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!

Caring about someone doesn’t mean always sacrificing for them. You can make deals too, as long as you respect that they’re a capable human. Caring about them just means keeping the deals favorable for both sides.

I always find it fascinating when two things I’ve encountered at very different points turn out to have the same hand behind them. I have a book I love dearly that I first encountered more than twenty years ago. More than a decade later, someone I knew introduced me to some new music I’d never heard of, and there was a reference to the book in one of her songs. Turns out, the singer was the author’s sister.

It’s fascinating when you see two different movies, ears apart, and discover the same screenwriter or director or team or anything like that. Because those patterns, the ways they connect in your life, will say so much. The topography of your experiences, the map of your journey through life and what you choose to engage with.

So look for those signatures. They’re clues to more treasure!

For better or worse, the main benefit to getting the basics right is the ability to be unquestioned about the more complicated stuff.

If you show up to work on time, consistently, you can get away with a lot of other weirdness. If your grades are good, you can be a real goofball in class (ask me how I know) without people saying much about it.

If you’re polite, you can be defiant.

If your nose is clean, you can march to wild, unfettered drumbeats.

So get the basics right, in any scenario. Be healthy, so you can be weird.

Sometimes, things in life cause us pain. And sometimes, despite knowing this in advance, we have to do something that will cause us that pain anyway.

Look, you have to get that cavity drilled. You know in advance it’s going to suck, but you just have to do it. Because the alternative is more pain, right?

But you don’t have to take all the pain, all at once. If you’re going to stiff-upper-lip it that’s fine, but you can only power through for so long. So accept that fact and ration it out.

One of the hardest drugs to kick is outrage. Anger. Righteous indignation.

And like any drug, going cold turkey is one of the hardest ways to abstain. Fill your time with something else. Get angry over something safer, if you like. Read a good novel with a dastardly villain upon which to heap your ire. Just stay away from your phone.

Let’s say a house is on fire. I say we should put water on it, and Steve says we should put gasoline on it. We disagree, obviously. But why we disagree is important.

Steve might say we should put gas on the fire because he’s unfamiliar with the substance or incorrect about how it will react, in which case I might need to explain things to him and help him understand the chemistry before he’ll help me with the firehose.

Or, Steve might say we should put gas on the fire because Steve wants the house to burn down.

If Steve wants the house to burn down, I’m wasting my time explaining to him that water is the correct substance to use to extinguish the fire; he already knows. But likewise, if Steve is just confused about what gasoline will do, I don’t get anywhere by accusing Steve of being an arsonist.

Being able to identify why someone disagrees with you and acting accordingly is a crucial skill. Don’t ignore developing it.