The last year of my life has been my most productive yet: new blogs, new projects, and big changes on every corner, a dedication to keep moving and growing as much as twenty-four hours each day dare allow.

My birthday fundraising captured a few manic months. Web design and client work stretched even longer, and frequent travel around the United States ran the duration of the year. Through it all, too, I held a 9 to 5, spending hours each day at the office before darting home and firing up my laptop for hours more.

It’s been a challenging and fulfilling process, life-altering in more ways than I can count. It’s also been pretty damn exhausting.

Two things, through it all, have held constant:

1. My caffeine intake.
2. That lone, stupid, little voice whispering “by the way, Matt, you’re actually kinda miserable” whenever I stopped long enough to breathe.

Let’s talk about the second one. This is one of those awkwardly personal posts that I always struggle to write, so bear with me. There’s a point here, I promise, even if I’m just now coming around to it myself.

The Art of Distraction

Months back, I launched the first incarnation of Make Every Day Count. The blog had a singular purpose: to explore the idea of a life well-lived. Somewhere along the way, its purpose shifted, diving deeper into happiness itself. The question became “how can I live happily?”

I canned the blog shortly thereafter.

I didn’t know the answer to that question. I still don’t, in fact. I felt like a phony – the so-called happiness blogger on his six month and counting of feeling like shit.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to paint the year as straight doom and gloom. Periods of strong joy made an appearance, and the miraculous success of the fundraising put a skip in my step for weeks.

On an average day in the last six months, though, I did a handful of things.

I took long walks. I played a lot of video games. I listened to sad, soulful music before realizing that was a really dumb idea. (I still love you, Amos Lee.)

Mostly, though, I worked.

I poured myself into a dozen new projects. Most of them never saw the light of day, but that wasn’t the point. I realize, now, that I needed the distraction, and I needed the feeling of being so fully absorbed with something that nothing else could touch me.

It worked.

For the last six months, at least, I could ignore that stupid little voice in the back of my skull. There was always a new project, a new book, a new distraction, and I grew increasingly adept at keeping myself fully–mentally, physically–occupied.

It didn’t last.

That’s not too shocking. What’s more surprising, though, is what happened when I finally settled down and let myself think.

Why I Might Actually Be a Phony

I realized I was unhappy. More than that, I admitted it. I added a few colorful words when I drunkenly dumped it on a friend (sorry, bro!), but the end result was the same: for the first time in months, I stopped trying to fill every spare second with someone else’s voice.

Were this a Hollywood movie, we’d cut straight to a montage sequence. Spring would erupt in full bloom, the soundtrack would shift to something happy and sweet, and over a few minutes of fast cuts I’d become the dapper fellow I used to be.

Here’s what happened instead.

I woke up the next day with a hangover. I still felt miserable. With the curtain torn away, I found myself feeling more than a little lazy: not wanting to work, not wanting to blog, and not wanting to fall back to any of the distractions that had kept me floating months before.

I realize, now, that the work was a distraction. I realize, now, that the manic energy of 2012 was unsustainable, if only for the fact that it wasn’t really honest.

And I realized, staring up at the ceiling from my bed, something funny: this is okay. All of it. Seriously.

I don’t have to be happy all the time. I never will be, in fact, though it sure sounds like a swell thing to strive for.

But here’s the real kicker: I don’t have to feel sad about being sad, either.

I don’t have to beat myself up for not having a solution. I don’t have to hate myself for not being able to fix it, and I don’t have to take myself down a notch every time I give the sun the middle finger for being so very cheerful. (I don’t actually do that, but the image is delightful.)

We put happiness on a huge freaking pedestal in this world. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s worth remembering, too, just how much harder that makes it to reach.

We can’t always touch it. The trick, then, is to get comfortable with this idea, and to realize it’s okay to feel whatever we feel when we can’t quite reach.

And that’s the punchline, here. A blog post should end with a lesson, right? Here’s mine.

I still don’t know how to live happily.

And when I look back on the last six months, I face something I’m still reluctant to admit: I’m not 100% better.

Not yet.

But here’s the difference: I know that’ll change. I don’t know when. And in the interim, I’ll stick to the routine: sleep late. Breathe deep. Eat well, laugh often, and spend a little more time in the sun.

And I’ll keep working.

This time, though, I’ll take each new project for what it is: work. Good work. Not a distraction, not an endorphin kick, and not some miraculous salve for whatever ails me.

I’ll take that sadness, too, for what it really is. It makes me human. It makes me honest. I won’t hate myself for feeling it, and as I slowly get better, however long that takes, I’ll appreciate those happy days all the more.

Maybe that’s the real lesson here: keep going.

Whoever you are, and however you’re feeling, this one’s for you. Keep going, friend, and don’t tear yourself down too much along the way.

For as long as I can remember, she’s gone to any length to avoid the camera flash. Most of the photos I have of her are sneaky, surprise shots, snapped by my brother in the breath before she could rush him, laughing, and swat at the camera.

I love her for it.

She’s a private woman. More than that, though, she’s a woman who gives everything to the ones she loves.

It took me a solid two decades to realize what that meant. I’m reminded, now, in this one day each year we offer up to our mothers, and I’m emboldened, again, to try and explain every single thing I mean when I offer these two small words: thank you.

Thank you, mom, for loving me.

Thank you for being here for me.

Thank you for pushing me to grow.

Thank you for giving up so much to shape me into the person I am today.

Thank you for believing in every goofy thing that I do: moving to California on a whim, getting my ears pierced (uh, about to be twice), and giving up my birthday to try and make a difference.

Thank you for doing thousands of dishes and never complaining (and letting me kick you out of the kitchen, now, to do them for you).

Thank you for just smiling when I sing loudly, terribly, and perpetually off-key in the car.

Thank you, now, a month shy of the biggest, most reckless thing my brother and I have ever done, for never once batting an eye as we slowly made it possible.

Thank you, mom, for everything.

