What I've Learned So Far

Don’t feel bad if you don’t. In my experience, many talented, ambitious people — even successful ones — don’t really know what they’re after. Or, if they know, they’re not willing to admit it and go for it. So if you’re unclear of your goals, realize that you’re not alone . . .

. . . but then get up and do something about it. I wrote my most recent CareOne column specifically to address this challenge:

How Will You Know When You Win?

Years ago, I learned a business lesson that’s as valuable as it is simple: When you’re setting out on a project, you want to have it very clear in your mind — and in the mind of anyone involved in the project — how you’ll know when you win.

In sports, it’s simple: you have a better score than your opponent when the game is over. If you’re a salesperson, it’s the straightforward question of whether you met your quota or not.

But not everything can be so simple.

So how will you know when you win in your own life?

I encourage you to read the rest on the CareOne blog and then let me know what you think.

Image source.

I’m a bad self-pimper: I forget to share my weekly columns for CareOne here.

CareOne helps people deal with their debts, but my role is to provide encouragement and advice about the other parts of life — fitness, relationships, and so on. In this week’s column, for instance, I talk about the need to make decisions:

Decide

There’s a lot more where that come — I’ve written more than 140 weekly columns for them now. You can find most of what I’ve written on their Life Balance blog.

And if you happen to have feedback, I’d love to hear it — either here or there.

Early-morning
weights to make
the blood sing.

Quiet and
still, the air
begs to be
riven by
plate on plate.

Yoga if
it moves you,
or running;
the cold swim;
writing That
Thing which lurks
in shadows
of hurly-
burly days.

Pray, sip, think;
meditate,
prostrate your
Self to some
Thing larger—
or beyond.

Early morning
waits to make.

Image source.

More tweet-length stories:

She knew the existential hunger wouldn’t be sated by any of her usual distractions. But she could not help herself.

~ ~ ~

“Is it ever going to change?”
“…No.”
“Then why keep acting like it will?”
“…Because I can’t stop wanting it.”

~ ~ ~

He liked her looks, and the way she commanded a room from the podium. But her repeated use of “utilize” was a deal-breaker.

~ ~ ~

He wanted to ask out the cute blonde in the cutoffs. But he was not the type of guy who asked out cute blondes in cutoffs.

~ ~ ~

He wanted his move to Brooklyn to change his narrative. But even after the outbreak, he hadn’t envisioned Hipsters vs. Zombies.

~ ~ ~

When the band started warming up, he found out the skinny girl in the flannel shirt was the shred guitarist. His heart thumped.

~ ~ ~

“Please.”
That’s all she said.
He turned away.

~ ~ ~

“That was amazing.”
“Yep.”
“I think that might be the answer to world peace.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We could try it.”
She giggled.

~ ~ ~

She came into the bar and laid eyes on him. She was everything he had ever wanted. As she had been for 40 years.

~ ~ ~

She had strong opinions about the project, and was sure they were going down the wrong path. But she had mouths to feed. #tinystory

~

Previously:

• Tiny Stories, Part 7

Image by JD Hancock.

More fiction that fits in a single tweet.

In the elm outside his window, a mockingbird cycled through a dozen bird calls without ever using its own. He could identify.

~ ~ ~

Of course he was a gentleman about it. He was always a gentleman about things. Which was itself part of their problem.

~ ~ ~

That woman, in those jeans, made him think of the first time his high school girlfriend played “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” for him.

~ ~ ~

What kind of barrier was 6,000 miles and an ocean when faced with the combined power of Twitter and true love?

~ ~ ~

Resisting plastic surgery, she bore a dowager’s regal face. But years of tennis & sunscreen had given her the legs of a teenager.

~ ~ ~

Calls went unanswered, e-mails unread. He sat through meetings without ever looking up. He could only think of what he had lost.

~ ~ ~

“Oops.” *

~ ~ ~

When he listened to that song, he thought of the wrong woman.

~ ~ ~

She called him “sweet.” He liked that, but wished she’d believe he had a salty side.

~ ~ ~

His confidence was like the wax in Icarus’ wings. Her incandescent good looks were like the sunshine.

~

* My daughter wrote that one.

~

Previously:

• Tiny Stories, part 6.

Image by JD Hancock.

More stories that fit in a single tweet.

She had the debilitating habit of never — never — saying her real opinions out loud. Her mother had taught her that.

~ ~ ~

He wished for fame, money, & a playboy’s lifestyle. But he had all the wrong short-term appetites for achieving them.

~ ~ ~

Abe was tempted to see himself as a magnet for problems. For starters, his mother had named him “Abraham.”

~ ~ ~

He had been a drinker, he had tried psychoanalysis. Now he found his therapy under a barbell.

~ ~ ~

Sure, he would have taken more — as much as she wanted to give him. But in that moment, all he wanted was to dance with her.

~ ~ ~

Her upbringing tried hard to teach her never to expect anything — but it was a lesson she desperately wanted to avoid learning.

~ ~ ~

They worked in the same building, but wouldn’t have met without the fire drill.
“Where are all the good men?”
“On another floor.”

~ ~ ~

He couldn’t make sense of it — hadn’t she loved him? — even through a sleepless week. He gave up & put The Black Keys on repeat.

~ ~ ~

He thought she wasn’t his type, until he found out she loved Tar Heel basketball. That was the beginning.

~ ~ ~

He had always taken it seriously, being a dad. But some things were more serious than others. E.g, explaining The Ramones.

~

Previously:

• Tiny Stories, part 5.

Image by JD Hancock.

x

“Happiness comes from within.”
–The Buddha

That’s the idea I had in mine when I wrote this week’s Life Balance column for CareOne, “Happiness From The Inside Out.”

Too often we let our external conditions dictate how we feel — but in fact those feelings come from within, and we have a huge amount of influence over our own state of mind and well-being at all times.

For more of my thoughts on this, please head over to the Life Balance blog.

Image by Tarah Dawdy.

After too much delay . . . more stories that fit in a single tweet.

Her choice in the category of “Favorite Album Ever” told him that he could never, ever fall in love with her.

~ ~ ~

He was successful, & cute. But she couldn’t decide whether his misogyny, his drinking, or his self-loathing was most revolting.

~ ~ ~

She couldn’t rid herself of him. She wasn’t stuck on his love or the sex or the money. She was addicted to the struggle.

~ ~ ~

Desperate to do something big – & get laid – he dreamed of starting a social-hookup-network called Qwiki. But the name was taken.

~ ~ ~

He’d always hoped to cut a dashing figure. But the pretty woman talking to him at the party had already forgotten his name.

~ ~ ~

He’d been happily off the market for years, but it didn’t hurt his feelings to be flirted with by a slim woman in the beer aisle.

~ ~ ~

She had a saucy mouth. He couldn’t stop looking at that mouth. He would learn that she also had the conscience of a dragonfly.

~ ~ ~

She looked tough and beautiful. For the first time in his life, he wished he had tattoo sleeves.

~ ~ ~

Believing that she would die without any of what she wished for in life, she settled on trying not to be miserable.

~ ~ ~

His vest, tie, and shades were just so. He thought he looked cool. Others thought he looked like a waiter who just got off duty.

~

Previously:

• Tiny Stories, part 4.
• Tiny Stories, part 3.
• Tiny Stories, part 2.
• Tiny Stories.

Image by JD Hancock.

I have a confession to make: I’m a lousy self-pimper. Here I am, turning out (what I hope are) high quality posts on the CareOne Life Balance blog, week after week, yet I’m not sharing them with you, my adoring public. Let me begin to rectify that damage now with this:

3 Ways to Keep Your Kids from Driving You Crazy this Summer

(Foreshadowing: child labor!)

Please do enjoy it. And note this: the good folks at CareOne have now made it much easier to leave comments there — no registration required — so I would love to have your feedback on that page.

Thank you — thank you all.

Photo by Nina Matthews.

“Oh, this is one of my favorite songs.”

He aimed a half-smile toward his pint glass. He hoped she would find it charming or even coy. It actually reflected his disgust at the song, which at least distracted him from his ambivalence over the preceding minutes of small talk.

Once upon a time, he had thought of The Killers as talented and interesting. They had certainly made some songs that he liked. And then they made that . . . well, he didn’t exactly know what word to assign to “Are we human, or are we dancers?” (He suspected that the song had another name — but he couldn’t have cared less what it was.)

