Don't take the black pill

We are all keenly aware of the events on Saturday evening in Pennsylvania, so as tempting as it is to take the rage bait, I’m not. No, instead, I think it is high time cooler heads prevailed. Mind you, I am not suggesting that you ignore these very real events altogether and what they may or may not mean for the world. After all, what happens here impacts everywhere.

“If it bleeds, it leads.”

We are perpetually hooked to a dopamine drip if we aren’t really careful about it. Sensationalism sells, and the more we consume it, the more sensational we see the world. But is that how the world really is? There are people right this second who think we are in the most dire time in human history. Bruv, the 20th Century was full of periods far worse than now.

World War I, the “War to end all wars” claimed around 40 million lives. That’s right. Of course, those numbers are so high that it is impossible to really know how many died, but it was horrendous.

Just a couple of decades later, World War II pops off. We know about Hitler. Stalin was responsible for anywhere from ten million to maybe sixty million of his own people. Mao has similar numbers, and the list goes on and on.

This is not to make light of the totally real problems today. No, it is a call for all of you friends to be careful what you consume and buy into. What you put in to your mind has a bad habit of coming back out.

Instead, I encourage you all to shut off the news (if your excuse is the weather, then go buy a weather radio from Walmart. I have two.) Learn something new that will positively benefit your life. If you suck at DIY projects, watch some videos, read some articles from Family Handyman and This Old House and go either tackle a project or make something! For us men (I am under no false allusions; my audience is 99% male), idle hands are bad news. Our worth is tied to our ability to fix and build things, so go give it a shot! If you’re already a gearhead like me, find a cantankerous project like an old truck or tractor and do something great and beautiful with it.

• Plant a garden.

• Plant an orchard.

• Get into beekeeping.

• Go lift some weights.

• Build up your collection of classic books.

That said, though, my friend Travis Hubbard had a very valid point: if you are in business for yourself, it is probably time to put the stops on who you are willing to work with. While I agree that we shouldn’t focus on the bad, it is also high time to be much more discerning about who we take our money from and who we conduct business with.

And this is a great caveat and a great idea:

Don’t dwell on what’s happening in the world too much; it’ll eat you up inside. But, with that said, be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. It’s not the worst the world has ever been by a wide margin, but things are getting spicy.

As we build an ecosystem of like-minded businesses, you can use a hand to get on solid footing. I spent a lot of years getting to where I am, and if I were to do it all over again from scratch, I could do it a lot faster. If you want to cut a couple of years off of your timeline, especially if you want to grow a freelancing career, schedule a call.

And this: