lifetime. A bizarre invitation to move to a country I couldn’t find on a map to be worship leaders and work with kids. I didn’t even want the job at first, but I knew it was somehow right. I never wanted to mix my religion with my money. And that was a good instinct. Working for the church probably sped up my departure from it.

Not because anything bad happened, but because no one else seemed to be able to hear the sirens.

We did our best for 2 years. I remember coming back from some kind of missions trip in England and we were taking the long train ride home from Copenhagen central station and I remember just wanting to cry. I was about 26 at the time, and turning 26 hit me really hard.

At 26 I woke up and realized that all I cared about was being an artist. At the time a songwriter. I was good at it, I thought so, everyone said so, why wasn’t I doing more of it?

Part of the reason why was because addressing the sirens will cost you. I strongly believe that facing these deep conflicts inside of myself cost me my religion and maybe my marriage. I was changing, and as I floundered to find something I could call my own, there was a long process of me sucking at it. Of needing to share every shitty idea I had. Of craving validation for a cake that hadnt baked all the way yet.

Thats why nowadays I almost hate asking people to come to my shows. I love the love of strangers most of all. The only other people’s opinion besides strangers that I value is fellow artists.

For the rest of my life, I will remember and be wiser because of that feeling I had, of living the wrong life. Its the feeling of being on the phone and the battery dying but not having the courage to say what you need to.

I will never make that mistake again. Thats why current me has such a priority of doing exactly what I think all the time. I bought and am renovating another house. I went to the world championships. I take on big comedy shows when I can. I confront assholes. All of this because I know the terrible terrible pain of being a serving man with no courage to be an outsider.

When you leave the tribe, the adventure starts. When you return, the adventure ends.

Whoever you are, its not too late to lead your own adventure. To divorce the old you and all of us struggling, well meant intentions. To make peace with your best guesses and make some fresh updated 2019 you goals.

Do that, and the misery you encounter will never be as heavy as the misery of knowing the real you was wondering around the world like a ghost waiting for your courage to catch up.

the value of details

I just came back from Masters Worlds. For 30+ year old Jiu Jitsu athletes, its the biggest tournament in the world. I went for many reasons, but mostly I wanted to test myself against the best in the world.

Being there made me think of language acquisition. I’ve always joked that Americans act like there are two levels of skill with Spanish 1. “mi llamo es Joseph” or 2. PERFECT FLUENCY.

Logically we know thats not true, but thats kind of how we think. We ask people if they are fluent, as if fluent is an easy quantifiable, measurable goal when it is not. You are never fluent. There are always combinations of words that can throw you, dialects, misconceptions about interpretation etc.

There are 1000 tiny layers between each stage of growth.

Back to the tournament.

I won my first match, and it was a major relief. There were 40 guys in my bracket, so half of them were going to go home after losing the first match. Traditionally, the first round is always the hardest for me. I am never warmed up enough, and my body has not accepted the premise that I need it to fuck someone up and yes this will require effort.

In my second match, I could tell my opponent was freak strong, and was waiting for me to make one mistake so he could mow me down. We fought to a stalemate and I eventually rolled the dice on a choke, almost got him, lost the position, and ended up being on the defensive in the closing seconds of the match. I didn’t get scored on but he did enough to win the match. Tough break, but hell of a match. A personal best for me.

The thing I took home with me from this experience was the importance of details.

I scored in my first match because of tiny details. A move within a move within a move. I lost in my second match because of details. The same process of knowledge, but being applied against me.

Maybe there are no unimportant details. Thats hard for an ADD person like me. I just can’t remember everything. I am a summary type guy. I would be a terrible CPA, but I’m a good performer.

One of my forever heroes is Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is a master of the details of his craft. To the point where it makes his regular life a struggle. Early in the stories it is revealed that he is ignorant of the fact that the earth moves around the sun. At the same time, he can recognize over 20 different types of cigars and cigarettes by the ash they make.

Knowing details is also a spectrum. Compared to someone who doesn’t train Jiu Jitsu, I am a master. Compared to my coach, I’m a 12 year old with one stripe on my belt.

