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Tomorrowland

So, the writing prompt asks, “What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in twenty years?” Twenty years. That’s a long time. I think it’s pretty optimistic of us to assume we’re still going to have electricity in twenty years.

At the rate we’re going, I don’t think we’ll even have any technology to talk about. We’ll be sitting around a campfire trying to remember what Wi-Fi was while the elders tell fantastical stories about streaming movies, GTA, and email.  We’ll be trading canned beans like currency and arguing over who gets to hold the last functioning flashlight.

The powers that be seem determined to speed-run civilization into the ground, so I’m not making any long-term investments. My retirement plan is basically “hope someone in the cave knows how to start a fire.”

But… if society manages to limp along for a little while before everything goes spectacularly sideways, I think I know exactly what technology we’ll have first.

Remember the movie Idiocracy? It came out about twenty years ago. At the time, we all laughed because it was just so ridiculous. But now? I don’t think they were making a comedy at all. I think they were from the future, trying to warn us in the best way they knew how. Did we listen? Of course not.

For instance, in the movie, they water all the crops with a Gatorade knock-off called Brawndo. I can absolutely see us doing that. Not because it makes sense. But because somewhere, someone with a suspicious amount of confidence – and considerably fewer brain cells – will explain that plants don’t really want water anymore. They want electrolytes.

There will be graphs. There will be influencers. There will be at least one morning talk show demonstrating how to water your begonias with Fruit Punch because “science.” They’ll sell these innovative sprinklers on QVC for $59.99. People will be at Home Depot buying Glacier Freeze concentrate by the gallon.

Meanwhile, every tomato plant in America will quietly decide it’s had enough.

Then there are the barcode tattoos. Everyone in the movie had one so they could be tracked. When I first saw Idiocracy, I thought, “Well, that’s a little over the top.” Now? Honestly, I think we’d volunteer. Not because anyone forced us. Just because it would save thirty seconds at checkout. People will do almost anything if it means not waiting in line.

If Costco announced, “Want to skip the line? Tiny barcode on your wrist,” there’d be a waiting list before lunch.

Sure, I get that Idiocracy wasn’t really predicting technology. It was predicting us. Which kind of goes hand-in-hand. And unfortunately, they hit the nail on the head. Though, to be honest, I think they actually gave us too much credit. I have full faith in our ability to blow right past their expectations and sink even lower.

In fact, judging by the last couple of years, we’re actually a little ahead of schedule.

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More Chaos? No Thanks, I’m Full.

You would never guess that I used to actively seek out chaos. I mean, today, I look exactly like the kind of person who mentally prepares for a trip to Target like I’m invading Normandy. I get stressed when someone parks in my grocery store parking spot, as though I personally own Space 42.

But back in my late teens, living near Baltimore, my best friend and I would regularly drive down to D.C. just to sneak into these dim, crowded jazz clubs. We weren’t of legal age and had absolutely no business being there, but somehow we always found ourselves in the middle of smoky rooms listening to incredible musicians while pretending we absolutely belonged. I’ve spent the last thirty years chasing zucchini sticks that tasted that good. Spoiler alert: I haven’t found them. Apparently, the secret ingredient was underage trespassing.

Entire weekends disappeared in a blur. We weren’t chasing trouble so much as chasing stories. Every weekend felt like an adventure, and we always assumed we’d make it home in one piece. Looking back though, I’m honestly amazed I survived my late teens. My guardian angel must have put in some heavy overtime and probably still winces whenever I say, “You know what? I have an idea.”

The funny thing is, all those years of sneaking around made me much better at catching my own kids’ lies. Turns out, once you’ve perfected the art of looking innocent while doing something you absolutely shouldn’t be doing, you get pretty good at recognizing the signs.

But then, you know, life happens. You get married, you have kids, you deal with a husband who thinks the entire world revolves around him, and suddenly, you’ve had enough actual drama to last three lifetimes.

Nowadays, daily chaos is a little overwhelming. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I just want things to be quiet. I’d like everyone to use their turn signals, my internet to work, and I’d really appreciate it if websites would stop asking me to prove who I am every single time I use the exact same computer I’ve been using for years. It’s me. We’ve met.

