I recently found myself taking an unintentional lukewarm shower. My wife had just given our daughter a bath, and then took a shower herself. There was only enough hot water left to make my shower lukewarm. Continue reading “Gratitude and a Lukewarm Shower”
Category: Saturday Shorts
WD-40 and the Five Year Squeak
We’ve lived in the same apartment for over five years. As long as we’ve been here, our bathroom door has squeaked badly when opening or closing it. Now that we have a baby that squeak has gone from mildly annoying to a ‘must fix’ situation.
Recently my wife asked if I could please fix it once and for all. I said we needed some WD-40 to spray on the hinges. She looked in our closet and found a can. I sprayed the hinges and just like that the squeak was gone.
We had lived with that squeak for the last five years and it was gone in less than 30-seconds.
So many of the problems we encounter in life persist simply because we don’t take action.
A 30-second phone call to cancel that subscription we never use, or talk to that old friend we’ve grown apart from to tell them we were thinking of them. The few minutes it would take to transfer our investment accounts to somewhere with low fees, or the quick call to HR to finally contribute to our 401k.
In five purposeful minutes you can change your life.
The longer we live with a problem, the harder it becomes to take action.
How many squeaks do you put up with in your life that just need a little WD-40?
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Cocktails and Whiskey
Some people are cheap cocktails, and some people are good whiskey. Cheap cocktails might have whiskey in them, but it’s usually bottom shelf. They need to be dressed up, they need something else added to them. A good whiskey can stand alone.
Good whiskey people have a certain quality to them. You can tell quality when you see it. You can hang your hat on the relationship you have with a good whiskey person and you can always count on them. They are the same today, tomorrow, and next week.
They might not be the life of the party, but they’re solid as oak. You can talk with a good whiskey person for hours and have a better understanding of them, and yourself, at the end of it.
Cheap cocktail people need everything to go right for them to be fun to be around. If they’re missing one ingredient they just aren’t the same, and they’re volatile because of it.
You need a certain amount of energy to be around cocktail people, but if you’re in the mood for it, they can be a lot of fun. It’s hard to get past surface level conversations with cocktail people because they’re hiding behind a mixture of ingredients and they aren’t sure who they really are.
You can talk with them for hours without hearing them say much of anything.
Cocktail people can be a lot of fun as long as you expect them to be cocktail people. We run into trouble when we start expecting good whiskey characteristics from a cocktail person.
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Chow Mein and Lo Mein
The Chow Mein Conundrum
I love chow mein, but not all Chinese restaurants serve the same type. It’s either a 10/10 meal for me, or a 2/10 meal, depending on which version they serve. Lo mein, on the other hand, is almost always a respectable 7/10. It’s never amazing, but it’s never awful.
Since eating Chinese food is such a rare treat I’m left with what I call The Chow Mein Conundrum. Do I play it safe and order lo mein, or do I risk it and order chow mein? In other words, do I go for what I really want and risk having an awful meal, or do I play it safe and get the guaranteed pretty good meal? This is a lot like life.
Life itself is a rare occasion.
Sometimes we’re faced with the decision to either play it safe or really go for it. The rarer the opportunity the higher the stakes. Do we turn down the steady job that we don’t really love in order to pursue our dream job? Do we gather our courage and ask our crush out risking embarrassment? OR do we stay safely on the sidelines content to have a 7/10 life?
I recently came to a realization in regards to my Chinese food conundrum:
For years I only ordered lo mein because I was afraid of the awful feeling I’d get when I was served bad chow mein. The thing is, I never really remember the times I got lo mein. It was a fine, but forgettable meal. I was choosing lo mein, not out of love for lo mein, but out of fear of bad chow mein. I almost always remember the places and meals where I got good chow mein. I’ve had enough forgettable meals.
From now on, I will always get the chow mein.
How many times have you wanted to put yourself out there but didn’t because you were afraid of failure? Failure in our day to day lives is often blown out of proportion. We sit on the sidelines because we’re afraid of failure. Ultimately, failure is sitting on the sidelines never playing the game.
I say get up on stage and sing the song, share your poem, write the book, ask your crush out, apply for that dream job. Maybe you fall flat on your face and it’s embarrassing and it sucks, but if you don’t even try it’ll be just another forgettable moment. Don’t live a life of forgettable moments.
When you’re making decisions it’s important to ask yourself if you’re choosing chow mein or lo mein.
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Saturday Morning Coffee
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Ketchup and Lettuce
You’re at my house for a barbecue.
Imagine I ask you if you like the flavor of ketchup and lettuce together.
If your answer is ‘Yes,’ you’d probably be disappointed if I used ketchup as your salad dressing.
If you answered ‘no,’ you might be disappointed if I didn’t put lettuce on your hamburger.
Context matters.
When people have simple black and white answers for complex problems it should signal a red flag to you. Life is full of nuances and many answers are situational.
Don’t be afraid to get more context before making a decision. Don’t be afraid to ask more questions. It doesn’t make you weak or undecided. It protects you from winding up with ketchup as your salad dressing.
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Read our first Saturday Short:
They’re an Idiot But I Just did and Idiotic Thing
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They’re an Idiot But I Just did an Idiotic Thing
I’m starting a new section called Saturday shorts. I plan on having them come out…drum roll please…every Saturday. These articles will be short thoughts on life. I should probably keep all my articles to this length but they always wind up much longer than I anticipated. They won’t all have conclusions and some of them may not have any point at all. So basically like my regular articles, only shorter. Enjoy.
When we encounter someone treating us worse than we want to be treated, we have a tendency to view them negatively on the whole. They are just a bad employee, driver, person, etc. Basically, they’re an idiot.
When we find ourselves not living up to the person we were raised to be, we look for any ear willing to hear our excuses. We aren’t an idiot, we just did an idiotic thing.
Yes, I snapped at the lady returning shoes, but it was my 47th return that day. I had been working a double shift and I didn’t even get to take a lunch break.
Sure, I honked excessively at the lady who caused us all to miss the light because she didn’t turn when she had a green arrow. Give me a break though, I had a really stressful day.
We don’t care why the lady didn’t notice the light had turned green. Maybe her mind is preoccupied with an ailing loved one or maybe she’s been up all night working. Maybe she was just taking a minute to enjoy the scenery and got lost in thought.
Give other people the same benefit of the doubt that you give yourself. It’s not for their well-being, it’s for yours. They won’t know if you stay mad at them. It only hurts you.