I’m proud of my experience because I was so scared. I had a panic attack on the plane ride there. I lived under a constant black cloud preparing for this. I have no trouble seeing myself as an artist. Its a challenge to see myself as an athlete. Its probably some type of self love I have not actualized. But I did it any way.

But I didn’t lose because I was nervous, I lost because of details. That is comforting. I can’t control how scared something makes me, I can control my level of study.

If I ever go back, I will go with a broader map in my mind, my details will improve.

Dramatic Shit

Every one of us carries a set of protocols around inside us, a “in case of emergency, break glass” behavior.

Many of them are very specific.

If you’re like me, you have always known you have them, but you may not ever take the time to examine them. Here are a couple examples from pop culture.

“If my manager insults me again, I will be assaulting him, after I fuck the manager up, then I’m gonna shorten the register up” -Kanye

“…and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and its not okay because if they take my stapler then I’ll, I’ll, I’ll set the building on fire” -Milton from Office Space

These are funny and kinda violent, but most of our little predictions aren’t. They are our attempt to play chess with the universe. We see trouble, and we try to have our counterpunch ready for it.

At the end of the day, its a behavior built on trying to avoid pain.

A behavior built on anticipating a loss and how we will react.

In me, many of my little future fantasies are about people. They are about the lengths I would go to for them. To make things right, to take care of them, and less common, how I would protect myself ethically from people who would try to wrong me.

This is what I call dramatic shit.

Its a whole one act play that we travel with, packed up in a suitcase. A little on demand flea circus.

These stories are so alluring. They star us, our favorite actor, and the people we love and hate, our favorite costar.

They are not wrong, but they are only a mirror. They are not the future.

There are people who I am willing to take care of til the bitter end. If they fall apart, I will do whatever it takes, sacrifice whatever it takes, to make them ok.

And there are people who I am waiting for a chance to give to, but can’t find the right way. I owe them, but I don’t know where to send the check so to speak.

The thing I’ve come to realize is that these narratives are helpful because they show us one thing, our limits.

How far we are willing to go, and what we are capable of, if only in our heads.

Most of our behavior is in a very comfortable driving speed of 55 miles per hour. But our cars can screech to a halt, they can circle a house, and they can also tear down the road.

My hope for myself and for you reader is that you learn from your stories, and that your real life is not echoed out by your shadow life.

A failures creed

I’d rather look like a fool on a big stage, than look like a king on a small one.

I’d rather come up short, than to know I had more to give and was too scared.

I’d rather be knocked down, embarrassed, talked about, forced to regroup, sore, disappointed and despondent than to have the restless legs of those who can’t make themselves do hard things.

I’d rather be a one hit wonder than a no hit anything.

I’d rather risk and lose over and over again, gambling with the happy chemicals in my brain for one shot at something bigger than myself, than to recede into middle and old age with no balls no strikes. No at bats.

I’d rather be a known failure than a secret and self appointed wise man.

I’d rather make every attempt to actualize what my heart tells me I’m capable of than to act like I don’t hear that voice.

I’d rather break apart into a thousand pieces than hold together out of fear.

Hesitation towards a goal is sin and a form of pride. I’d rather be imperfect than stuck.

Obstacle Learning

I know about rats. Not a lot, but a fair amount. I never endeavored to learn about them, not within 100 miles of my goal list, but life forced me to. In the processing of doing some renovations on my house last year, I had opened up a wall in the stair well. As I was clearing out trash out of the attic one day, I came down the stairs at midnight to see a huge fucking rat standing on a tool box. Caught that guy in a trap that my buddy set, but a week later I found three rats just chilling in my open stair well. 30 feet from my room where I sleep. It was upsetting. More upsetting than you would think.

I am a creature of momentum. I crave progress. The lack of it is the feeling I avoid at all costs. Seeing rats in the house I was trying to make cozy was not just an inconvenience. It felt like an emotional assault on my dreams.

After I calmed down, did more research, talked to experts, I made a new plan.