“Insipid,” was the word he was looking for. He was trying to resist the dictates of the Commutative Property of Music, which would have forced him to assign the same word to her.

“Do you like The Killers?” She was cute. Plenty of eye contact, and he liked her smile. Not insipid, anyway. Maybe the bad small talk was just from nerves, or maybe she was intimidated by talking to someone who thought for a living and who was — well, a few years older.

“I like some of their stuff, sure.”

“What kind of music do you like?”

He skipped over his first several answers: early Black Sabbath, 1970s Willie Nelson, The Dead Weather, Jane’s Addiction, Fugazi, Girl Talk, . . . he guessed that the relatively small difference in their ages and the large difference in their tastes meant that they would like few of the same things. This was not a club he would have chosen to have drinks in.

“I like all kinds.” He tried to turn up the wattage on his smile as he swirled the remaining beer in his glass. She was drinking Corona Light out of a bottle, even though the bar had 30 good beers on tap.

She started talking about the bands she liked, the shows she’d seen. He smiled when she mentioned Jimmy Buffett, not because he was a fan, but because he was amused by the image of her getting high with a bunch of sunburned tokers twice her age.

She was sweet and earnest — and sexy almost despite herself.

It was funny: he reviled his hipster friends and his grad-student friends for being too knowing. They had overly informed opinions on Moliere and the Kashmir problem and Joy Division. And here was the girl next door with her perky smile, no interest in politics, a liking for Rihanna, and, probably, a complete ignorance of The Wu-Tang Clan or Cormac McCarthy.

He cracked a little joke about the cocktail waitress, who obviously had a crush on the scruffy Lothario at the next table. She giggled into her Corona Light.

Damn, but she was cute.

“My friends got tickets to the Black Eyed Peas show. It’s sold out.”

“That’s cool.”

“Do you like them?”

“Uh, sure — I like some of their stuff.”

She giggled. “It’s always ‘some of their stuff’ with you.” (What was he going to say? That they were a glorified cover band?) “Is there a band that you like *all* of their stuff?”

He went back to the half-smile. There was a contest going on here, a small one, and he didn’t want to exacerbate it. She wasn’t as clueless as she looked. “Led Zeppelin.”

Now she really laughed, but not at his expense. Her eyes lit up. “They’re like a million years old!”

“But they were really good.”

She smiled at him and poked him on the shoulder. “I know you’re a *few* years older, but you’re not 50 or something. You’ve got to like something younger.”

He smiled and acted like he was really thinking about it. She was obviously enjoying herself. “The Dead Weather.”

“Ooh! ‘Die by the Drop’ — my roommate loves that song!”

It was something, at least.

She took a sip from the bottle and looked down as she spoke. “Do you think you’d like to go to the Black Eyed Peas?”

“I thought you said it was sold out.”

“It is. But my friends have an extra ticket.”

He knew what she was getting at, but he played dumb so he could hear her say it. He smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know your friends.” He looked down at his glass and swirled that last ounce of beer.

She poked him in the shoulder, harder this time, and laughed. “You’d be going with me, silly.” She cracked that smile again.

He smiled back and savored the words before he said them. “That would be great.”

She put her hand on his arm. “But you have to pretend you like all of their songs, because my friends are huge fans.”

“I can do that.” He leaned in toward her.

She held his gaze, then gave him a more measured smile. “It’s a date, then.”

She was definitely not as clueless as he had thought. In that moment, he enjoyed the private joke that it took a lot to make him look forward to a Black Eyed Peas concert — but she had managed it.

“All the single ladies! (All the single ladies!) All the single ladies!–”

“Oh, this is my favorite! Come dance with me!” She grabbed his arm as he was draining his beer. He gulped and snorted, and they both laughed as they fought through the press to the dance floor.

He didn’t think of himself as much of a dancer, but it was easy to put a hand on her waist and start moving. He was the furthest thing from a Beyonce fan — although she was better than Rihanna — but if her music made the girl next door move like this . . .

(He thought, for half of a second, about the next-to-the-last conversation he’d ever had with his fiancée. “Why do you always have to think so much? Why do you always have to be right?” had been her refrain.)

. . . he’d take it.