And thank you, too, to mothers all across the globe. Sons and daughters don’t often think to say it, but please know how grateful we are for everything that you do.

Happy mother’s day, everyone.

That, uh, might not be a sound business decision. Rather, it’s just my gut reaction to business analytics, strategy meetings, and any kind of intense preparatory work: my eyes roll back in my head, my tongue lolls out of my mouth, and sixteen seconds later I’m snoozing quietly in my chair.

My personal failings as a proper businessperson, however, carry one advantage: I get things done. A lot of them. Not always on time, and rarely as efficiently as I might like, but my big list of projects (thankfully!) continues to grow.

Why? Well, I have an idea.

On the eve of any big work, the questions come loud and clear:

• Do I have all of the information I need?
• What else can I learn/do before I start?
• Am I ready for this?

That last one stings most.

It’s the kind of question that can derail any good idea. It’s the kind of question that can make or break whether you even get started — whether you take that chance at all.

I’ve stopped asking it.

An Uncomfortable Truth

I took a marketing job for a year and a half without knowing a single thing about marketing. (Don’t, uh, tell my former boss.)

I raised $43,870 to buy a school bus for students in Nepal without knowing a single thing about fundraising.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a lucky guy. Really lucky. But I can look back at these successes, these string of lucky milestones over the last few years, and I can piece together what made them all possible.

It’s not a big secret. It’s pretty simple, in fact.

I started. I ran down the list of questions—the flurry of doubts—shrugged my shoulders, buckled down, and dove in regardless.

That’s it.

Looking back on it all, in fact, I think I can finally answer the questions that hounded me from the start:

• I didn’t have all of the information I needed. Not even half of it, honestly.
• I can think of a million things I wish I had known when starting.
• I wasn’t ready.

That’s the uncomfortable truth of it all. There’s always more to learn, more to do, and there’s always a million more questions lurking in the back of your skull.

You can’t answer them all.

You can’t even answer half. You can’t pin together every single piece of info you’ll need, and you can’t prepare nearly as well as you would probably prefer.

But you can move forward. You’ve got a few ways to do it:

1. Dive back into the research. Conduct another strategy call, another six-hour stint on Starbucks wifi, and find a few more blogs to read (guilty!) before starting in.
2. Start. Figure it out as you go. Make mistakes, make some more, and see where you end up six months down the line.

You know which way I lean. It’s not perfect. It bites me in the ass, sometimes, and leaves me a little bruised.

But it’s honest. And even when I’m furiously Googling the solution to my next big obstacle, caffeine jittering in my veins, it’s a demented kind of fun.

More than anything, though, I think it’s this: scary. The idea of diving right in flows a lot smoother on the screen than it does in real life, right?

But I think back to the second month of the school bus fundraising, to those few dark weeks when my birthday wish looked seriously destined to fail. I think back to the first few months on the job and every stupid mistake I made trying to fit the new role.

And I realize, long after the fact, something special: I’m still alive. I’m still here. I’ve started a lot, and I’ve failed a lot too, but that simple combination might be the only way to get anything done.

Either way, you’re guaranteed an experience—a memory—worth keeping.

So what are you waiting for?

Get started. You’ll figure out the rest as you go.

The second piece—beige, slightly crispy, about as ordinary-looking as fried tofu can get—lingered at the tip of his chopsticks. He eased the tofu forward, bit, and almost shuddered as the rest of the piece followed.

I muffled my laughter and shot him a thumbs up from behind the video camera.

Stinky tofu lives up to its name. The stench? Manure. The taste? A milder, still totally not palatable version of poop. Mark later confided to me that he nearly threw up during that second piece, a feeling I was pretty familiar with as we worked our way through the bowl.

I have an open-door policy towards food: I’ll try anything once. Only rarely does it come back to bite me, but when it does, the memory sticks out. Our victory over the tofu about a week back hasn’t left me. For about three hours after the meal, too, nor did the aftertaste.

So here’s the kicker: I’m glad we tried it. I’m glad we ate the tofu. (But let’s be clear: never again.)

For the three days that Mark Powers and I skipped around Houston, piling on the weird food every chance we got, I was pumped. I was energized. That’s typically thanks to the caffeine, but I know there was another reason at work: face time with one of the most inspiring friends I know. The stinky tofu was a product of that, sure, but so were dozen pages of notes, ideas, and the feeling that those three days were some of the most productive—and most inspiring—I’ve had in months.

A New Way to Connect

The Internet enables incredible things.

Within reach of our wifi connection, we can have a conversation with anyone in the world. This kind of communication hasn’t been around for long, but look how quickly it has changed the way we talk—the way we interact—with the people all around us.

The Internet is how I met Mark Powers in the first place. It’s how I’ve met dozens of the people that I now regard as close friends, in fact. We might not share the same home base, but we do share something far more important: goals. Ambitions. And a desire, in this case, to eat some of the strangest food this planet has to offer. Those freaky food adventures were remarkable for two reasons: the weird food itself, sure, and the avalanche of ideas, actions, and goals that came tumbling out every time Mark and I stopped eating long enough to talk.

Magic happens, in other words, whenever we meet (on or offline). That’s true for any of my friends, but it’s especially true for a scattered few that I never could have met without an Internet connection.

And that’s the big takeaway, here, from last week’s weird feast. The Internet enables incredible things. With it, we can meet the people (far and wide!) who inspire us, who strengthen us, and who push us forward. We can meet people with common interests, common concerns, and that same overwhelming desire to live better.

The best part?

We can talk to them. We can email, we can tweet, and we can, later on, clink pints together at a local bar. Their home might be a different corner of the globe, but with the Internet we can connect like we never could before.

In the age of the Internet, we’re never alone. We’re surrounded by inspiration on every corner — and all we have to do is look for it.

Your Homework

1. Find someone who inspires you. Find a person who encourages you, whether by word or action, to live better. If you’ve already met them (on or offline), great! If you haven’t, try these on for size:

• Ask around on Twitter. Here’s a question for your followers (totally stolen from my good friend Srinivas Rao at BlogcastFM): “Who has been inspiring you lately?”
• Find a virtual community of people with common interests. Message boards are great for this, but so is Reddit or any community-minded service.
• Read a book. Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist never ceases to inspire.

