At the risk of sounding like a motivational poster, I feel like these days call for a reminder that it's okay to be happy.

It's been a very different year, a terrible one for some people. But it's possible, it's okay to have sympathy for those people, while still being happy yourself. Happiness is not a zero sum game, you being unhappy on someone else's behalf does not make them any happier.

In fact, about the only thing I can say for sure is that sitting around bemoaning the state of the world doesn't help anyone or anything. If you're not happy that's okay, but sit down and figure out why. Then see if there's something you can do about it. Unless you're reading this from prison, there's probably something you can do to make yourself feel better. It might be something really simple, like petting your dog or making raspberry studdle bars, but there's probably something.

If you're like a lot of people I know, you're probably in a kind of shock that the world took a turn you weren't expecting. I feel you. This year has actually been pretty good to me, but the world took several turns in 2019 that I was not expecting and frankly, did not like. No, they sucked. I did not like those turns. I opposed those turns. A year ago I was spending most of my time feeling like people I know are feeling right now. 

I was probably worse though. I was whiny and feeling bad for myself because the future arrrived and did not look at all like I planned for it to look.

 that assuming the future will be whatever it is we want it to be has always been an unwise, baseless assumption. The future will be whatever it damn well pleases, our task is to navigate it.


I feel like these days call for a reminder that it's okay to be happy. 


Sometimes when I start writing I don't really have a plan about where what I'm writing will end up, this is one of those pieces I considered putting on Wired, but thought no, wrong, albiet much larger, audience. Sometimes it's better to reach the right 10 people than thousands of the wrong people.

I got an ad the other day that instead of back to school, said back to learning. As if learning were a thing that didn't happen all the time. And sure, it's just an ad, ads exist to make you feel bad about yourself in some way so that you'll buy something to try to assauge that pain. That said, it's a sad slogan.

When I said that living in a bus didn't help prepare us for a pandemic, I did acknowledge that working from home and homeschooling our kids definitely *did* helpi