THE DIZZYING HEIGHTS OF BEING OKAY

or How To Come To Terms With Not Currently Being Dicked Around By Life

I’m not sure how I got here.

I mean, I know how I got to my desk on a Sunday morning to write this.
I got here by not writing it yesterday like Shannon always tells me to do.

But, I mean… I don’t know how I got to be this age, and (to paraphrase The Talking Heads) in this beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, two amazing sons living their own lives, a book coming out, a book tour selling out, being on TV and radio and in newspapers, and being allowed to just be my idiot self and somehow make a living from it.

How did I get here, indeed?

When I pause and think about it, it fills me with dread.
An absolute fear that I’m moments away from losing it all.
That I’ve been given these things by mistake.
It’s terrifying.

Then I take a deep breath or twelve and apply more pragmatic scrutiny to my life.

I’m not poor but I’m far from rich.
I have problems just like most if not all people.
I have worries.
I have stresses.
I sometimes paint on a smile when smiling is the last thing I feel like doing.
I soldier on.

Things in my life are not always ‘great’, not always ‘good’, but mostly, these days, ‘okay’.

I think when I get grateful for things being ‘okay’, I start to worry that they won’t be someday.
And that may be true.

But I think ‘okay’ is largely subjective and always feels elusive.
When you’re able to grab hold of ‘okay’ you almost feel like you’ve somehow found a loophole, cheated the system, or stolen it.

The dizzying heights of feeling ‘okay’ can be, well… dizzying.
Especially when ‘okay’ seems a whole lot like ‘good’, or worse ‘great’.

But I think that’s just gratitude.
We’re so thankful for how things are and aware at how much worse they could be.

Take a deep breath.
Enjoy ‘okay’.

Feeling ‘good’ is when things have been ‘okay’ for a while.
Feeling ‘great’ is how you say you’re feeling on talk shows or to enemies (mutually exclusive).

Feeling ‘okay’ with a head nod and slight smile is the baseline that we should all pursue.
I know I am.

So, I’ll push onwards this week as my book is released on Tuesday (Sept 19th) and hopefully sells well in its first week, which is apparently important.

Then I’ll go on TV and the radio, I’ll travel across the country with Shannon, I’ll have fun, I’ll work hard to keep things ‘okay’… ‘good’ even.
Hell, I may even tell some chat show hosts that I’m ‘great’.

Enjoy your life as much as it will allow you to.
If that’s not very much, push for more joy.
You might not know exactly how or why, but you deserve it.

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(Pictured: Author does best David Byrne impression, and asks the question, “My God, what have I done by buying that ill-fitting white shirt?”)

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It’s go time.
I need as many people as possible to buy the book this week.
You can order it at any bookstore but you can also order it online here:

Stupidpocalypse.com

Thank you!