You’ll find someone. The Internet makes it hard not to.

2. Engage. Say hello. If you’ve already done that, say hello again. If you can, set up a Skype call and start tossing around ideas. If you’re close enough (and not just geographically), organize a meet-up to share some face time.

When our daily routines invite work, stress, and a whole slew of other distractions, it’s easy to forget the power—the energy—that follows when we spend a little time with someone who just gets it. A thirty-minute Skype call can make a tremendous difference. Even a brief email exchange can leave you both better off.

This is common sense stuff. But even when we’re locked into Twitter, Facebook, etc. every hour of the day, it’s easy to forget how we can use them. It’s easy to forget what the Internet can really do. That list grows by the second, but here’s one that matters: it connects us. For the first time in history, we have easy—immediate—access to a whole slew of people who can make us stronger. For the first time in history, those same people can be scattered wide across the globe.

We just need to connect.

And here’s the good news: you don’t have to eat the stinky tofu.

The warm grass stained my fingers light green. I fell on my face about six times in a row, but I shrugged it off, blew my nose, and tried again the next day.

My quest to master the free-standing handstand has been a semi-predictable one: hands down, feet up, my nose inches from crashing into the hardwood floor. I’ve fallen more times than I can count, tweaked my wrists more times than I should probably admit, and pulled a muscle in my shoulder that then stung like hell for a solid two weeks.

I shrugged it off. I kept going.

Over the last year, I’ve had periods of trying, failing, and then stretches where I threw my hands up, kept my feet firmly on the ground, and stopped practicing altogether. Oddly, those periods of no practice were some of my most useful. Something changed whenever I let my arms rest and put my attention elsewhere, though it always changed for the better.

Five minutes before writing this article, I tried again. My routine, now, is to squat low, place both palms on the floor, and kick straight up, my torso locking in a sharp line while my feet go skyward.

This time, I did it. This time, I held. And I had, somewhere in those twenty-odd seconds of victory, a strange thought: holy crap, something changed.

I got better. I got stronger. I can’t pinpoint exactly when, but something changed over these last six months of solid, consistent practice, and—as always—I think it has a lot to do with Whim.

The Truth About Learning

By and large, learning isn’t a linear process. You can’t read a Spanish textbook and pop up afterwards with full fluency. You can’t take a single class, put in an hour or two of work, and come away with a new skill in your lineup.

But you can read. You can work. You can put in time, more time, and maybe more time after that, and you can wake up, one day, realizing that all those hours—all that sweat—made a difference.

You changed.

You got better. Not by leaps and bounds, maybe, but by something more interesting: a little bit, then a lot of a bit, and then just a little again.

You hear the number 10,000 thrown around a lot. By some estimates, that’s the number of hours required to really, truly master something. I dig the idea (and isn’t it a nice, round number?), but I don’t dig what it suggests: that learning is a standard, smooth process, with a well-defined end point.

I’m not so sure it works like that.

I think it works like this: you start. You try. You struggle, you throw your hands up in frustration, and then you wake up one morning and realize that something has changed. Maybe everything has changed. Maybe, just maybe, you find yourself suddenly comfortable shooting your legs straight up above you.

You probably won’t know why. You probably won’t even know when the change occurred. But the wrinkly thing between your ears gleaned something new from all those hours of practice, and it finally—finally!—got around to telling you.

I think that’s kind of awesome.

Don’t Give Up

Here’s the point. There’s two, in fact.

1. Start.

Go. Ship. Begin. Pick your verb, but pick your action — that first step you need to take, now, to start learning whatever new skill or hobby that you’ve been waiting to tackle. Everything comes back to this.

2. Don’t give up. You’ll get frustrated. You’ll wonder, time and time again, why you can’t do already this certain thing, and you’ll wonder why you haven’t come as far as expected given all the time put in.

Learning isn’t linear. Honestly, it’s kind of a mess.

In a funny way, though, that’s a blessing.

There’s no need to get frustrated.
There’s no need to doubt yourself.
There’s no need to give up.

There’s a need, instead, for something much simpler: starting. Sometime after you do, you’ll change. It might be 10,000 hours, or it might be 10. No matter the number, though, your obligation remains the same: start. Keep going. Keep trying, keep learning, and keep changing.

That’s all you need to do. Let your brain puzzle out the rest, but give it plenty of time, too, for the puzzling.

There’s no better investment.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time for late-night handstands.

Last year, I took a little time to reflect on what I’d learned from 24 years kicking around this planet. The number’s a wee bit higher this time around, but I’m happy to report that life plus one has brought its fair share of discoveries over these last twelve months. Here’s what I’ve gleaned from 25 years of this goofy, incredible thing we call life:

1. Make every day count. There’s a reason this one held over from last year’s list: it’s true. This is the lone motto I carry, and it’s the phrase I always fall back on whenever I need that one small boost to keep going. Your definition of ‘count’ might be different, but I think the ultimate goal is still the same: use our time wisely.

2. Take a chance. With your help, I raised $43,870 for the students of Kopila Valley. For about three weeks in late November, I entered full panic mode: stressing about the total, stressing about the deadline, and wondering, in those darker moments, whether this mad birthday scramble would ever come together.

Whew.

It worked out well. Really well. For lots of reasons, but one in particular: I took a chance. The world has a funny way of coming through when you’re willing to throw yourself out there.

3. Memories are our greatest possession. Think about it — come January 1st, we pull back, breathe deep, and reflect on everything we gained over the previous year. We don’t think about the new toys we acquired. We do dig up every memory made during the last twelve months, and we do look forward to what we’ll accomplish in the next — not what we’ll buy.