I bought a “rodent cafe” which is basically like a food truck for rats that you fill with poison and put under your house. I bought a huge bucket of this peanut butter poison blocks for the rodent cafe. After a week I checked on it, and the damn thing was EMPTY. Insane. So I filled it up again. Week later, empty again. Eventually though, there was less and less action at my little murder box. Which was great.

Now, when I go anywhere, I see other people’s rodent cafes. Every building and restaurant has them outside. You probably never noticed them because why would you, it wasn’t your problem.

This is obstacle learning, and let me tell you it sucks. Its usually things in your blindside. Its your non-dominant hand. Its your least favorite subject. But hidden in everything you hate doing, is a weakness of yours waiting to become a strength.

Gary V talks a lot about tripping down on your strength. I think that is valid and helpful. But whatever your game is, real estate to Jiu Jitsu to being a good parent, you have to address your weaknesses.

I love learning. And yet I hate learning when it is forced upon me. At times like this, I love to think of the phrase hate fucking. Its an ugly phrase when it comes to people, but a great way to describe getting the job done in something you want to run from.

I hate rats, I hate hanging up mirrors, I hate making follow up calls to the window company because they don’t give a fuck. But I know that I don’t have to change forever and love these things, I just have to get them done.

Over 2000 years ago Marcus Aurelius famously said “the obstacle in the path, becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

Now that I know about rats, I can be a better friend to people I love who have the same problem. So in affect, every hour you spend working on shit you hate can become a benefit not just to you, but to those around you.

Focus on what you’re good at, but hate fuck your way through the petty tasks that try to steal your momentum.

Your frustration can one day be someone else’s good fortune that they have you as a friend.

Put pressure on yourself

In competitive karate, there are two main things an athlete can compete in. Kata, or kumite.

Kata are the forms that are taught at each belt level. Performing kata is hard, and extremely subjective. I along with every man in my family sucked at kata. Kata is about precision, about the ability to duplicate a result every time, it requires no change based on the opponent because there is no opponent. It is a solo act, based on the imagined threat of someone else. Kata is beautiful in its own way. It takes an immense amount of power and body control to do it well. Its much like a figure skating routine.

Kumite is the point fighting version of the sport. Compared to kata, its a wild thing to watch. Point fighting in karate is a lot like fencing. You have to be first, and not just first, you have to get them with good technique. You have to react fast and perceive threats, and deal with negative situations. Kumite was always my thing. I knew that if I made a mistake, I could come back from it and still win.

In my head, kata is for people who think slow, and kumite is for people who’s brain thinks fast. Both of these are strengths. If you were playing ping pong you need to think fast, if you’re dismantling a bomb you need to think slow. Time and place.

All this is swirling around me because I’ve been thinking a lot about self knowledge. Every person walking around you is a little flawed machine. They all have their production, they all have their breakdowns. Knowing your own machine is the master skill of life.

When you know yourself, you can think bring the best out of yourself.

In my life, this means the proper use of pressure. I can’t do anything without it. Or at least nothing well.

For this and many other reasons, I am a shitty employee, at least long term. But put me in charge of something and I’ll find a way to make it great. This isn’t a control thing, its an ADD thing. If I can rely on others too much, if the roles aren’t clear, if the identity is muddled, the hustle escapes me.

But when its me on the front line, I feel like parts of my brain otherwise untapped come back online and I can push myself.

Putting pressure on yourself gets a bad rap in our culture. But for me, its the only way to achieve things that are currently beyond my grasp. For me, I need external pressure. I need deadlines. I need big goals, I need people outside of my head that will be disappointed or annoyed if I don’t come through. I want to choose the when’s and where’s and who’s, but this is the only way I know to get the room full of voices in my head to go from mob to choir.

The Continuum of Certainty

long time readers of the blog know i spent my high school years living kind of sheltered by choice. I spent most of my time doing karate, hanging out with my brother and sister in law, playing guitar, doing church stuff, and not understanding myself. My life was mostly built around what I didn’t do.

If I could relive my life, I would have had more of the classic TV/movies American high school upbringing. I think I missed a lot of socialization and baseline confidence that comes from being a part of a group. Herd immunity.

