I’ve made this distinction before, but it always amazes me when I come home at 4pm on a Friday and my entire block has already pulled their trash cans in and mine is the last one standing. On a block of 15 houses, there is not one other house who has dual income workers or someone who goes to work before 8 am.

I’m fairly sure it’s because nobody works anymore. Or they “work from home”. It’s a foreign thought to me not working a 9-5. I took 2 weeks after college and worked every week since. That’s about 700 straight weeks. Now we’ll of course give or take a few here or there, but you get the point. I don’t think people work like Peter Gibbons anymore.

Of course this simple example isn’t a catch all of how work is evolving. It’s only this feeling that I have that jobs aren’t the same type of jobs in 2018 as 1968 (and they shouldn’t be). Manufacturing in the USA is a thing of the past and I applaud a 10% tariff on Chinese goods in support of bringing labor back to the USA. Do you think it’s odd that Steve Jobs last name was Jobs and he created hundreds of thousands of jobs in China? I never thought of that before, but it’s bizarre how names provide success. Cameron Champ won a golf tournament 2 weeks ago. Warren Buffett has put 1,000’s of all you can eat buffet’s out of business. Bill Gates is the gate keeper to Windows which is literally a window into vast knowledge. Your screen is a window if you’ve never thought of that before. This is my favorite Gif ever by the way. “Bill, we’re going to make billions of dollars, act pumped!”

I got off track there for a minute, but my point is we all are on this Earth to accomplish nothing. Don’t be mistaken into foolishly thinking that this is not that case. You’re wired to think you matter. You don’t. You don’t even know why you’re you. Have you ever actually thought about that? You can’t explain if your soul is being reused or if it was newly created. You have no idea and that’s ok. Harping on it is more on the point that you can’t answer any of life’s bigger questions so you go about your day doing whatever it is that you as an individual deem important. However, we are all here doing nothing, and there are many ways to do nothing of which some people are better at it than others.

Here’s the fun part, what is nothing? You can spend your time in countless ways. Video games. Gambling. Making babies. Volunteering. Watching TV. Learning skills. Some are more useful than others in the quest for survival. The capitalist will learn as many ways as they can to help them make money. The humanitarian will visit as many people as they can and do their best to help with human welfare. Are either important? An advocate of the former will say money makes their life easier and also provides a philanthropic angle if need be.  An advocate of the latter will say that helping people and creating a better place for future generations is the most important part of life. Who is right?

I’ve never understood why people like Jeff Goldblum so much. Anyway, the answer is no one is right. If you think you’re right, you’re wrong. It’s the same theme over and over in life because life constantly changes. Here’s what we do know:

You know that you have a limited time on Earth. You know that you want to be happy. You know there are consequences to making wrong decisions. So you do your best to stay out of trouble, do whatever makes you happy, and die peacefully. Some people are better are it than others. Why is that?

Here is what I observe about happiness and spending time:

• • Are most people happy? I have no idea. Is dumb and happy better than smart and miserable?
  • Are there many ways to be happy? Did the suicide bomber who dies for his religion die happy? Is the guy reached the peak of Mt Everest any happier than the guy who sat on his couch and achieved a Victory Royale (I had to look that up)? There have to be many ways.
  • Do people care how happy they are? Your life changes every day. Some are good. Some are bad. The balance of happiness is mostly trying to be achieved every day.
  • The Answer –  People are constantly looking for gratification. It’s why our society is so messed up intoxicating people with the amount of likes they achieve. Or the need for drugs to feel relief. Happiness is unique to every single person. There are many ways to look at his and only you know you.

Here’s a bit about me and my perspective on my simple life.

I am not you. I was given an opportunity to run a family business that has been around for 160 years. I have no idea how people perceive this job, but you try to make a living for yourself with no one telling you what to do and how you should earn your pay check. I have a mentality that few people besides business owners have. Life is working hard. My opinion is that if you work hard enough, grow smart enough, you are persistent enough, and you stay the course, there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. My sister has told me that she says that pot may not be there. I’ve had this theory for many, many years now and it’s hard to continue year after year grinding and grinding not reaching that pot. For me that pot is mostly money. Once I conquer money and this business, I can move on to other life objectives. This is a sense of being and accomplishment for me. The only way that happens is I have to continuously get better. So my macro sense knows that what I’m doing is pointless. My micro sense says that you might as well make the best of the situation. As Elon Musk said on the Joe Rogan podcast, “I try to be optimistic”.

I know I’m not the smartest.  I have another complete different theory on that which essentially says that we’re all very closely related in intelligence and the difference has a lot to do with how much you study and your attitude. Either way, you go through each day, and each day turns into each week, which turns into each year. Time flies when you’re having fun. Only I’m not sure what fun is anymore. Eroding daily seems like the worst case scenario. We’ve hit 1,128 words on this post which I hope answers the question of whether this blog will continue.

I asked Sam today if he wanted to keep doing it because we achieved a worse performing blog than as individuals. I told him it’s because we feel like we can rely on each other and that’s where our problem starts. I also said that our audiences were more individualized than I originally thought. I think people will like this return post though because it should apply to everyone. I try to be thoughtful and as honest as possible which you’ll always get from me. Hopefully you can come away with some life motivation or at least a chuckle.

I’ll follow this one up with another entry on Making a Murderer part 2 and The Keepers. Our legal system is absurd and corrupt.