4. Pho is the ultimate hangover cure. Don’t ask why I know this. It has nothing to do with January 1st.

5. Live on a whim. “You raised $40,000 for charity? Why?”

I’ve been asked that three times, now, and my answer is unchanged: because I felt like it. It sounded fun. Even on a whimsy, I’ve learned, we can make a difference — we can do memorable, if not remarkable, things. Knowing this, why don’t we spend more time in pursuit of whatever (the off-kilter, the reckless, the crazy) makes us smile?

6. Influence is bliss. One of the books that broadened me most in 2012 was Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist. I won’t distill it here, but I will offer a taste of what it taught me: that it’s okay to be inspired. It’s okay to study those I admire and learn from their work. Rather than feel guilty, then, for embracing their ideas, I can do one better. I can build from them and craft a style of my own.

7. Close the laptop on occasion. With the bulk of my work living online, I spend hours—hours—locked to a screen. Because of this, I’ve come to appreciate my offline hours even more: the time spent in the sunlight, the minutes out strolling under the moon, and those evenings spent laughing (sometimes drinking) with friends. We all need time away from screens, but it’s up to us to take it.

8. Evening walks are good for the soul. Seriously! Maybe don’t try this in a bad neighborhood, but bundle up and take an evening stroll sometime. The contrast to the humming and drumming of our daylight hours is one that always makes me smile, relax, and drink deep of the evening quiet.

9. You don’t have to have everything figured out. Honestly? I (still!) have no clue what I want to do with my life. I don’t even have a hint of where this long road will take me. What I’m left with, then, is something more valuable: a willingness to follow wherever life leads. I don’t have to know where I’m going so long as I’m excited to get there.

10. You can’t compare yourself to other people. That rockstar blogger? That girl on Facebook with a perfect husband, perfect dog, and otherwise charmed life? We don’t know their stories. We don’t know what they’ve gone through, and we don’t know the work they put in—the challenges they faced—along the way.

That’s fine. (Even if Facebook seems damn determined to put every minute of our lives in the spotlight.) It puts the focus back where it belongs: on you. You’re the only person on this planet who knows every chapter of your story, and likewise you’re the only person who directs the course it’ll take in 2013. Stop looking, wishing, and wondering. Let’s start living our own lives instead.

11. Forget your phone on occasion. One of my best memories of 2012 is also one of the simplest. I spent a few hours at dinner with an incredible person, but here’s the catch: we locked our phones safely in the car. We didn’t check Twitter. We didn’t check our inboxes. We sat, ate, and had the kind of warm, close conversation I appreciate more than you can imagine.

12. Go for the hug. This might sound strange, but I was terrible at giving hugs for most of my life. (Call it a lack of practice.) Over the last year, though, I’ve realized that there’s only one way to get better. The next time I see you, get ready for an embrace.

13. Pain fades. This isn’t satisfying—nor, arguably, helpful—but it’s true: give it time. You’ll feel miserable, sure, in the beginning. You’ll have days, sure, when you think you’ve finally come out on top. And you’ll have moments, too, that remind you all too well of how much road is left to go. But through it all—with every step—you’ll get better. Give it time.

14. You’ll learn something from the whole (painful) process. Call me an optimist, but call me honest, too. I spent a month or two feeling pretty low in 2012, but the pain gave me something I won’t easily forget. It taught me who I want to be — and it taught me who I don’t. In the heart of it, sure, I couldn’t think like this, but time has helped me look back, collect myself, and realize that I can take the steps necessary to improve. I can change, in other words, and those quiet moments showed me how I want to do it.

15. You’re not alone. This is the internet, ladies and gentlemen. With a keystroke, we can find like-minded people in every corner of the globe — and where there’s people, there’s a community. Where there’s a community, there’s companionship. There’s an entire world, here, in reach of our keyboards. Why not say hello?

16. Coffee is the greatest thing since toilet paper. I don’t care what anyone else says.

17. Don’t be afraid to change your mind. In 2012, I closed Three New Leaves, started up Make Every Day Count, and then transformed MEDC into an entirely new project. I then, uh, shuttered MEDC, with the plan to relaunch it a few months from now as something approximately a hundred times cooler. That doesn’t speak well for my attention span, but it made me realize this: it’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to change course and explore new directions. So long as you continue to learn and grow, and so long as you’re honest with anyone affected by the change, I think you’ll hit far less resistance than you might have feared.

18. I’m a family man. That’s an odd thing to learn (you’d think that software would come installed by default, right?), but it’s something I’m still so excited to realize. My relationship with my brother is still a new thing, after all, in the grand scope of my life, and I know I’ve grown closer and closer to my parents over the last few months alone. I used to be the kid who forgot to call home for weeks. I’m the kid, now, who can’t wait to take his mother to lunch, and that shift alone is one I’m so grateful to have experienced.

19. Don’t get cocky on the gymnastic rings. Especially when said rings are hoisted above a hardwood floor. My ass hurt for weeks. (Don’t tweet that.)

20. Don’t be afraid to be young. One of the greatest gifts I’ve been given over the last year is a willingness to act like a kid again. Honestly, folks, I can be weird. But when I look back on my childhood, I realize something funny: those were some of the happiest (and goofiest!) days of my life. There’s something to be said, I think, for embracing our inner dorks — for traveling back to the days when we didn’t really care what anyone else would think. I’m excited to reconnect with a younger me over the course of 2013.

21. You’re a work in progress. Embrace it. Truth be told? I’m still terrified of singing in front of other people. My throat hitches, I feel the warmth rise in my face, and the voice that curls out sounds nothing like the one I hear when I’m rocking out alone. That’s okay. I’m not perfect. Not even remotely, in fact. If 2012 taught me anything, it’s this: We all have time (a lot of it!) to keep working, to keep growing, and to keep fixing.

22. Start building. I won’t pretend to know what art is. I won’t even pretend I’m making it. But I know, now, that I’m happiest when I’m building (writing, programming, doodling, dreaming), and I know that’s enough. Whatever form your creativity takes, embrace it. You don’t have to be good. You don’t have to be successful. You can start just by being content that you’re trying, right?