My entire high school life I was invited to zero parties. Not because no one liked me, probably just because they didn’t know me, and if they did, might would have an inkling that i wouldn’t have had a great time.

Senior year, it dawned on me that I was missing out. I freaked. I realized that the door of the experience was ending and I hadn't done anything. So I did everything. I only needed 5 credits, but I did Spanish 3, jazz band, chorus, cross country, Spanish club, A.P. European history etc..

I’m glad I did. I learned about myself and met some interesting people.

When I graduated, I was so relieved. I truly in my bones hated school. I’ll never forget standing in alphabetical order line dressed up in robes in the North Charleston Coliseum to get my diploma along with the remnant of 2002 that made it. That day felt like the scene in the movie when the guy gets out of jail and they give him all his personal effects back. I knew school was not going to be my peak.

But then not being in school was even harder. My immediate plan was to teach karate and win the NKF karate national championships. I was living with my dad, but we ended up in conflict and I moved in with my sister.

I think at that point I realized how much I had isolated myself. I was an artist, who’s only expression was church.

I’ll never forget meeting up with another church kid for dinner one night. Like the two painfully awkward dorks that we were, we met up at wild wings downtown. This guy grew up and even more removed from main stream culture than me. If I was sheltered, this mother fucker was invisible.

For the rest of my life, I’ll never forget that meeting. I asked him what he had been up to and he said “nothing” and smiled. And as I looked at him, I knew he meant it. He hadn’t been doing anything. He was an eating breathing shitting cognizant creature with no deadlines, no dreams, no big goals, no runs no losses, no snow mo biles and no skis.

It made me laugh, and then it scared me.

Almost 18 years later, that still scares me.

Wasting time is a sin. And yet I know I do a lot of it, just in less recognizable ways.

My life has been a series of big pursuits with big reasons. Thats not a bad way to live, but I feel old lately. Not washed up, just old on paper. I know I’m the best version of myself now. I’m more self aware, I make more money, I do more good, I’m probably even better looking. But the hour is late.

Its always late though. Every day you have is the only day you have. You only have time retroactively. We only own things backwards. There is no future guaranteed ownership.

I’m doing a comedy show tonight, and like usual, I feel like the dude from Quantum Leap, dropped into a situation he is only somewhat prepped for.

All of this is me thinking on paper. Only at the end of this do I realize what I think I feel. This is my point:

Life is a continuum of certainty.

I need a certain amount of “yes” to be happy, and I need enough “no” to grow.

Most of my restlessness is tied to the yes’s, and all of my insecurity or angst is tied to the no’s. I’m amazed at people who don’t experience life like this.

G.K. Chesterton said that “a man must have enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them”.

Thats probably what I mean.

the upside of the downside

When you’re a kid, the last few weeks of school are magical. The war of grades is over, and all the old enemies are friends. Teachers hand out bullshit word search work sheets and show movies, kids talk more freely, boys and girls tell their crushes how they feel after a year of sitting on it. And the summer birthday kids enter into their power with the magic of pool party bdays. As a November baby, I was always jealous. November birthdays are only fun once you can drink. I digress.

In my mind, I am always drawn to times like this. School being soon over is one of those moments when the lines of normal blur. The routine dissolves, and anything is possible.

I’ve always loved scary movies for the same reason. Scary movies have one underlying concept: there is a baseline normal world, then a disruption, then a process of believing the disruption and overcoming it.

High school kids, kids have dreams of a guy that can kill them in their sleep, no one believes them, people die, then they fight back and beat the evil. At least until the studio makes an ill advised sequel.

I’ve been thinking a lot about failure lately. The personal professional and social tragedies we face, and what we do with them.

One thing I truly believe is that most of any person’s virtues are built on a loose dirt mound of vice. We all have them. We would NEVER do this or that to anyone. Its usually because we have done that before and hated the way it made us feel about ourself, or someone did it to us and we never want to be responsible for that feeling in another. Show me the evil that made you good.

I think of this as the upside of the downside.