But every once in a while, I’ll think, hey, let’s spice things up! I don’t know what comes over me.

Like the other day. I decided to take a “shortcut” home. No GPS. Just pure instinct. Which, historically, has not been one of my strengths.

Big mistake.

Two hours later, I was in a town I’d never heard of, making uncomfortable eye contact with a cow that looked just as concerned about my life choices as I was.

There was no cell service. I was basically on my own, which is never a good place for me to be. I’m sitting there thinking, is this the chaos they keep telling us we need? Am I growing as a person right now? Because I mostly just wanted my mom to come pick me up.

People always say chaos breeds creativity. They say you need it to think outside the box. Listen, if you ever see me outside the box, it’s almost certainly because I tripped over the box. There was no strategy involved.

I think being alive in this day and age already provides more than enough chaos, thank you very much. I certainly don’t need to add to it.

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Independence Day (Terms and Conditions Apply)

So, after my guinea pig rant, I thought I might write something a little more simple and upbeat. You know, to give you lovely readers a break.

It’s the 4th of July here in the U.S. And honestly, if you can just ignore the 104-degree heat that feels like living inside a toaster oven, the dawning realization that our country is actively falling apart at the seams, and the random firework explosions at 3:00 a.m. that sound like a tactical military assault on your neighborhood, you just might have a good day. It’s totally possible.

Happy 4th. Go eat a hot dog.

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Dog Day Afternoon

The writing prompt today is “What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?” and honestly, right off the bat, I feel attacked. My perspective is fine, thank you very much. It’s built on a rock solid foundation of panic and low-grade dread, and it hasn’t failed me yet. If you’re always expecting the absolute worst, you’re never surprised. What could possibly go wrong?

But, I did see a video the other day that I desperately wish would shift everyone else’s perspective. I know, I know. Classic deflection. Pure, unadulterated side-stepping. But hear me out.

The video was of a couple at PetSmart with a Great Dane.

Now, before anyone gets defensive, this isn’t about the dog. The dog was doing exactly what dogs do. It saw a small, furry, moving thing in a glass box and thought, “Well, that’s interesting. Is it a snack? Because it looks like a snack.” Fair enough. That’s a dog for you.

The problem was the two fully-grown humans holding the leash.

They stood there encouraging the dog while it barked and lunged at a guinea pig enclosure. The poor guinea pig kept trying to burrow deeper and deeper into the bedding, clearly thinking, “Well… this is the day. This is how it ends.”

And the couple laughed. Actual, audible amusement. “Oh! Scared it that time!”

Yes. Yes, you did. Congratulations. You successfully terrified an animal with the emotional resilience of a baked potato wrapped in anxiety. What a proud moment for the human race.

Before someone inevitably rolls their eyes and says, “Oh my God, it’s just a guinea pig.” Yes. I know it is. Which makes it infinitely worse.

Imagine being a prey animal. Your entire evolutionary history consists of one rule, “If giant thing notices you, your day is about to get a lot shorter.” That’s the entire operating system.

Then you’re ripped away from your mother weeks before you should be, so you stay small and “marketable” for maximum customer attention. You get packed into a cardboard shipping crate, mailed under God knows what conditions, and dumped into a glass box under buzzing fluorescent lights all because humans decided you’d make a cute starter pet for an eight-year-old who will forget you exist in three weeks.

And then, because you’re not stressed enough… every fifteen minutes, another enormous apex predator wanders over, gets an inch from your face, and barks loud enough to register on the Richter scale.

You can’t run because, you know, you’re in a box. You can’t hide. Well… you can try to hide. Which is exactly what this guinea pig was doing. Digging frantically into the bedding like maybe, just maybe, if it became one with the wood shavings, the giant barking monster would lose interest.

I mean… comedy gold. If you’re a sociopath.

I know what some people are thinking. “The dog isn’t going to get it. There’s glass.” Right. And if I stood outside your office window wearing a hockey mask, pounding on the glass and screaming, “I’M PROBABLY NOT COMING IN!” every thirty seconds, eventually HR would get involved.

