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Surprise (Part IV)

Someone, I think it was Patrick Lie, told me that your brain can be rewired when you have your first kid. That it was an evolutionary way for us to learn to be parents.

My reprogramming came in my immune system.

In college, I’d get some bug every year, and it would knock me out. I’d crash at my mom’s house for a week, and be both sad and pathetic – maybe a little bit on purpose.

That continued when I moved out west, and I just figured my immune system, having been ravaged by bronchitis, allergies, poison ivy, and the like – just took a week’s vacation every year.

Ian always gave me shit for “letting myself get sick”. I think that’s a direct quote, but if not it’s pretty close 🙂

Then Amelia came.

Maybe it was because I’ve always gotten my flu shot since we were first pregnant. Or maybe I genuinely reprogrammed myself as Patrick suggested. But for the last 3.5 years, I’ve been sick every day of my life, but never knocked out for more than one day at a time.

It’s an epically new state of being, and while I’m really tired of constantly having a runny nose this whole not being passed out thing is fantastic.

I don’t know if it lasts into my thirties, but long may it be the case.

In the words of our fearless leader – “I don’t have time to be sick”

This idea was contributed by the dear and wonderful Saket. If you have an idea, then please let me know it!

If the 20 year old version of yourself received $100,000 in cash, what would he do with it? What would you do with it now?

Thank you Saket. Great question.

If at 20 years old, I’d gotten $100k I would have:

• Put it into my 401k, ROTH, and then spend a bunch in Vegas

I genuinely think it would have been that boring. I wouldn’t have been brave enough to drop out of school to start a company. I wouldn’t have been smart enough to buy real estate (when I was 20, the market was just recovering from the tech crash and 9/11), and I definitely wouldn’t have been crazy enough to buy $100k worth of epic parties.

Gosh I was really boring then.

And now… I’d put the money in the kids 529s 🙂

Still boring.

The crazy thing is I realized that $100k to the 20 year old me would have blown my mind. Now, I’m thinking…

• Well, 50% probably goes to taxes so it’s really only $50k
• And then I’ve got these bills to pay
• Oh yeah, Micky wanted to do that thing
• No, no, we should invest it in our savings
• Actually, let me just get ahead of paying for that MIT tuition for Amelia

Oh me 🙂

This idea was contributed by one of my most loyal readers who has asked to stay anonymous. But he’s got a full list of great ideas that I’ll be using over the next few weeks. If you have an idea, then please let me know it!

A way you’ve become more forgiving

After going a bit heavy two days ago, I wanted to pick a question with a more positive tone.

I think the most humbling experience is having children because they teach you how right your parents were all those times you thought they were complete fools.

It really helps put perspective on how many times I should have said sorry or just realized that I was wrong.

It also helped me center on the journey that people take to get from point A to point B. It takes time. It’s much slower than you want. And you can’t do it for the other person.

It drove me crazy when my girl’s soccer team didn’t get it. I mean, how could they not. The task was easy, and I was a genius coach.

Neither, it turns out, actually matters.

So how have I become more forgiving? First, I understand my parents more clearly. Second, I’m more patient with life’s journey.

It’s been a healthy, humbling combination.

This idea was contributed by one of my most loyal readers who has asked to stay anonymous. But he’s got a full list of great ideas that I’ll be using over the next few weeks. If you have an idea, then please let me know it!

The things you’ll never be or never get to do.

That’s a great question! Let’s hit the list:

• I’ll never be on a 30 under 30 list
• I’ll never be a world-class athlete, play in a World Cup, or make it to the Olympics
• I’ll never get to be a billionaire before 30… or a millionaire at that

I’ve honestly been thinking about this for 30 minutes now, and I can’t think of anything else that’s definitely off of the list. Is that awesome?

Don’t get me wrong, I could make the list full of things like, “I didn’t hook up with 25 girls before reaching 25”, but I don’t think that matters. And since never is a long time… I can still do most of the things I want to do – start a company, scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, fly to the moon.

I thought this was going to be a pretty depressing post… but I was wrong! Thanks <anonymous question asker> 🙂

This idea was contributed by one of my most loyal readers who has asked to stay anonymous. But he’s got a full list of great ideas that I’ll be using over the next few weeks. If you have an idea, then please let me know it!

A way you’ve become more cynical, that makes you sad

I no longer think that the world is inherently good, and that the exception is evil.