Every time I have failed big, or been hurt, or hurt others and realized it for the first time, its a jarring moment. Much like the last days of school, or the start of a scary movie, my conception of the world and myself has changed in some way that I can never retrieve or rebuild.

I think these are the scenes of our life when we have the most potential because we see more. We naturally block out a lot of details day to day. We are overwhelmed with messages. Most of them are noise. But when the rules of regular life dissolve, there is a chance at making a new life. One that fits closer to who you desperately want to be.

So if you are in a bad way, just know that it could, if you are brave, be the start of the best years of your life. Good luck.

comedy as a second marriage

I was at a music show recently and I remembered a little bit of why I don’t go to that many and why I appreciate comedy so much.

It had nothing to do with the band that was playing. It was actually a friend’s band and they killed it. But music has always been tough for me. When I was in church, so much of the reaction to music was either way underwhelming or over the top. It was the feeling of staring at the back of my eye lids while it seemed everyone else was having some kind of mystical journey, or everyone jumping around going crazy while I was rooted to the ground.

It often made me feel like being a room full of people who took acid right before you got there and now you are out of rhthym with their trip.

I enjoy music in strange ways. Music to me has always been a type of fuel. I listen to music based on what I am doing. And as I listen I go into the song and wander. I love being on late night car trips by myself and finding the right downbeat vibe music to play. I love to listen to it as a focus point, and then let my thoughts unfold and indulge myself in nostalgia. Think about things that might have been, that might still be.

Thats also the type of music I have always tried to make. Like little individual desserts or port wine.

The downside of playing like this is you always feel like an emotional busker. I never learned how to look people in the eye when I played. It was overwhelming to me. Thats why playing in church was easy, no one really expects you to look at them.

Music was so many things to me, and so many good moments, and many disappointments too.

Comedy has been like a second marriage. In second marriages, you see people coming out like a boxer from the corner with a fresh idea of what it will take to win and what to avoid. Informed by the hurt but driven to do better. I’m always fascinated by people’s second marriages.

If you don’t do it right, it can often be reactionary. It can be a mistake in the opposite direction. On the other hand, we as humans learn best by doing. Mistakes are part of any good story, and so I think seeing a fresh attempt is always a thing of beauty.

I think doing stand up has given me permission to look people in the eye, to bullshit with the crowd, to engage the other part of my brain and represent another part of who I am.

I used to play very emo songs, but then worry the crowd was getting too serious and try to make jokes imbetween songs. Music that is very vulnerable can make you feel like the crowd is assuming you are some type of tragic figure, and I hated that. I want to be vulnerable in everything I do, but I don’t ever want pity.

Maybe one day comedy will be the thing I learned from but break it off with, and i have a third marriage to something else. But I’m glad in some ways music never caught fire for me. I found a part of myself doing stand up and I would never have known if it wasn’t for disappointment.

Whatever you have attempted or used to be is not the end of your artistry. Its just a relationship and relationships ebb and flow. They die and are reborn every day. I hope til the day I die I am saying or creating something genuine and something beautiful or funny. Life is tragic repetition, art is the interruption.

invalidating yourself

I’ve recently made a concentrated effort to return to the habit of goal setting. Writing down my yearly and monthly aims every morning and every night. I’m bad at it, usually only get the mornings in, but I feel so clear-headed from it. I steal a page out of Grant Cardone’s book the 10X rule and I set my goals as unreasonably high as I can.

The theory is that humans are terrible predictors of how much effort a goal takes. Your assumption of what it would take to make 100k this year is almost entirely wrong. So when you miss your goal, you will be completely discouraged.

Cardone’s suggeston is instead of 100k, try to make a million. That sounds crazy, and it is. But he’s right. The aim at a higher target will summon the sleeping parts of you needed to get where you want to be.

I’ve always believed I am capable of big things. Thats why small things don’t delight me.

My addiction is momentum. I am happiest when things are popping off and saddest when things grind to a halt.

With all this as a background, I’ve recently been able to put words to one of the traps I set for myself, and I bet you do.

