A few have helped me a immensely in life:

1. “Learn to pick your battles.” I’ve found that the vast majority of battles aren’t worth picking. Your time and energy are valuable, don’t waste them on things that aren’t worth it. Ask yourself, “Am I willing to die on a hill for this?” Most of the time, you should just walk away.

2. Learn how to do deep, honest self reflection, the kind that makes you fully vulnerable to yourself. If you feel yourself snapping to a conclusion rapidly or defending a position aggressively, stop and really question why. What are the reasons you think that/feel that?

Use those moments to expose yourself to opposing views with an open mind. Even if you still end up on the same side, you’ll have at least understood where the other person is coming from. I’ve trained myself to be suspicious any time I hold a view where I struggle to think of plausible arguments supporting an opposing view. That usually indicates that I’ve been in an echo chamber and I need to start challenging my own position more.

3. “The heart without the mind is ineffective. The mind without the heart is insincere.” Passion and practicality need to work together to find effective solutions to make the world better. It does little good to have a bleeding heart with no plan of action to accomplish anything. It also does little good to have a plan of action without people involved who truly believe in it and care about the outcome.

Those folks will be the only ones left when funding runs thin and support dwindles, the bleeding hearts will show up when the weather’s bad, show up early and stay late. Both are essential to create lasting, effective, positive change in the world.

4. Above all else, be compassionate. All people deserve basic human dignity. Love people as best as you can. This has sadly been the hardest lesson for me to learn. I grew up in a family with lots of law enforcement connections and sadly, I was taught to fear, hate, and ridicule far more often than I was taught to love.

I know that’s not everybody’s experience, but that was my experience. I was taught that if somebody was in a bad situation in life, it was almost always their fault, and they were to be condemned for that and I was to treat them as outcasts.

I’m ashamed to admit that I carried that mentality with me through all of my childhood and into my adult life. I was disgusted by homeless folks, drug addicts, people suffering in shelters and in government housing. I’m ashamed to admit that I viewed them as parasites, draining valuable resources from society all because they were “too lazy/dysfunctional to be productive.”

I was told this and taught this as truth. Thankfully I started to slowly deconstruct and question all of that that in my 20’s. Something started to happen to me internally, and when I would see a person begging or hear a story about impoverished folks struggling, I started to feel care, and compassion, and concern for them. I started to understand the systemic reasons for their situation, I stopped thinking the way to deal with these problems was to throw them in jail or fine them for panhandling.

I’m happy to say that my spouse and I are involved in community efforts now days to help folks in need. We’re are working with different organizations that address these issues in our home city and it’s been such a fulfilling journey so far.

Sorry for the novel, I felt like I needed to get some of that off my chest. This world is really broken and the underprivileged are suffering a lot. Don’t be like a younger me and add to that, be compassionate and caring to others. Love and try to understand. Help and serve, you might be the only hint of positivity another person sees for days, weeks, even years, so make it count.

Find orgs/groups around you that help folks in need and address systemic issues in your communities. Stand up for those who are the most vulnerable, give a voice to those that don’t have one.

Peace, love, and good vibes to everybody here and beyond. I hope y’alls day/night goes well. Stay safe and be well. <3

Never Rent-to-Own anything.

I’ve never made that mistake but I’ve seen enough friends with poor decision making skills go down that route.

You can try drugs if you want, but most often than not they will become a problem for you.

I embarked on a crusade to prove everyone wrong about cocaine and how it was villanized and there’s only a social stigma around it. Things I found out eventually:

1 - I wasn’t able to undo anyone’s opinion about it, like at all. In fact, I probably enforced the stigma to people around me.

2 - I eventually made a new opinion on it on my own.

3 - Once you get fucked, you get fucked. I wasn’t even the most fucked guy because of it, but it certainly fucked me up and still does.

The thing about drugs is that they ARE good. People need to talk more openly about that, because going the “don’t do drugs, you have no benefit from it” route is a mistake. It fills anyone with curiosity and makes it confusing. If it’s so bad, how can people not just drop it?

But the price is high. I’m talking mainly about cocaine here, but the same applies to alcohol and cigarettes, which are also a problem for me.

One piece of advice a mentor gave me is that whenever a problem occurs, there are 3 possible root causes

• didn’t know
• didn’t care
• material issue

This was initially given in reference to work. But the more I think about, it’s everywhere.

Didn’t know is when you expect a certain outcome but there are unintended consequences.

Didn’t care is more about a person knowing something bad could/would happen and doing it anyway.

And material problems is just “shit happens”.

You got no crystal ball to know what’s inside someone else’s brain.

You don’t know someone else’s thoughts, beliefs, intentions; you can at most guess them, based on a few things - among them, what the person says and how they behave. Use the later two to decide how to handle people, not your assumptions on the former three.

Also remember that this applies to other people. They also don’t know your thoughts, beliefs, intentions. So make sure to speak your mind when it’s relevant.

The key to a good relationship (at least for me I guess) is honest communication. Sounds broad, but if you’re with someone that you can’t just tell the truth to then you probably shouldn’t be together. Being able to tell someone what you do or don’t like is absolute key. And with that being said, being able to take what they say, don’t take it as any sort of attack, and being able to work together past it will make your life way easier.

If a situation involves another person having substantial power over the success or failure of that situation, and especially if over your success/failure, don’t get involved until you have an exit plan thought out (incl what conditions will justify executing it) and preferably already have started the exit plan so it’s easier to transition to.

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Recovery involves failure. It is natural to fall back into old ways, what is important is what you do after. You can either live in the failure, the negativity, and say you are incapable or you can accept that a habit is a habit and try again, find the positivity in continuing to try. Nothing in life is perfect, and recovery involves relapse even if it’s been years, it’s okay just pick up and keep trying.

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Save your money. When you feel like you have enough keep saving.

Don’t give a flying fuck about what someone else do unless it directly affect you.

Seeking anything puts it ‘over there.’ If you’re trying to find something you have to realize it’s ‘here.’ Otherwise you end up doing something like trying to see your eyeball or bite your teeth.

Here’s a simple one.

Double check that newly installed clothes washer actually has the drain line properly connected. If you don’t know how to check it, have someone else do it for you.

:)