Building A Better You

Don't Be Afraid of Your Future  There’s nothing to be scared of….Right? At one of the high schools I work at, they have these blackboards near the entrance to the school that they like to write cutesy little sayings on: “Throw kindness around like confetti” and that sort of thing. Things that sound they came from a Dove Chocolate wrapper. Today’s message was, “Don’t be afraid of your future.” Being the cynic that I occasionally am at the beginning of work, I thought, “What the hell does that even mean? Who, generally, is afraid of their future?” After a moment of reflection, I realized that I was. Shit. I  am . What’s more, I’ve known plenty of people who are, even if they don’t realize it or speak it out loud. Two years ago, I was asked to talk to a 12th grade student that I had known since he was a freshman. I’d watched him grow from a 14-year-old pain in the ass to an 18-year-old, respectful, studious, less frequent pain in the ass. His teacher asked me to talk to him, beca...

 What's AI Got That I Haven't? A better question might be: What do I have that AI doesn’t? I first thought about becoming a writer at about the same time ChatGPT became a thing. Great. I finally found something that I really enjoy, and might actually want to pursue seriously, and here comes AI to do the job. Lots of what I was reading seemed to confirm this, too. Writers talking about how it’s going to replace human writers, making our work obsolete. Being employed at a high school, it had a small glimmer of truth. Instantly, students were using it to write their essays, and it was challenging to spot the difference, especially since they could get the program to write at their usual writing level. No college level essays from a high school sophomore barely hanging on with a D. Well shit. It put me off of writing for quite a while. Why spend months writing a book when AI could do it in minutes? Why invest the time and energy to become a decent writer when any knucklehead can kn...

  It's Not Them, It's You It seems like there’s no end to it. I suppose there never will be- it’s been happening for thousands of years. “What’s wrong with the world?” “What has gotten into people?” “Why are things so bad?” In reality, things are, in many ways, better than they ever have been for people. Generally speaking, you are safer now than at pretty much any point in history. You are less likely to be the victim of abduction or physical violence. Full-blown wars are less frequent. No, the world is not perfect. Not by a long-shot. And, there are dangers unique to our time: nuclear proliferation, runaway climate change, etc. Day to day life for most of us, however, is better than ever. Yet, people frequently expound on how terrible the world is becoming. Which begs the question: Why? Are these people living in a different reality? The simple answer: Yes, they are. We all are. Our realities are constantly being created and recreated. We each have our own personal lens throu...

 I'm Just Doing My Best “I’m just doing my best.” This is a phrase I find myself throwing around when things get  difficult. Days when I’m struggling to get everything done, when I’m barely hanging on  between work, household chores, and raising a child. When somebody criticizes my work  (or as is more often the case, when I get self-critical) I remind myself that I’m just doing  my  best. I was saying it to myself this morning, somewhere between making my son breakfast, packing his lunch, and making lunch for my wife and I, when I paused and really thought about what I was saying.  Just  my best? If it’s my best, how can it be  just  my best? Isn’t my best what I’m shooting for? It doesn’t always feel like my best though, partly because I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. My best should be getting it all done, getting it all done right, and getting it all done a little bit better than I did yesterday. What I came to realize, however,...

I loved the path of least resistance. It made me feel smart. It made me feel accomplished. Why not? I was getting things done! Checking them off and moving on to the next thing. I thought people who didn’t were being foolish. Why work harder than you need to? Or, maybe they weren’t very good at what they were doing, and should move on to something that they  were  good at. That’s what I did. I had enough money, and I changed jobs frequently so it kept things interesting. It worked great for a long time. Until it didn’t. At some point, I paused long enough to look honestly at my life and take stock of what I had accomplished. I was a well respected worker at my last 10 or so jobs. But, I never stuck around long enough to really be promoted, or accomplish anything of significance. Having dabbled in numerous hobbies, I had passing familiarity with a variety of things: music, whittling, making chainmail, crochet, gardening, sewing, etc. Along with that knowledge, I also had heaps ...