You’d be just a little concerned about your wellbeing.

Stress doesn’t require actual danger. It just requires the belief that danger exists. The guinea pig doesn’t know the glass is secure. Hell, the guinea pig doesn’t even know what glass is. It’s a rodent. It doesn’t understand the concept of transparent solids. What it does know is that something with teeth the size of its entire body wants to eat it.

Excellent afternoon. Ten out of ten.

Then I made the mistake of reading the comments. Huge mistake. Never read the comments. Apparently, this is considered “enrichment.” Person after person saying things like, “OMG I need to take my dog to PetSmart!” and “My retriever would LOVE this!” and “Free entertainment!”

We have reached a point in society where “let’s torment a trapped, defenseless animal for ten minutes because my dog is bored” has become a legitimate weekend outing.

Maybe—and this is just me spit-balling here—but maybe we shouldn’t use living creatures as interactive dog toys.

Honestly, I blame PetSmart a little too. Okay, I blame PetSmart a lot. Who decided prey animals should live at exactly dog-nose height? Raise the habitats. Problem solved. Or, you know, don’t sell animals in stores in the first place. Even better.

But mostly, I blame the people.

I don’t know. Call me old-fashioned. I just don’t think your dog needs to terrorize a hostage for enrichment. Go to a park, for God’s sake. Throw a tennis ball. Buy one of those absurd, plastic food puzzles that takes your dog forty-five minutes to extract three pieces of kibble. There are entire aisles of toys. Stuffed squirrels. Chew toys. Toys that move.

Your dog has options. The guinea pig … or rabbit or hamster or bird… has one: panic.

Do. Better.

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Sleepless on the Orient Express

Today’s question is, “What do you do to improve your sleep?” and frankly, I find the question offensive. But if you must know, my current sleep strategy consists of being a night owl until about 3:00 AM, getting a light dusting of unconsciousness, and then waking up for work feeling like I was hit by a bus. If I’m lucky, those three hours of rest are accompanied by vivid, highly stressful anxiety dreams where I’m trying to pass a math test I didn’t study for while being chased by an irate landlord. It’s a flawless system.

My only real attempt at “improvement” involves British murder mysteries. Every night, I turn on a Hercule Poirot audiobook. Not because I care who killed the much-hated-richer-than-god patriarch but because they’re narrated by Hugh Fraser—the actor who played Captain Hastings in the TV show—and he has the most beautiful, soothing voice in human history. It’s like being gently tucked into bed by a 1930s gentleman. All prim and proper and coattails. It’s a lovely soundtrack for my insomnia.

Does it help? Not really. But if insomnia insists on keeping me company, it might as well have a British accent.

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Close the Tab! CLOSE THE TAB!!!

Today’s prompt asks, “What’s the best way to deal with negative thoughts?” Well. You’ve certainly come to the right person. If I know anything, I know negative thoughts. I collect them like I collect browser tabs. Every time I think I’m done, another one pops open, and I can’t get the damned thing closed. Which probably tells you everything you need to know about my brain.

I  may have mentioned it, but I have anxiety. We’re very close. Not just one anxiety, either. Oh no, I have the whole damn set. General. Social. Health. Existential. All of them. All the time. No subscription required.

Anxiety and negative thoughts are basically roommates, and neither one knows when to move out. It’s exhausting. People are always offering advice. “You just have to change your mindset.” Fantastic. I hadn’t considered simply uninstalling anxiety.

“Have you tried thinking positive thoughts?” No, Brenda. I was saving that for next Tuesday.

Then there are the people who tell you to push your negative thoughts down. Absolutely. Let’s do that. Just shove them into a tiny emotional closet and pretend everything’s fine. That’s worked out great for oh, I don’t know, everyone throughout history.

Pretty sure that’s why I relate to Psyduck on such a deep, personal level. That’s a Pokemon for the heathens among you. He has an incredibly specific anxiety-filled power. He gets overwhelmed. And when he gets overwhelmed, he reacts pretty much the same way I do. It goes something like this:

Headache.
Headache.
Headache.
Explosion.

