I recently saw an online interaction in which a bunch of people were speculating about a particular individual. None of these people knew this individual, they were just speculating on things, as people do, based on their presence in the public eye.

As it happens, I do know this individual directly, and fairly well. So I started to join the conversation, to correct a few misconceptions and add some clarity.

And then I stopped.

Because… well, I’m not the horse, am I? Information from me is still secondhand. Who am I to speak on behalf of this individual? I could let them know, direct them to the conversation – but I already know they wouldn’t care at all, which is the correct, sane response.

More and more, I find it difficult to ever come up with a reason to talk about someone. I mean sure, in the sense of “Oh, Jack said he can’t make it today,” stuff, that’s fine. But to comment on other people’s motivations, behaviors, ideas? Why?

My middle child had a recent interaction where she was upset because a friend of hers told her that someone else had said a mean thing about her. It was a great opportunity for a valuable lesson – don’t react at all to such things, because there are about a million reasons they could be untrue. If you don’t get your information from the horse’s mouth, consider it nothing worth thinking about. (Lo and behold, upon investigation the other girl’s comment was a mundane one, simply misinterpreted by my daughter’s friend, as is so often the case!)

So don’t talk about people, and don’t listen about people, and read more books. That last one just helps with the first two.

My local town’s snow plow got stuck in the snow. Borough offices, schools – all closed.

But the local bar & grille is open, with $2 meatball sandwiches.

I love this town.

My town has a little Facebook page for townies to discuss local news, events, what have you. Today there was an interesting discussion on there.

We’re due for a major snowstorm. Someone posted a complaint that a local shop “ripped him off” by charging him a lot for a bag of salt. They shouldn’t be that much, you see. Price gouging and whatnot.

The interesting part of the discussion was the many comments, all of which were variations on one of two observations: One kind of comment was echoing the man’s experience, saying they had also gone into such and such a store and been “ripped off” at a similar price point. The other half of the comments were all saying where the bags of salt were only their normal, un-inflated price, but with the caveat that “they were completely sold out.” (One person even commented that he had personally bought 20 bags at one of the normal-priced stores.)

It’s as if all these things are related somehow…

The train rolls along the track. Steady, unchangeable.

There are people on the train. They’re debating whether or not it’s a good thing for the train to exist. Maybe it should exist, but it should be going somewhere different. Maybe a different person should be the conductor, or maybe the entire concept of a “conductor” is wrong; immoral, even. The people debate whether or not they should voice their protest of the train only verbally, or if graffiti on the interior walls of the cars is warranted. Some of these people explain to others how bad it is that the train exists, and scold them for getting aboard.

The train rolls along the track. Steady, unchangeable.

My father once said to me that you don’t need new jokes, you just need a new audience every few months.

While that’s a funny quip about my stale humor, it’s also true that the same points of interest gain a lot of new life when you discuss them with new minds. Branch out! Engage with old friends or new, but try those ideas out with a wider audience. You’ll be pleasantly surprised, refine your own ideas, and encounter new ones.

I once had a particularly bad manager, but their style of ineptitude was fairly common (if not always so severe). She would give me a task to do, but if I asked for any specifics at all about the desired outcome, she’d hem and haw. To illustrate how infuriating this was, imagine your boss asking you to make a sandwich. When you ask what kind, they don’t answer; instead, they question whether or not you know how to make a sandwich. When you insist that you do, but you need more specifics in order to make sure they get what they want, they tell you to just start and check with them at each step.

So you say, “Okay, I’m going to start with a slice of bread, how’s that?” And they tell you they’ll get back to you. A few days later, they do, and tell you that it’s fine.

At this point, I realized the truth about this particular manager. She wasn’t necessarily dumb; she was a coward.

Her boss had told her to tell me to “make a sandwich,” and she didn’t question it. She didn’t ask for specifics. So she didn’t have any to give me. When it took her several days to confirm that “a slice of bread” was fine, it was because she was going back and asking her boss. And her boss was probably going even further up the chain!

It was a madhouse. If you’re a people leader, it’s even more important that you call out your own bad leadership, because if you just pass it along, it compounds exponentially. One person not being able to clarify an objective is bad, but a whole chain of command that can’t give an instruction specific enough to generate a sandwich is a recipe for disaster.

Tonight, I said “yes” to a large number of requests from my children. Larger than normal, that is – I already make it a point to say “yes” to them as often as I can.

As a result, I played some fun board games with them, cooked with them, and even had quiet, adjacent reading time with my eldest (after which we discussed the books we’d been reading). All in all, a wonderful evening.

Beyond just enjoying spending time with my kids, there’s a greater behavior I’m trying to impart here, both on them and on myself.

On them: I want to train them to assume I’ll say “yes” unless I have a good reason to say no. I want them to ask me!

Because, on me: I want to train myself to make the time that’s requested of me, instead of constantly filling every second. I’m a proactive guy by default, which is good but can have the unpleasant side effect of making me over-busy. So I’m trying to let myself be open and reactive more. A couple of days a week where I have nothing planned, except saying “yes.”

The time gets filled more joyously that way.

There’s an opening on my town’s local Board of Education. I like being involved in my community, and I’m very active in my kids’ schooling, but I typically dislike governmental bureaucracy. Several people close to me have encouraged me to apply, however. Definitely worth a thought!

Whatever you prepare for, you also make more likely. This isn’t just a “manifest the universe” sort of thing – it’s logic and probability.

First, it’s inevitable that if you prepare for something, you also equip yourself to spot opportunities for that thing. If you train for a marathon, you’ll just naturally notice things that point toward marathons – you’ll be more aware of announcements in media, spot an acquaintance’s running shoes under their desk, or get inspired to search for running groups.

Second, if you’re fully prepared, you’re also prepared to say “yes” to the opportunities you do spot. If you hear a radio commercial for an upcoming 5K run, the difference between signing up and idly musing, “ooh, I’d like to do that some day” is how prepared you are at the moment you hear the announcement.

Of course, if the thing you’re preparing for is vanishingly unlikely to begin with, a true black swan event, your preparation might not mean much. But in the realm of the more common events, this is everything. If you want to get more dates, be prepared for a date even with no current prospects on the horizon. That means have a clean outfit, some disposable income, some good ideas for fun locations near you, and a schedule that isn’t too busy to find a spare afternoon or evening in.

I once spoke with a couple who said they wanted to have a baby, but they were having a hard time knowing if they were really ready. My advice to them: Build a nursery. Pick a room in their home and start working on it – get a crib, baby books, all that stuff. Very quickly one of two things will happen: either you will become overwhelmed, stressed, and frustrated, which might tell you that you’re not yet ready – or a baby will appear.

A year later, that nursery was occupied, I’m quite happy to say. They started preparing for a baby, which made them happy, and made them think about babies, and when a married couple happily thinks about babies, they tend to manifest in short order.

So whatever you want to happen – don’t just wish. Prepare for it to happen, even if you don’t yet have a plan for making it so. Part of that plan is the preparation; sometimes, it’s all you need.

When your kid asks for snuggles, say yes. You only get so many!