23. Start. When I look back, now, at everything that has changed in the last few years, I realize it all comes back to this: starting. Shipping. Taking a chance, throwing up some shirtless photos (sigh) on the internet, and seeing what happens next. I beat myself up every step of the way for not knowing more (about business, about blogging, about this and that and abs), but I’ve come to realize, hit by hit, that this is the only way to learn every drop of that knowledge in the first place. You have to start.

24. Be kind to yourself. Another holdover from last year’s list, but one that always justifies the attention. If you make any resolution for 2013, make it this: be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for your mistakes. Celebrate your accomplishments (big or small). That’s easier said than done, but I truly, sincerely believe it’s a challenge worth tackling as you move forward into the coming months. (What can I say? I’m still a work in progress too.)

25. I’m so excited for the rest of my life. (That’s not the caffeine talking.) I still can’t believe we bought a school bus for students in Nepal. I still can’t believe the friendships I’ve made (let alone the memories) over these last few months alone. But I can believe this: if this is how the rest of my life is going to unfold, I’m excited like you wouldn’t believe to meet it.

Whew. Here’s to 26!

I’ve been chewing on the answer. A good friend hit me with that very question a few months back, and I’m sad to report—blame it on the vodka water I’d been nursing—that my response wasn’t particularly clever. I mumbled something about fame, fortune, and wanting to leave a legacy, but even then I knew I was pretty far off the mark.

Why do I do what I do?

Why did I pass on bringing a TV when I moved into my new apartment?

Why do I always have to shrug and offer a sheepish smile when the water cooler conversation turns to sports and pop culture?

Why, when 5 o’clock rolls around and I make the sprint home, do I dive right back into work instead of plopping down at that sunny, noisy bar right across the street?

I think I know why.

Why do I do what I do? Because no one else will ever make me do it.

No one else can accomplish my goals.

No one else can push me, day in and day out, to spend my minutes on the things—the projects, the dreams—that matter most. No one else will shape me—failure by failure—into the person that I want to be.

I have to do it. You have to do it.

We have to do the work. We don’t have to do it every single day, sure. But we need to remember, when all the motivation comes crumbling down, that success really only depends on this one simple factor.

It depends on us. It depends on us clocking in, day in and day out, and doing the work that no one else will ever demand that we do.

No one is going to twist your arm — no one but you.

The next time someone asks you, then, why you spend so much time on the things that matter, just say this:

“Because I have to. And because no one else is ever going to make me do it.”

Simple as that.

Mid-conversation, in fact, about the best damn burger I’ve uncovered in this state, I caught myself leading with something like this: “Don’t get me wrong. Hubcap makes a solid, traditional burger. But I stack it up to the one at Hubbell and Hudson—wagyu beef and the toasted English muffin for a bun—and it just doesn’t compare. That muffin adds the perfect element of crunch and ties the whole package together.”

I might have also used the word complexity with a completely straight face.

That’s right.

I’m a foodie. A pretty annoying one, in fact.

And I have the unenviable task of convincing you to become one too — or to take a few key ideas, at least, from what that fancy pants label even means.

Here’s a promise: your waistline won’t regret it.

Let’s Get This Out of the Way

There is no magic trick to losing weight.

There are no cheats. There are no shortcuts. There are no quick fixes, overnight successes, and super food supplements that will take the fat off your thighs and send it scuttling somewhere else.

Your body doesn’t work like that.

Your body does, however, take kindly to the next few ideas. They’re good ones. This trio is the big reason I’ve gone from a size 34 to a size 29 in waist over the last few years of tweaking, experimenting, and still stuffing my face with incredibly smile-inducing food.

Here they are:

1. I don’t eat crap.
2. Sometimes, I don’t even eat.
3. Sometimes, I break rules #1 and #2.

Let’s tackle each in turn.

I Don’t Eat Crap

I can’t remember the last time I had a Poptart. Or chicken wings. Or cheap pizza. Or a soft drink. Or a slice of that thick chocolate cake someone inevitably carries into the office. The list goes on from there.

What can I say? I don’t eat that stuff.

Okay, sure, that’s not entirely accurate — I don’t eat it often. And when I do, here’s the difference: I’m notoriously picky.

I do have pizza on occasion — just not of the delivery variety. I do have cake sometimes — but never from a grocery store bakery. My rampant foodie-ism, for all of the negativity that label might bring, has done me a tremendous favor.

I make it count.

I don’t eat cheap cookies. I don’t settle for frozen pizzas. If I want a slice of pie (Italian or otherwise), I will find the best damn pie in my area and dive in with gusto. I’ll eat slowly, make embarrassing noises while I chew, and flaunt dorkiness throughout the entire process, but here’s the twist: I’ll be enjoying myself like you wouldn’t believe.

I won’t be beating myself up. I won’t let the guilt strike deep into my heart the minute I bring that fork to my lips. Why? Because I know I don’t do it that often. And I know that when I do reach for something unhealthy, it’s typically going to prove a life-altering experience.

I don’t eat crap, in other words, unless I know it’s worth it. That indulgence has to be worth the empty calories, worth the way it’ll sit in my stomach, and worth the effort of tracking it down in the first place.

You could call me a junk food snob, frankly, and I wouldn’t fight the label. It’s a pretty comfortable place to be. Given that 90% of my meals offer fresh vegetables, meat, and fruit (Paleo, by another name), I’m pretty happy to stomp my foot and throw a big fit about that remaining ten percent.

I make it count.

I want you to do this too.

For the next week, in fact, try this on for size:

1. Pick a piece of crap that you know you’re going to eat. Maybe you eat pizza two times a week. Maybe you blow through snack packs on a daily basis. Whatever flavor of indulgence you lean toward, pick something.
2. Remember that you can still eat this thing. But here’s the catch: you only get to do it once this week, and you’re going to have to work for it.
3. Do your research. If you’re craving a slice of cake, comb the archives of Yelp and food blogs until you find a local joint that offers the best in town.
4. Eat that cake. Enjoy it. Savor every bite, knowing that your lone indulgence for the week was so very worth it.