Sometimes I wonder if my brain is just an unpaid screenwriter whose only job is pitching terrible ideas.

“What if everyone secretly thinks you’re weird?” Bold assumption they secretly think it.
“What if you said something embarrassing three years ago?” I’m sure I did.
“What if someone remembers?” They don’t. “Okay, but, what if they DO?”
“See? This is why you don’t get invited to meetings anymore.”

Negative thoughts are relentless. They don’t even take holidays. Christmas morning. “Merry Christmas! What if your wrapping paper looked passive-aggressive?” Wait, what??

They show up at three in the morning too. Not with anything useful, of course. Never, “Hey, remember to switch the laundry.” No. It’s always, “Remember that awkward thing you said in 1989?” First of all, rude. Second, I was there. Of course, I fucking remember. You don’t have to release the director’s cut with bonus commentary.

Therapists will tell you to acknowledge your thoughts. I do this. Not because a therapist told me, because I’m polite.

“Oh, hello, irrational fear that everyone at work had a meeting about me.”
“Good morning, catastrophic thinking.”
“Nice to see you again, completely fabricated scenario that somehow ends with me living alone in a lighthouse with a flock of emotionally unavailable seagulls.”

We’ve met. I don’t know why they keep introducing themselves.

The important thing, though, is to not let the intrusive thoughts win. Those little bastards should never be allowed near the controls.

“What if you quit your job?” Just… no.
“What if you text your ex?” Absolutely not. Are you insane!?
“What if you dye your hair purple and become a pirate?” Okay, that one at least had some creativity. But still no.

I listened to an intrusive thought once. HR got involved. Believe me, it wasn’t fun. Okay, maybe a little fun. On the plus side, Brenda from Accounting doesn’t steal my lunch anymore. Apparently one completely unrelated incident was enough to make her rethink some things.

Another thing I’ve discovered is that eating helps. Not because food magically fixes anxiety. I wish. That would be amazing. That’s something I could get behind. It’s just that it’s remarkably difficult to spiral into a full existential crisis while eating cheesecake.

Your brain is over there screaming, “You’re a burden! Everyone hates you!” Meanwhile you’re sitting there like, “This crust is buttery as hell.”

You can absolutely have negative thoughts while eating cheesecake. It just feels disrespectful to the cheesecake. Same goes for tacos. Tacos deserve your undivided attention.

Look, I don’t know if there’s a perfect way to deal with negative thoughts. If there is, my brain definitely didn’t read the instruction manual. Some days I laugh at them. Some days I distract myself. Some days I argue with them like I’m representing myself in court, despite having absolutely no legal training.

And some days I eat cheesecake.

One thing I do know is this. The thoughts aren’t you. Yeah, they’re loud. And yeah, they’re convincing. Most of the time, they’re spectacularly full of shit. But they’re still just thoughts.

Don’t give up.
Don’t give in.
Keep going.

Just like Dory.

And if all you manage today is ignoring one intrusive thought and eating a piece of cheesecake… I’d call that a pretty good day.

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Gut Check

So with today’s writing prompt, I’m meant to answer “What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?”

Which is hilarious. Because my gut isn’t some wise, mystical oracle. My gut is just a tight little ball of localized panic. The administrative nightmare of existing inside my own body is trying to figure out where the reasonable caution ends and the anxiety begins. Because my gut weighs in on everything. It has no sense of scale.

It treats a slightly-too-cheerful barista with the exact same level of urgency as a dark alleyway.

It looks at my phone and screams, “Don’t answer that call! It’s an unknown number, which means it is either a collection agency, a kidnapping ransom, or worse, someone asking you to socialize. Break the device! Break it!”

It looks at my closet and goes, “Don’t wear that shirt! Everyone will know you’re a fraud.”

And because it overreacts so often, I just ignore it. I have to. Otherwise, I’d be wrapped in tin foil, hiding in a blanket fort forever. And as much fun as that sounds, I do need to get out once in a while.

The downside, of course, is that every now and then my gut accidentally stumbles into being completely right… and by then I’ve already stopped listening.

Take, for instance, a recent trip to the grocery store.

