I spend a lot of time revisiting chapters in a previous life. Often when I visit, I do not recognize the person that I was. Feelings of remorse, regret, and embarrassment are the dominant feelings. These feelings tend to crowd out any sense of accomplishment or pride.

In a previous life, I was a business owner. But not really. I was a pretender. An amateur. What I really had was a hobby that lost money every month. It lost money because of me.

I am in the midst of getting another shot at it. This time around I am a different person. More mature, smarter, tougher, and covered in the scars of my previous lives. I also have a really capable partner. I am excited to see if I have the balls to do the things that I had been afraid to do in the past.

Have you ever waited for a prescription at CVS?

For some context, I think people are over-served when it comes to medication. Even some of my family members. What would happen if you tried drinking less or different booze? Exercised more? Made other lifestyle changes. I am no doctor, but this shit has to make a difference.

Anyways, the folks pacing around the Rx counter at a CVS at 7pm on a Monday are a sad bunch. Folks that look like they have given up. It made me equal parts grossed out and sad. Grossed out from the folks coughing all over you without an attempt to cover up and sad for the older folks that seem desperate for their meds.

Does anyone truly treat their grandparents the way that they deserve? In my experience, older folks, even grandparents, can be viewed as a nuisance. How short sighted is that? They take a little longer to get up the stairs, but think about the scar tissue that they carry with them.

Some of these folks have fought in wars, have sacrificed everything for the advancement of their families, and still get honked at in traffic because their left turn was a fraction to slow.

Personally, I wish I had the perspective that I have today when I was a younger kid. Imagine the lessons. One of my grandfathers served in WWII, came home started a business, bought some rental properties, and changed the trajectory of his family. As a kid, you don’t get to see the dark side of these people either. The older folks in my life seem to push people away as they get closer to the end. I hope I can learn from that.

I always figured that our local sub shops and restaurants used pre packaged blue cheese for wings.

I’ve tried about 4 different supermarket brands and can’t get close to how delicious that poison is from sub shops.

Are all of these animals making their blue cheese from scratch?

Why hasn’t anyone invented a container shaped appropriately for dipping wings?

Are other people good at maintaining long term (20+ years) relationships? I seem to be the worst at it. I typically interact with 1-2 friends on a recurring basis. The people that I spend the most time with are my family. I guess that’s normal?

I went to a wake on Friday night and saw 3 people who I had not seen in at least a decade. I enjoyed catching up, but felt embarrassed that I hadn’t kept in touch. The last time I saw these folks, we were probably talking about finding someone of age to buy us beer or organizing a carpool to a sporting event. Now? The cost of daycare.

My partner and I are in the process of starting a new business. So far it has been a fun undertaking. Some early challenges:

Coming up with a name. Here’s where we found most of our direction:https://seths.blog/2003/06/naming_a_busine/ 

Building a PPT template. I wish I had spent time time in school working on PPT. In group projects, I usually asked someone else to run with it. Learning to use excel and PPT are huge weaknesses. Trying to figure out if they are worth addressing. Pay someone to help instead?

For 2017 and 2018, the top line of my note pad says, be 199 lbs. I have been 225 for 2 years now. Is that good?

• Actions create results
• What is the smallest thing I can do now?
• Sell 1 job for new biz
• 1 hunting outing
• 1 camping trip
• bake chocolate chip cookies
• bake 1 carrot cake

I originally wrote everything above. Revisiting after a couple of days makes me rethink some things. I think my biggest area for improvement (where I suck the most) is patience at home. I can be a real grumpy prick for long stretches of time. If I were to get flattened by a city bus today, the people closest to me would remember me as such.