I love the concept of Type I and II fun. If you aren’t familiar, Type I fun is something you enjoy while you’re doing it, like playing a video game. Type II fun is often grueling or arduous while you’re doing it, but you remember it very fondly and greatly enjoy having done it, like climbing a mountain.

This concept made me think about the same model, but for negative emotions. Type I & II pain, let’s call it. Type I pain hurts while it’s happening. Type II pain might be fun while it’s happening, but agonizing later, like drinking into a hangover.

It can be very hard to acknowledge and protect ourselves from Type II pain, even though it can devastate us. But when something hurts, look to the source – and as hard as it might be, you need to remove that source quickly.

Sometimes, delay is a curse. In such instances, “now or never” can be a good call to action for yourself; a good reminder that you should have a bias for action. But in many circumstances, there’s a third way – and it’s more viable than either.

Often people need to make a major change in their life. They know they do, but they avoid acknowledging that they should do it now. They come up with reasons why now is the wrong time, and they kick the can down the road, blocking it from their minds. When it inevitably rises up again, it’s even worse, even more urgent – and you’re no better prepared.

You don’t need to choose between “now” and “never.” You can say, “In exactly eight months,” for example. And that lets you plan.

You’re not kicking the can – you’re setting reasonable timetables, intelligent goals, and action steps. Things you can achieve. The key is asking yourself: “If not now, when?”

And then actually answering that question with a plan.

It’s not “fake it ’till you make it.” That indicates that there’s ever a threshold where you stop doing one and start doing the other. The fact is, you’re always doing both. You’re always leaning in a little ahead of what you’re certain you can do. How can you be certain, until you do it? But the doing is the making; you’re creating every step of the way.

There’s water shooting all over the restaurant kitchen because of a broken pipe. There’s zero water pressure to the dishwashing station, and there won’t be any until it gets fixed. The dishwasher complains about it, and the complaint is reasonable – after all, the dishwasher can’t do their job under these conditions, so their ability to add value has diminished. The manager calls a plumber.

There’s water shooting all over the restaurant kitchen because of a broken pipe. There’s zero water pressure to the dishwashing station, and there won’t be any until it gets fixed. The plumber complains about it, but the complaint is quite unreasonable!

Why is the same condition reasonable to complain about for one person, but not the other?

In this scenario, the answer is obvious: it’s the plumber’s job to fix this; it’s literally what they signed up for. So for the plumber to complain is sort of like the plumber complaining about having a job. In fact, it’s exactly that.

And therein lies the trap.

You see, “fixing the plumbing” is somebody’s job. But it’s not necessarily yours. If you don’t want to fix the plumbing, that doesn’t automatically mean you’re a lazy plumber. It could just mean you’re a very focused and industrious dishwasher.

Cases aren’t always as clear-cut as the hypothetical above. In more complex working environments, which things should and shouldn’t be your job can be far more complicated, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to just have everyone do whichever work is closest or most urgent. People add the most value when they focus on tasks that they’re best at, and that means the organization itself needs good workflow management.

If the restaurant manager told the dishwasher to fix the plumbing, it’s possible it could get done. But it would be far from the best solution. The trap is that sometimes voicing that can make you feel like you’re just trying to complain your way out of work, and bad managers can double down on that and make you feel that way, too.

Ask yourself – are you doing the work that adds the most value, or are you fixing problems that are getting in the way of your work, even if fixing those problems is far outside of your area of expertise? Not all writers are skilled at fixing broken typewriters, not all bus drivers are skilled mechanics, and not all dishwashers know anything about plumbing. Be careful of being trapped where you don’t belong, and then being judged for how well you do there.

There’s an imperfect but pretty easy & reliable barometer for career success, and it’s this: how much fun did you have today?

People often think they’ll make more money by sacrificing fun. In fact, they think that a “fun” job can’t possibly be lucrative – after all, who would pay you to have fun?

The truth is, money and fun exist in a symbiotic cycle. If you aren’t having fun, you won’t make much money in the long run. And if you aren’t making money, you won’t have much fun in the long run.

Sure, an un-fun job might pay well. But you won’t last if you’re miserable, so the long-term won’t be filled with fortune. But if you are having fun, you’re much more likely to be engaged in such a way as to notice and even generate new opportunities.

So make sure you’re asking yourself – daily – if you’re having fun. It’s easy to notice if you are or aren’t making money, but if you want to make sure it keeps up, you’ve got to be having fun, too.

My grandmother (with whom I briefly lived at 17) was cleaning out her attic and came upon a printed essay that I wrote in high school. I have no idea what the assignment was, but the essay itself was complete and intact and I am reproducing it here in its entirety. More than half my life ago, these were the words I put to paper. Enjoy.

===========================

This morning I accidentally ate a can of processed pumpkin.

That’s right, I looked in my food cabinet, desperately searching for the fabled “midnight snack,” when amongst all of the possible edible foodstuffs, I spotted a can (clearly labeled “Pumpkin” with a picture of a piece of pumpkin pie) that I’m sure any 17-year-old male would think would contain something vaguely consumable at 12:46 A.M.

The picture of a pumpkin pie was, I will claim until my dying breath, the most flagrant piece of false advertising ever devised by the advertising industry (which is full of executives who, incidentally, now fill my dreams as highly skilled practitioners of the art of getting shot at). This picture was clearly designed to fool the unwary into thinking that the substance contained within would serve as a viable option for those seeking nourishment. This was not the case.