My life choices, by the way, are currently split into three categories: 40% snacks, 40% anxiety, and 20% wondering why on earth I just did the thing I just did.

So, I went into the store for one specific item. I left holding seventeen entirely unrelated things. No bag, obviously, because I’m an optimist who enjoys dropping jars of salsa in parking lots. And I still didn’t get the one thing I actually went in for.

But while I was wandering the snack aisle, I found myself staring at two options. One was familiar. Safe. The snack equivalent of a full-body pillow.

The other looked like it had been designed by a marketing team going through a collective manic episode. Bright neon fonts. Words like “Artisanal Extreme Crunch Injection!” written with entirely too much confidence.

My brain, which has the attention span of a crow around shiny objects, was immediately onboard. “Oh, let’s try it! It’s colorful! It’s a cube!”

My gut immediately went: “No. Absolutely not. Put it down. It’s a trap.” It was firm. It was panicked.

And because my gut is always panicked, I thought, “Well, you’re clearly overreacting as usual. I’m buying it.” I brought it home. I opened it.

First bite: Huh. Unusual texture.

Second bite: Wait, excuse me? What is happening to my mouth?

Third bite: Why does this taste like regret, broken promises, and… hot peppers? Why are there hot peppers in a dessert snack? Who the hell authorized this?

My gut, delighted to discover it had finally been right about something, was absolutely insufferable. It didn’t even yell. It just sat there in smug correctness, saying, “I did try to tell you, actually, but noooo, you knew best.”

So yes, my gut is occasionally right.

The problem is that it spends the other 85% of its time insisting perfectly harmless situations are moments away from complete catastrophe. After all, this is the same gut that thinks an imperfectly worded email to Brenda in Accounting could trigger an international incident.

It’s difficult to trust an advisor with that kind of track record.

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The Great Childhood Disinformation Campaign

What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?

At first, I figured I’d go with one of the classics. The Easter Bunny. The Tooth Fairy. The idea that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, you’d end up growing a watermelon in your stomach. Which, now that I think about it, feels like it should’ve been a much bigger medical concern than anyone was making it out to be.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized childhood wasn’t just built on a few white lies and silly misunderstandings. It was basically one big disinformation campaign.

Adults were just making stuff up. Constantly. And they did it with total straight faces.

Some of it was practical: “Don’t swallow your gum. It stays in your stomach for seven years.” Seven years always seemed oddly specific. Like a team of scientists had actually tracked a piece of Juicy Fruit through some kid named Gary.

Some of it was safety-related: “Wait an hour after eating before you go swimming or you’ll immediately cramp up, sink to the bottom, and die.” Not a plain old stomachache. Straight to death.

And some of it was just bizarre: “If you keep making that face, it’ll freeze that way.”  Okay, well maybe some of us would look better that way. I’m looking at you, Chad.

But the holy grail of lies happened when I was little. My mother convinced me that clouds do not move. Not that they move slowly. Not that it’s hard to tell. She told me they. Do. Not. Move. I remember arguing with her in the car because I could clearly see this giant, fluffy cloud drifting across the sky.

She looked at me and said, “No. The car is moving.”

I said, “But Mom, that cloud was over there a minute ago.”

“No,” she said. “We were over there a minute ago. The cloud is exactly where it has always been.”

She said it with the absolute confidence of a person explaining gravity. And this wasn’t just a quick joke to pass the time on a road trip. She committed to this bit for months. Eventually, she broke me. She convinced me that I was the crazy one. I decided my own eyes could no longer be trusted, and I never brought it up again for fear of looking foolish.

It wasn’t until I was sitting in an elementary school science class that I realized she’d been messing with me on an epic meteorological scale.

Anyway.

Once you realize the cloud thing is a lie, you start questioning the rest of the adult world. And you realize a lot of the “rules” we grew up with aren’t actually rules at all.

Take birthday cake. You can just go buy one. On a random Tuesday. No birthday required. There is no Cake Enforcement Division standing by the bakery case demanding to see a birth certificate. You just point at a giant sheet cake with blue frosting and say, “I’ll take that one.” And they just hand it to you. They don’t care. You can eat it in your car.

