I remember learning that you could tell how old a tree was by the number of rings it had in its cross section because trees get a new ring each year. Then I visited a redwood forest, and learned that that’s not quite right. The sign I was reading said that trees generally get a …
Monthly Archives: January 2020
Today is a good day for something.
I remember listening to a surf report one day and the guy said: “Today is a good day to do something else.” The waves weren’t any good for surfing, but the day was still good for something. What is today good for? What are you waiting for? Today is a good day for something. Especially …
Life Tax
There are some things in life that you can do nothing about. Income tax is one of them. Sales tax is another. It helps me to think of many other life events as taxes too. Dust, for example. You can’t stop it from being around and falling on you. Leave something somewhere long enough and …
If you walk up stairs, why don’t you walk up escalators?
Because you don’t have to, right? Escalators are magic stairs that walk themselves. You can do nothing and still move. Great, right? But should you stand still on an escalator just because it’s moving you? What if it moves you more slowly than your legs? What if you walked up escalators? Then you would be …
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Make things harder for yourself.
I remember playing pool with a coworker who was visiting from India and he was an excellent player. He made most of the shots he took and the balls didn’t just go into the pockets, they were going into the dead center of the pockets. It was like a basketball shot that goes in and …
Make both mistakes.
It took me a while to figure out that I was surfing waves that were too big for me. The people around me were better surfers than I am and they were comfortable but I was not. But I didn’t realize that I was uncomfortable until I was in smaller waves and I noticed how …
Go outside.
It’s hard to realize what the norms of your normal are until you leave and see something different. Some cars have the steering wheel on the left side of the car, some have it on the right. Some cars stop at intersections, some cars drive around a roundabout. You might slice butter downwards in square …
To Do List vs Doing List
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower I have a to do list and whenever I find myself getting distracted or doing something that seems important but is not on my to do list, I write it down on my to do list, so that …
Clipping your toenails is the most important thing in the world.
Hard to believe, but sometimes clipping your toenails is the most important thing in the world. Just like sometimes your biggest problem is a mosquito. It doesn’t seem right, but when we choose to chase or swat at a mosquito, or when we sit down to clip our toenails, we are saying with our actions …
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Be yourself.
“Nature will try anything once.” —Annie Dillard Nature will try anything once. You. You are an experiment. You are something it’s trying. You are its way of exploring. You are one of its thoughts. You are a good idea. Your job is to be you. If life is a tree, then you are a branch—a …