This illusion, however, was furthered by the fact that the matter I was represented with upon opening the can looked like, I kid you not, pumpkin pie! That’s right, it appeared in every way to be the filling of your average grandmother’s Thanksgiving dessert. And so, bravely assaulting this can with a most vorpal spoon, I triumphantly shoveled a large pile of the stuff into my food-hole.

And I nearly threw up. This was perhaps the most revolting thing my mouth had ever contained (and I was once the receiver of the fine privilege of consuming a large quantity of pork fat), and I barely choked it down (it was, in fact, not pumpkin pie filling at all, you see, but rather a fully processed cooking ingredient composed of 85% pure pumpkin and 15% yuck). But our story continued, for you see, I did it again. Now, you’re probably thinking, “Why would this moron go and do such a thing?” Well, just to prove I can read your thoughts, I shall tell you. You see, I was fully under the impression that the first spoonful was simply the “bad stuff” that had settled to the top, and the rest, as I ate my way lower, would surely taste like that sweet, sweet pie I salivated for (this is a perfect example of how 17-year-old males think at 12:46 A.M…. or at any other time, for that matter).

The next bite did not, in fact, taste any better than the first.

And neither did the rest of the can (which, yes, I ate).

For you to fully appreciate the disgust one feels at eating a full can of pumpkin, I offer the following experience for you to try. Next Halloween, as you go trick-or-treating, take a large bite out of each Jack-o-Lantern you see. By the end of the night, I think you’ll feel roughly the same as I did. You will, be warned, throw up quite a lot that night (it amazed me on that night that one who has only 40 oz. of food, all pumpkin, in his stomach would possibly throw up 17.2 times his own body mass).

And so, in conclusion, I wish to offer up this advice, may it be placed in the annals of history alongside the words of the great Socrates and his ilk: A great way to feel better about yourself is to throw a dinner party for a bunch of executives in the advertising industry, and for dessert, serve them a pie made of crust filled with the contents of a can of pumpkin. Then shoot at them.

Incidentally, I checked later – the can of pumpkin had been expired for two years when I ate it.

Here is a mindset I work hard to cultivate, and which serves me well: Right now, everything is awesome. Later, these same things can have been terrible, but right now they’re great. When I look to my past I can reckon with it honestly, and admit that there were times that I lived through that were extremely rough. But when I’m in those times, they’re not.

This isn’t just self-delusion. The present really is different than the past.

In the present, I have agency. In the past, I do not. The past can’t be changed, but it can be learned from. In order to learn from it, it’s best to be candid: “That was a really awful event, horrific experience, or truly challenging period. I survived it, and I’m stronger – now let’s make sure I ger smarter, too.”

The present can be changed, and in order to do that I have to not wallow in pessimism or despair. The current moment is awesome because I am alive and draw breath and the outcome hasn’t yet been established. We can’t know if this will turn out to be awful because I haven’t finished with this experience yet – it might be merely challenging.

So viewed through the distinct lenses of past and present, it’s natural that the same events can take on different meanings. The result is that I grin and adapt in the here and now, and learn my lessons from when the time to grin and adapt has passed. I can say “that was terrible” a thousand times without ever having to cross over into “this is terrible.”

Because this? This is awesome!

A few days ago I was running some errands with my kids in the car. Mostly local things, so I was driving mostly along small side streets. As we were driving, I saw a woman with a walker begin to get into her car, and was slowly beginning the process of maneuvering herself from her walker-supported stance into her car.

Now, I’m an adult who’s been on this Earth for a few decades, so I know a thing or two. I quickly surmised that this woman definitely did not need anyone’s help – she was in her own driveway and clearly not in distress. She clearly had a system and had done this before. She was moving slowly but methodically. In no way did she need me to come to her rescue.

But I had my kids in the car, and I try not to miss these opportunities.

I pulled over and gave her a quick hello, asking her if I could be of any help or if I could hold anything for her to make it easier. I was slightly worried that she’d view my offer as condescending, but far from it – she was delighted that a stranger would offer aid even though she politely declined. We chatted for a moment and then I was on my way.

When I got back in the car, my kids had stars in their eyes.

That’s all I wanted. You can tell kids all you want that you should always help others, that you should in fact go out of your way to help others, but if you don’t live it they won’t. It’s often easy to say “yes” to obvious requests for help, but harder to train yourself to look for ways to help when you aren’t asked. But the latter are the more worthy – people don’t always know how to ask.

When I write, I write for individuals. Even if my audience were millions, I’d be writing in the hopes of helping individual people within that audience, rather than for “the group.”

Groups are separate entities, and I don’t generally care for them. I like individuals, even a lot of them. I think there is fundamentally an important distinction between “many individuals” and “A Group (TM)” and you can see in how people communicate whether they’re talking to one or the other.

The thing is, you can’t have a dialogue with a group. They’re inherently entities of emotion and you can’t reason with them. They become volatile and chaotic. So when I see someone addressing A Group, I’m seeing someone either attempting to score cheap points with their own tribe or possibly just grifting, but never am I looking at someone trying to have a constructive conversation.

Conversation makes the world go ’round, but I dismiss the shouting into the masses as unproductive. I’d rather talk one-on-one, even if it’s many times over.