Matching socks? Completely optional. If they both fit on my feet, that’s a matching pair in my book.

Ironing? I’m still waiting to encounter a situation in my adult life where ironing feels necessary. If it wrinkles, it wrinkles. That’s between the shirt and God.

And laundry piles? Please. Once it started costing me actual quarters at the laundromat, the concept of “sorting colors” went right out the window. Everything goes in together. Let them fight it out in the rinse cycle.

Though, I will say, Gen-X cartoons really threw us off on the danger metrics of the real world. Growing up, I was fully convinced that a surprising amount of my adulthood would be spent dodging quicksand. I had a plan for it. Turns out, the real bane of my existence is just remembering passwords. I’d almost rather take my chances with the quicksand.

You spend your childhood assuming adults know what they’re talking about. Then you become one and realize that adults just lie. They say it was to entertain us, but I think it was mostly to entertain themselves at our expense.

Like clouds. Those definitely move.

I’m almost positive.

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Wherefore Art Thou Common Sense

If I could change the ending of Romeo and Juliet, I’d have to start at the beginning. I’d introduce basic communication skills, a smattering of responsible parenting, and possibly a chaperone.

Despite what my English Lit professor would have you believe, Romeo and Juliet is not a love story. It’s a story about two emotionally unregulated teenagers, a spectacular absence of adult supervision, and two families who really needed group therapy before things escalated into multiple funerals.

First of all, someone needs to sit Romeo and Juliet down. And honestly, it should have been the parents, but we all know how they were. Parents, amirite? So it fell to Friar Laurence. The friar wasn’t a bad guy, he just had the backbone of a cooked noodle. His grand plan to fix a multi-generational blood feud was to secretly marry two teenagers who met five minutes ago.

He should have looked at them and said, “Whoa, let’s pump the brakes. You two have known each other for less than twenty-four hours. Maybe let’s pause the vows until you’ve had, I don’t know, a second conversation. You’re not even old enough to rent a horse, for God’s sake. Go home, eat a piece of fruit, and if you still like each other in July, we’ll talk.”

Because, let’s face it, Romeo’s romantic track record is… concerning.

He spends the first act hopelessly in love with his soulmate, Rosaline. Then he goes to a party where he hopes to catch Rosaline’s eye, sees Juliet across the room, and immediately decides he’s found his, um, soulmate. Did I mention she’s Rosaline’s cousin?

Sir.

Juliet isn’t exactly making stellar decisions either. She’s thirteen. Which is old enough to think you know everything and young enough to prove you don’t.

So in my version, before anyone starts faking deaths or buying poison, the adults notice that something is happening. Revolutionary concept, I know.

But here’s where the story really changes. Rosaline shows up. Poor Rosaline. History remembers her – when it remembers her at all – as “the girl Romeo loved before Juliet,” but I think she deserves a chance to tell her side of the story.

So, she shows up. She pulls Juliet aside. “Can we talk?”

Juliet is immediately suspicious. Which is understandable. If another girl appeared claiming she’d recently been the love of Romeo’s life, I’d have questions too.

But Rosaline isn’t jealous. She’s tired. “Look,” she says. “Last Tuesday I was the love of his life. Today it’s you. At this rate, by Friday he’ll be writing sonnets about the woman selling figs in the marketplace.”

Juliet wants to be offended. She really does. But then she starts replaying the timeline in her head. Wait… he was crying over someone else yesterday. That seems relevant.

Meanwhile, Romeo is off in a corner trying to think of a rhyme for “forever.” Again.

So Juliet and Rosaline do the one thing nobody in Verona sees coming. They become friends. They compare notes. They realize Romeo isn’t their soulmate. He’s a community-funded learning experience. Together they decide he’s probably not ready for a lifelong commitment if he keeps falling in love between lunch and dinner.

“Romeo,” Juliet says, “you seem like you’re going through something, and I genuinely wish you the best.” She pauses. “But I’m no longer here for it.”

Rosaline nods. “Same.”