Having done this, realize a few more things:

1. The cheap stuff can’t compare. It might win out on price, but for flavor—for experience—it just doesn’t stack up.
2. Even when you make it count, crap is crap. It’s not good for you. But hey! That’s okay. Knowing this, and knowing that you don’t eat it often, why would you settle for something cheap, mass-produced, and chock-full of industrial ‘flavors’?

This is a dramatically different approach to the way we usually handle indulgences: with guilt, regret, and an eye on the scale, watching for those six extra pounds we just know will pop up overnight. That’s one way to handle it, sure. But I’d call it the absolute worst way to treat something that can bring us joy, and I’d argue that focusing on quality over quantity has as much place in your diet as it does anywhere else.

Sometimes, I Don’t Even Eat

Most days, I don’t eat breakfast. After a huge lunch, I’ll often skip dinner. And some days—less frequently, now, but maybe once or twice a month—I’ll finish my dinner one evening and not eat again until evening rolls around the following day.

I haven’t died. (Surprise!)

My metabolism hasn’t imploded. Starvation mode, that grim phantom bound to follow any poor soul who goes six whole hours without food, hasn’t slowed my gait.

Here’s what happened instead: I lost weight. A pretty decent amount of it, in fact, for all the tremendous effort it takes to sleep an additional 30 minutes in the morning, not stress about my morning meal, and drink a few cups of coffee at work until lunch time rolls around.

Skipping breakfast—intermittent fasting, by another name—won’t magically melt the fat. If you’ve ever looked into fasting, you can be forgiven for thinking it a cure-all for all of our weight-related woes. But while it does help regulate our caloric intake, I think fasting does one better.

It simplifies your relationship with food.

You’ll realize that you don’t always have to eat.

You’ll realize how often we ignore our stomachs — eating three, four, six times daily even if our body isn’t asking for food.

You’ll realize that children have wisdom beyond their years. Remember when we used to eat light in anticipation of bigger meals? Remember when we used to play outside for hours, our next meal the absolute last thing on our minds? Remember when we used to actually save room for dessert?

Want to try it for yourself? It’s not too difficult. Skip breakfast on occasion. If a meal rolls around and you find that you’re not hungry, do the unthinkable and don’t eat until you are. You can be perfectly happy and healthy without doing either one of these, sure, but I will say this: a willingness to listen to your body (and to compensate for bigger meals) can go a very long way to trimming your waist.

That’s how I eat obscene things and still lose—at the very least, maintain—my weight. That’s how I can throw caution to the winds one evening, eat an entire bucket of movie theater popcorn (and, uh, some densely caloric liquids), and be right back to where I was just a day or two later.

Despite this, brows tend to wrinkle by the dozen when I mention that I’m skipping lunch. They tend to rocket up towards the atmosphere when I mention why: because I like to break all the rules.

Sometimes, I Break Rules #1 and #2

Let me tell you about my burger.

Last Wednesday, I coerced Jessie Spielvogel and Carissa Ara into checking out a local bar with me. I’m not much of a bar hopper, sure, but this (hipster) fine establishment had a fun twist: each day of the week, their kitchen opened up and let a local food truck come in to serve food.

Bernie’s Burger Bus had been scheduled for that day. When I saw the menu, I knew why.

This is what I ate.

I ate an entire “Drama Club” burger: a house-made pimento cheese stuffed burger with apple-wood smoked bacon, tipsy onions, and bourbon mustard on a fresh-baked pretzel bun.

I also had half of the Exchange Student (strangest sentence on this blog, I think), a fresh ground blend of Australian lamb and apple-wood smoked bacon topped with a chimichurri sauce, roasted garlic aioli, arugula, and oven dried tomatoes on a fresh baked ciabatta bun.

And then I had fries. Fries, my friends, laden with maple horseradish aioli.

Let’s be clear, here.

This was not a reasonably-sized meal.

This was not my typical definition of healthy.

But this was the second best hamburger I’ve had in the state of Texas. I won’t bore you with excessively poetic descriptions of hamburger patties, but I will say this: breaking the rules has rarely felt—rarely tasted—so incredibly good.

Come the end of the meal, I’d fallen quiet. The salty kick of the sandwich still lingered on my tongue, and I’m sure I looked lost in thought as I nearly melted back into my chair.

You might say I was experiencing a revelation.

Let’s just call it a reminder. This is why I do it.

This is why I don’t eat crap (unless it’s really, really good). This is why I skip a meal, sometimes, when I know I have a huge one coming down the pipes. This is why I’ve scrutinized both my diet and my attitude towards food ceaselessly for the last two years.

This is why I care about what I eat.

Being a foodie, for me, isn’t about turning up my nose to what the ‘normal’ people eat. It isn’t about insisting on raw organic fair trade vanilla chai lattes (soy milk, extra anti-nutrients) whenever I curl my mustache at my favorite coffee shop.

It’s about making each dish count. It’s about respecting every flavor and flicker of color dressing my plate. It’s about respecting myself, too, and wanting to put only the best in my body whenever I sit down to eat. Yes, this includes junk food.

It’s about living well, too, and being kind to yourself every step of the way. No one is perfect. No diet is—or even needs to be—forever strict. If that occasional indulgence keeps you happy, healthy, and sane, why wouldn’t you embrace it? Why wouldn’t you try and make it count just as much as every day you’re given?

I want you to give this a try.

Just to recap, here’s the big takeaway from all this:

• When you eat food that isn’t good for you, you make it count.
• You listen to your body and eat when you’re actually hungry.
• For the sake of your sanity, you sometimes break the rules.

For right now, at least, let’s start with this. Repeat after me: “I vow to care about what I eat.” (Want to tweet it? Click that link right there and let everyone know where you stand.)

