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When I was a little kid, we would go visit my grandparents in Costa Rica every so often. My mom would always bring my Grandpa gifts of cashews, black licorice, and animal-printed underwear. It was my understanding that during that time, these items were hard to find there.
Many people I know engage with their families on a consistent basis. One of my coworkers will see his dad maybe a few times a week. Another coworker sees her mom very often even though they live an hour or so away. Sometimes this is out of necessity and sometimes it is out of the joy of spending time together.
Many years ago I purchased a tuxedo t-shirt for myself and a friend. We wore them for a joke since we never dressed up and we were doing a parody of dressing up. Later on, I thought it would be even funnier to cut the sleeves off and dress it down even further.
This was around the time that Pokemon Go came out and, like many people, I was hittin’ the streets trying to catch ’em all.
A while ago my wife and I decided its time to sell our house. Wanting to get top dollar, we have been renovating what we can and hiring out the rest.
Over the years, we have personally tackled roofing, plumbing, running new electrical lines, installing windows, baseboards, repairing sheetrock, painting, laying tile… it has been pretty intense.
Yesterday I got back from visiting my family in Costa Rica. My mom and I were going to go together last year, but the trip was canceled when everything was locked down due to COVID.
When she told me she bought a plane ticket, I figured I would go before we get locked down again.
Shortly after paying off my house my boss looked at me with what I thought of as newfound respect. Then he told me I should be dumping money into stocks specifically Facebook.
This was in 2015.
Recently my brother stayed at my house for a few months. He is an early riser like me, so we took to walking around the neighborhood in the wee hours before the sun rose.
On our journeys, we would discuss many things, but one thing that really resonated with me was the theme of resentment. My brother’s life might seem a little out of control at times, but the one thing I think he has totally nailed is his ability to forgive and let go.
If I had any advice to give someone, at any age, it would be to follow your dreams. Life is too short not to.
But the second, which really is the rubber-meets-the-road, actionable, support system to the first is that everything in life is negotiable. “You don’t get if you don’t ask” has been a philosophy that has opened amazing doors for me.
“Let me be honest with you…”
The worst way to start a sentence. It always irks me to hear this.
What it presupposes is that all previous conversations were a stack of lies.
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
Augustine of Hippo
It is totally okay to say “Let me be completely transparent with you.” Depending on the relationship of the two parties conversing or perhaps in consideration of someone else’s time you might only give a snippet of the full story. Totally understandable.
I am coming up on my one year anniversary of being on Treehouse. For those not familiar with Treehouse, they have a series of videos to teach you how to work online. From coding HTML, CSS, PHP, and java to creating iPhone and Android apps to starting and marketing a business and even what all the tools and their hotkeys are in Adobe Illustrator they have it covered.