Inside of me, is a traitor. A judgmental bitch boy of a man who is waiting for the smallest thing to go wrong so he can throw his hands up in the air and say he knew it all along. There is a voice that has a bad feeling about everything ambitious and has an even deeper need to be right. When I write out my goals in a cafe he is embarrassed, he thinks everyone would laugh if they knew how high I was aiming.

Much like a conservative radio host, this creature inside me lives in a world of perpetual confirmation bias. One of the facets of confirmation bias is we stop seeing all the data. We see the data that supports our conclusion.

This shadow friend loves to compare, and he is a master at doing it at the worst possible time.

I’ve been eating healthy for weeks, the shadow voice will wait til I’m drunk at a birthday party and say “well you’re not that serious about your diet are you?”.

I will miss a flower sweep in competition, and the voice will say “if you’re not good at that move that you practice so much, how bad are you at everything else that you don’t practice?”

This is the constant and depressing habit of invalidating yourself. Comparing what you could be to what you are. But never after a workout, never after a roaring applause from the crowd, only after failure.

This negative ghost is, bafflingly, trying to help. In its own fucked up way, it is trying to protect you from the sting of failure. This voice is constant exercise in forrest for the trees thinking. It never makes exceptions, it never gives you credit, it is a legalist worst than any airline customer service rep you have ever had to try and negotiate with.

I fall for this all the time. I take what the voice says as gospel, and not just as a very closed minded fortune cookie.

The weakness of the voice is it has no hope, and like everyone is future blind. No one knows what will become of me. I may be a world champion one year, or I could have a severe head injury and live in a home for the rest of my life. We can all prognosticate, but the future is finding the light switch in a dark room.

Believing that there is no light switch is the least helpful belief.

Listen to your traitor, but don’t trust him. And don’t let him make any plans.

poison in the garden

One time I was getting a drink in Big John’s Tavern downtown. I ordered, gave the female bartender my card, she looked at my last name on the card, and her face soured like I had stiffed her on the bill. “Coker?” she asked like it was the worst thing to be called, “yes, thats me” I said.

“Are you related to judge… Coker?”.

“yes I am” I replied.

This has actually happened to me a lot. My uncle was a magistrate for North Charleston up until his death. I’ve met a lot of people who saw my name, put the two and two together, and then told me cool stories about how my uncle helped them or showed them leniency or, in one situation, made overzealous cops back down when they were harassing them.

Not this lady.

Once she heard that I was related to judge Coker, she told me about how he had screwed her over and presented it like she hadn’t done anything wrong. I don’t believe anyone is perfect, especially family, so I kept asking questions. Turns out , she was before him because she had a DUI.

Literally everyone I know has driven when they shouldn’t, so I’m not here to judge her. But damn, if you get a DUI and the judge isn’t nice, maybe the judge isn’t the problem.

The less we are responsible, the more we feel harrassed. The less we are responsible, the more scared we are. The less we are responsible, the more we must devote large amounts of mental energy to picturing worst case scenarios and assigning the most one sided motives to people who we are at loggerheads with.

Being responsible is not the same thing as being at fault. I, like you, have had things happen to me that are unfair. I got accepted to my dream school when I was 27, but couldn’t get a loan to go to school to save my life. That wasn’t my fault per se, but if I don’t take responsibility for that then I will moulder and seethe and poison myself.

When you allow your disappointments to lay on other people’s desks, they will never be processed.

Every man and woman has a few drops of pure poison in them. Its easy to recognize when it comes from someone else, its much more uncomfortable to see the poison that you have generated on your own in reaction to life.

I don’t think all the poison can be removed, but I do think it can be used to help pursue a good goal.

I saw a video about a garden in a British research facility that is filled from corner to corner with poisonous plants. Every thing that grows inside the high walls of that garden could kill you, your dog, your family.

The scientists don’t hang out there, but they do study it. They learn from it, but they make sure that they keep it locked up, and they wear protective gear when they go in.

We all have our poison garden. We all have our injuries. The evils we have done or had done to us.

But we all have a choice how we manage the landscape. Being responsible for your own shit is the only way to keep the poison from showing up where it shouldn’t be.