I now believe the world is inherently apathetic, and the exception is empathy.

This makes me incredibly sad. Let me dig in a bit more…

When I was going through D.A.R.E (I must have been one of the last classes as far as I can tell), I thought to myself, “Why do they teach us this? Adults are smart enough to know to stop doing drugs. And how much trouble can you get in as a kid anyway.” Well, I was wrong about that, and I was wrong in general that naivety and bad decision making are the purview of the young and innocent (maybe the innocent, but give me that one).

I also never understood that there were a million things wrong with the world. I thought it was genuinely the things on the evening news, and that everything else was exactly like the life I lead.

I think it’s fair to say that by 15 I knew better, but I still believed that the world was inherently good, and that people, to create a good world, inherently helped each other.

Having now lived beside the homelessness situation in San Francisco, read how brothers turn against each in civil wars all over the world, and watched myself not let someone into the lane even though they had their signal on, I know it’s much, much worse than I thought.

I didn’t think though that it was this bad.

I don’t know what the event was nor did I really realize how extremely I’d flipped to the other side until I read that question. As soon as I read it though, I knew what the answer was. Happiness removes entropy from the system. So does anger. In fact, reacting in anyway does so. Only apathy seems to bring the world to its natural place. And that’s awful. But the world keeps proving this true over and over again.

I never thought this way as a 5 year old, and Amelia and Luka don’t see the world that way. I wish I never had. I hope they never have to.

Giants win!!

I’ve been here for all three World Series championships and I even had tickets back in 2010. It’s such a cool thing to be part of. And the games were amazing.

But this year was different.

The whole family got into it. Micky had a debate about who the MVP should be. Luka loved watching the games (and he’s not going to understand why they’ve stopped). And even Amelia was willing to watch if it meant not going to bed too early.

So for the first time we became a sports family. And it’s over after about a week. And that feels perfect.

Go Giants! And now back to real life

Surprise (Part III)

People change… a lot :-/

I’m really surprised at how much people change when they hit the real world. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s genuinely bad. But most times it’s just a chapter book unfolding with post-college being the first really new chapter of life.

When I stop to think about it, how different was life really from 0 – 18? Parents paid for a bunch of stuff, school, sports, activities, but not lots of real change. I know I’m in the lucky bucket with regards to all of that, and that is what it is.

And then you hit college (well, me and most of my friends did), and… what really changed? Parents still paid for a bunch of things. I got a bunch of jobs, but that was just money in my pocket and 401k. Otherwise a bunch of activities, sports, and that’s about it. Cool, so another four years of being the same old same.

And then it hit! Real life.

Some people got depressed, and couldn’t find jobs. Some people got killer jobs, and just exploded in their career. Others just stalled. And holy smokes did it affect everyone’s personality, outlook, and trajectory.

I know for a fact that I believed in high school and college that we were all in control of our own trajectories. Now I know that that’s not true.

And the way it changed people really surprised me.

Life advice (Part II)

Don’t know a life without children.

You’ll never be “ready” for kids. You’ll never have lived enough that kids won’t take away from something that you want to do. And there will always be deep, dark moments where being 29, single, and child-free seems blissfully easier.

But man, oh man, is all of that wrong.

Have kids. Have them early enough to chase them, and not hurt your knees. Have them when you still remember high school math so you can help them with theirs. Don’t be so busy or so important that a Halloween Parade has to be skipped, or a weekend birthday party is just inconvenient.

When thinking about whether to add to the family count, our good friend Paul Napthali said, “You’ll never regret the ones you have, but you may regret the ones you don’t”

Because all in all, it really is the greatest thing to love and be loved in the eyes of a 2 & 3 year old.

Life advice (Part I)

There’s a common piece of advice that I got from tons of folks in life which is just plain wrong, and I learned it was wrong over the last decade:

The world says, “Don’t get married young. Enjoy life first, and get to experience things a bit more.”

The world is wrong.

I think that the real checklist isn’t some magic number or set of odd ball life experiences. Instead it should be:

• Make sure you’ve paid your own bills for at least a year
• Make sure you’ve gotten into a major disagreement, and survived
• Ask yourself if you could imagine the children you want to have being exactly like that person

And then go for it.

You could still be completely wrong. But, you’ve proven a few basics about yourself and your relationship.

Everything else is what you’re willing to put into it.