And don’t be afraid to call yourself a foodie, now, when you pass on the dollar-a-dozen donuts sitting in your break room. You’re better than that. Your indulgence, whatever form it may take, is too. Your sweet tooth might rebel, but your waistline will forever thank you.

That’s what I’d like to think, at least. (I know it’s not true. But stick with me.)

At approximately 8:15am this morning, I had an epiphany. Several epiphanies, in fact, all tangled in the dull heat of a Texas morning. They are as follows:

1. I am late to work.
2. I’m rocking a pair of sunglasses that my mother used to wear (out of desperation, I promise, moreso than any avant-garde fashion statement).
3. I brought my lunch today in a football-branded lunch kit. This is the very same one I used in middle school.
4. I brought my lunch.
5. I just spent the last five minutes drumming furiously and way too enthusiastically on my steering wheel to the sweet, angry sounds of Frank Turner.

I can’t even imagine how I looked in the rearview mirror of the car in front of me. But I can put the picture together, untangle all of these little ideas, and realize something that should have been strikingly obvious from the start: I am impossibly cool.

The Long Road Home

More seriously?

I’m comfortable. I’m relaxed enough, now, to shrug my shoulders (mightily) and go about my business, blessed with the knowledge that I’m a tremendous dork and yet far too happy to care.

I’d like to pretend that I came to this conclusion on my own. The truth, as ever, falls back on someone else — a gorgeous, goofy friend who showed me, over the course of a year, how to reconnect with the silly, happy confidence that came natural in my youth.

She taught me how to be a kid again.

It’s strange to think that I lost that. It’s even stranger to think that so many of us don’t seem to miss what we’ve forgotten: our silliness, our childhood fantasies, and a steadfast fascination with the world around us that slips between our fingers in the years before graduation.

We grow up. We buy things. We follow the same path that we’re supposed to follow, and then we look back, sometimes, and wonder what might have happened if we’d let our imaginations take us by the nose and pull us off the road.

What Comes Natural to Children

Maybe that’s what I miss the most: the imagination. The curiosity. The questions, and the surging excitement whenever I came across a word I didn’t know the meaning of.

I was a bookworm, in hindsight. (You don’t have to act surprised).

But in so many ways, too, I was a bold one: not afraid to speak my mind, not afraid to sing loudly in the car, and not afraid to get down a little on the dance floor whenever my middle-school crush made an appearance. I haven’t lost these qualities, for the most part, but maturity did one worse: it buried them. Under a layer of doubt, a layer of concern, and a freakish concern for what other people might think that too many adults are saddled with.

Kids, though? Kids don’t know any better.

Kids don’t care. That’s not always a good thing, sure, but sometimes I wonder if we’ve gone too far to fix it — if we’ve started caring so much that our personality, and our confidence in showing it, can suffer.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not idolizing childhood. (I rather like my vodka, thanks.)

But I do think kids have it right sometimes, and I do think we can take a few ideas from what came natural to all of us before we were taught otherwise.

1. Kids aren’t afraid to be different.

Ever seen a small child walking through the mall? Odds are, they’re doing it as goofily as possible: bobbing, swaying, and generally having a good time, throwing limbs in every direction while their parents walk slow and steady beside them. The full-body workout continues when they get home: dancing in front of the TV, bouncing around the dinner table, etc., in order of increasing weirdness.

You’d never catch an adult doing any of these. Maturity, it seems, makes us think we don’t have it so easy. Just getting us on the dance floor demands liquid courage, and doing anything out of the ordinary sends our heart racing like we’d just won the lottery.

I mention dancing because of how well it fits the metaphor. Getting out on the floor might just be the purest expression of happiness—of motion—that I’ve ever seen, but so many of us feel like we can’t do it for fear of not being as ‘cool’ or ‘skilled’ as everyone else. (That’s another post for another time.)

My best friend from college proved otherwise. After his marriage ceremony, both he and his new wife did something I’ll never forget: don dark sunglasses, clear the dance floor, and rock their way through a fifteen-minute dance montage that no one saw coming. My friend, it bears mention, never claimed to be a natural-born dancer — but for that slice of time, him and his wife moved like the utter champions I’d always known them to be.

The sunglasses, I realized, were the trick. For those fifteen minutes, they let my friend be himself: confident, fun-loving, and an absolute pleasure to be around. They let him tap into the confidence he’d always had as a kid and do something well outside of his comfort zone — something different from the way we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re supposed to act.

Mini-action: put on some shades. And the next time you start walking across a cross walk, do something different: sprint across it as fast as you can. (Preferably with your husband or wife laughing beside you.) The next time you’re pushing the shopping cart back to your car, hop up on the bottom bar and ride the cart as far as it goes. The next time you’re strolling through the neighborhood, break out into song — and keep doing all of these until you’re comfortable enough to do them without the sunglasses.

2. Kids aren’t afraid to play.

I used to spend hours on the jungle gym near my house. I’d climb through tubes, swing between bars, and transform an otherwise mundane piece of equipment into something much, much more: an adventure. I’d embrace the role of an acrobatic astronaut exploring a strange alien ship, spending hours ducking around corners and running like mad around the playground.

Those hours are some of the best I’ve ever had. And while I’m still on the hunt for an adult equivalent (Vegas doesn’t count), I think the big takeaway is still applicable.

We used to make it fun. We didn’t have special equipment. We didn’t have access to some magical imagination machine that adults can’t afford. We took the same scenery, the same activities, and we made them fun — and we did it without wondering what anyone else might think.

Mini-action: make it fun. The next time you’re out for a walk, take an entirely new route through the neighborhood. Wind your way through trees, through tall fields, and pretend you’re an explorer out carving new roads. The next time you’re out for a run, mix in some wild, happy sprints and pretend that you’re being chased by zombies.

And the next time you see a jungle gym, climb to the very top. Swing on the bars. Who says you’re too old to enjoy it?

3. Kids aren’t afraid to ask questions.

How else did we learn?