Romeo is devastated. Briefly. Then he wanders into another Capulet shindig, makes eye contact with someone across the punch bowl, and announces to anyone within earshot that destiny has spoken. Again.

But word is starting to get around about Romeo’s wandering heart. Verona is a small town, after all. Gossip travels fast. And suddenly, soulmates are becoming… limited. Oh, please. He’ll be fine. He has the emotional attention span of a golden retriever in a tennis ball factory.

Meanwhile, Juliet and Rosaline do something truly radical for a Shakespeare tragedy: they grow up. Gasp.

They leave Verona. They let their frontal lobes finish loading. And they stay friends. Because it turns out not all soulmates are romantic. Some are just the people who help you survive your own bad judgment with your dignity mostly intact.

All of which, admittedly, would have made for a much shorter play.

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Since You Asked

If I could give someone younger than me one piece of advice, it would be… well, first of all, they’re not going to listen. I know this because I didn’t listen. I don’t remember taking a single piece of advice from an older person when I was young. I remember people giving me advice. I remember nodding. I remember saying things like, “That’s a really good point.” And then I remember doing exactly what I was going to do anyway.

Actually, I’m not sure I listen now. Just last week my doctor told me to do something and I thought, “Interesting.” But is there cake in my pantry? Yes, yes there is.

Anyway.

I like to think most people operate this way. We take advice with a grain of salt and go about our day. So if you’re younger than me and reading this, feel free to ignore everything that follows. Tradition matters.

Everybody always says you should say yes more often. Say yes to opportunities. Say yes to adventure. Say yes to experiences. Say yes to life.

Which sounds great, but I think somewhere along the way I accidentally said yes to three streaming services I’m not using and a rewards program at CVS.

Life seems to hand out plenty of yeses all on its own. What most of us need is a stronger no.

Say no to that terrible job that expects you to answer emails at 10 p.m. because “we’re like a family here.” No. Families don’t usually send calendar invites. Or, if they do, they certainly don’t expect you to reply. And if they expect you to reply immediately, to hell with them. Who do they think they are, my mother?

Say no to that relationship where you’re doing all the work.

Say no to the person who says they’re “emotionally unavailable.” Thank you for the transparency. I will now be taking my business elsewhere.

Say no to obligations you never wanted in the first place. No, I do not want to join the committee. No, I do not want to chair the committee. No, I do not want to be on the subcommittee that supports the committee.

At some point every adult ends up on a committee. I don’t know how this happens. Nobody grows up dreaming of committee work. No seven-year-old is sitting on the floor with a box of crayons thinking, “One day I hope to review quarterly planning documents.”

Yet here we are.

Most importantly, say no to unreasonable expectations. The ones other people put on you. And especially the ones you put on yourself. You do not need to be productive every second of every day. You do not need to turn every hobby into a side hustle. You do not need to optimize your morning routine. You can just have a morning. A regular morning. With coffee. And a donut.

And maybe staring out of the window for a while wondering what squirrels do all day. I mean, they seem incredibly busy. I’ve never seen a relaxed squirrel. They always look like they’re carrying the weight of an entire forest on their tiny shoulders. Maybe squirrels need to say no more often. Or maybe they’re accomplishing amazing things and we’re all underestimating them. I don’t know. I don’t speak squirrel.

Now, before I go any further, I need to discuss snacks. Because nobody ever mentions snacks in these conversations.

Every article about personal growth wants to talk about resilience and perseverance and stepping outside your comfort zone. Nobody ever says, “Have you considered a handful of Cheez-Its?”

Meanwhile, half the problems I’ve encountered could have been improved by sitting down and eating a snack. Not solved. Let’s not get carried away. But definitely improved.

A person trying to make an important life decision on an empty stomach is basically a hostage negotiator without proper resources. And both the hostages and the hostage-taker are insane. Have the crackers. Eat the cookies. Buy the chips.

So there you have it. My advice for younger people. Which they probably won’t take. And that’s okay.

But if you remember anything, remember this:

Say no to bad jobs.

Say no to bad relationships.

Say no to unreasonable expectations.

And say yes to snacks.

Always say yes to snacks. Unlike people, snacks have never let me down.

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