If we had a question, we would ask it. There was no pause. There was no hesitation. We didn’t stop, wonder if the question was smart enough, and bite back our curiosity if the answer came up negative. We didn’t care if we didn’t understand — because no one had told us, by that point, that not ‘getting it’ was a bad thing.

We live in fear, now, of stupid questions.

But what’s worse: risking judgment, asking the question, and learning something? Or pushing it down, time and time again, and never growing?

Mini-action: ask a stupid question. You don’t need to make it deliberately dumb, sure. But the next time a question springs to mind, shut off your brain. Ask the question. Accept the fact that some people might roll their eyes. But realize, too, that you come away from the experience smarter, and growth like that matters a thousand times more than the opinion of your peers.

Kids aren’t afraid.

That’s the core epiphany, here, and the message worth remembering.

We weren’t afraid. A dark closet (or the space under our beds) might make us pause, sure, but we had something so much stronger—so much more vivid—than the unknown.

We had confidence.

We had the confidence to be ourselves. Not because we had read books, taken courses, and watched movies to try and develop it, but because it comes natural to every fresh-faced human being on this earth.

We start out, all of us, comfortable in who we are. Somewhere along the way, we’re told to start caring what other people might think — to start considering what society as a whole might say about how we think, act, or believe.

But guess what?

We don’t have to. We spent the majority of our childhoods not caring, in fact, and those might have been the happiest years of our lives.

Notice the connection?

Go grab some sunglasses. Go outside and play. Ask a stupid question. You’ll be happier for it, I promise, and you might just feel a little bit like a kid again — like how you were when you were younger.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time for handstands. (The office thinks I’m weird. That just makes me want to do them more.)

Sarcasm and I went hand-in-hand, back then, and it’s not hard for me to understand why. As the former fat kid, book dork, and hopeless, unsatisfied romantic (great combo!), a sharp tongue let me defend myself — let me fight back without ever raising my fists. It’s telling, I guess, that I thought had to fight in the first place.

Telling, but not surprising. What can I say? Kids can be mean. Years of teasing about my weight, about my acne, etc. had compounded, bit by bit, and built me a perspective that teens and adults alike can understand: disappointment. I didn’t have much faith in the world spinning right on without me. I had even less faith in most of the people who inhabited it.

In other words, I expected to be disappointed. In hindsight, I’m not sure there’s a clearer definition of pessimism.

Under the armor, though, I still carried a spark. I wanted to believe things would get better. I had a hard time believing it, and maybe that’s when I struck upon my stick-on label: I was a realist above anything else. Sometimes, I told myself, things went well — but I didn’t expect them to. I was too realistic for that.

There’s a fundamental problem with that perspective, though, that took a few more years to sink in. Over time, I realized I’d stuck myself in an endless loop: waiting for things to get better, hoping they would get better, and feeling that familiar sting when life went on as it always had before.

Cue the reflection. Maybe the world wasn’t the problem. Maybe my attitude—my sarcasm in one hand, shield in the other—mattered much, much more. And my expectations? Maybe they mattered most of all.

I decided to change.

Why? Call it maturity. Call it two-a-day football practice, when the flab fell away and I started to like looking in the mirror. Mostly, though, call it a decision to do things a bit different — to opt for a smile instead of my customary smirk.

Years later, I’ve gleaned a bit from the process. Here’s what I’ve learned.

1. Optimism is a Choice

We all share the same set of limbs. Our internal machinery, by and large, follows the same blueprint. The biggest difference, then, happens upstairs — in our brains, and in our minds, and how we let the former shape the latter.

An optimist isn’t born with some extra serving of sunshine and joy. An optimist doesn’t sport an additional funny bone tucked beneath their skin.

An optimist is a human, much like you and me, who decides to see things differently.

That’s the key word: decides. Optimism, I’ve come to realize, is a perspective we choose to embrace for the long haul — for every up and down we’re dealt each day of our lives. There are a lot of peaks and valleys. To my teenage mind, the split definitely favored the negative, but I know now that that was never really true.

It all comes back to perspective. Life bumps along like it always does, and we can’t change that — but we can change how it makes us feel.

That was my first big takeaway. Remembering this, too, has helped me in ways beyond the obvious. There’s something incredibly powerful about stopping, breathing, and saying “You know what? It’ll be fine. I’m fine.” It might not always prove true, but my days pass much happier compared to when I expected the worst.

2. Optimism is a Commitment

Setting aside religion for a moment, here’s what I’ve come to realize.

I have one life. In it, things will happen every day that are beyond my control. What I can decide, though, is how I view them — the perspective I bring to the table during the good, the bad, and every shade of grey in between.

Knowing this, I choose optimism. I choose to assume the best — to smile, to applaud, and to walk the world with my arms wide open.

Is this hard? Sometimes. Is it worth it? Always.

The optimistic life, I’m sad to report, doesn’t fall back to the flip of a switch. It takes time. It takes dedication. More than either one of those, it takes recognition of a few key ideas:

• It’s easy to assume the worst.
• It’s easy to let both the big and small weigh us down.
• It’s easy to treat every challenge, every bump in the road, as a major setback.

The optimistic life isn’t easy. But it is a commitment, a daily duty like any other, and one of a small handful of things worth pursuing when I stare down the long road of my life. When I study the bigger picture, I always come away asking the same question: given the choice of expecting the best or expecting disappointment, why would I ever choose the latter?

(Something tells me that teenage Matt, for all of his sullen journals, would agree.)

Your Homework for the Day

It’s simple.

When faced with a decision, today, that would normally leave you doubting, stop, breathe, and try and do one thing.

Realize—recognize—that you can see it differently.

That’s it.

For now, at least, you don’t actually have to see it differently from before. You don’t have to strike upon a philosophy so intense and so profound that it automatically changes your day (let alone your life!) for the better. You just have to realize, in the midst of the emotion, that your perception is everything — and that you control it.

That’s an exciting thing. That’s a powerful thing. And maybe I’m just an optimist, but I think that little idea will set you exactly where you need to be: walking tall and smiling on the road to a life well-lived.