*Typing*

Why is it that most people put more time, energy and attention into getting discovered by the world than they ever do discovering themselves?

Let's pretend it's your lifelong dream to create the greatest burger humanity has ever stuck in its mouth.

It would be preposterous to assume this kind of feat could ever be achieved having never tried a burger.

If you have ambitions of creating a great burger, you've got to try a lot of burgers: thick burgers, smash burgers, turkey burgers, portobello mushroom burgers, elk burgers, black bean burgers, fast-food burgers, diner burgers, double-patty burgers, triple-patty burgers, butter burgers and so on.

Until you've tried an extraordinary number of burgers, you can't make a great burger because you won't have the taste. We often overlook taste as we seek mastery in our crafts.

It's not enough to practice our crafts. We must also develop our taste as we practice our crafts. This can only be achieved through a maddening and obsessive consumption of the work we are seeking to make.

If your happiness is entirely dependent on what's going on outside yourself, you will never be happy. This might seem obvious at first glance but how often do you allow external factors to disrupt your internal state?

A shitty little dog yipping a few tables over while you attempt to sip your coffee. A molasses-slow driver inching down the road while you're late to your dentist appointment. A stoic-looking stranger giving you a cold glare while you pass them on the street.

Happiness is like a zen garden in the middle of a forest fire.

You can't control the fire raging on and the more you attempt to control it, the less happy you will be. Suffering is, after all, wishing the world to be a different way than it is. However, if you can learn to go inward and tend to the zen garden that is your mind, you can find happiness anywhere.

Many believe that Charles Bukowski was an anomaly––and he certainly was to a degree––but what a lot of folks overlook is that the late writer and poet was very much a student of the game. In a poem titled, The First love, he writes...

"I had my own bedroom but at 8 p.m. we were all supposed to go to sleep: 'Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,' my father would say. 'Lights out!' he would shout. Then I would take the bed lamp place it under the covers and with the heat and the hidden light I would continue to read: Ibsen, Shakespeare, Chekov, Jeffers, Thurber, Conrad Aiken, others. They brought me chance and hope and feeling in a place of no chance, no hope, no feeling. I worked for it. It got hot under the covers. Sometimes the lamp would begin to smoke on the sheets––there would be a burning; then I'd switch the lamp off, hold it outside to cool off."

Bukowski's writing gives the impression that he did not give a flying fuck but I can assure you a man who grew up reading Shakespeare and Chekov most certainly gave a fuck. Make no mistake, Bukowski was a student of the game.

A Zero Sum Game is when there must be a loser for there to be a winner. It's when one person's loss allows for another person's gain. Chess, Tennis and Poker are all Zero Sum Games.

Zero Sum Games are a hell of a lot of fun to play. They're competitive. They're challenging. They're thrilling. They're worth participating in when the rules are clear and the games have specifically been designed to end in victory or defeat.

However, Folks get themselves in trouble when they treat the entire goddamn world like a Zero Sum Game; when they believe that in order to win in life, work and love, somebody else has to lose.

This kind of thinking will almost certainly result in a lifetime of stress, pain and heartache... regardless of your own success.

Here's the honest to goodness truth:

Both you and your colleague can enjoy your jobs. Both you and your best friend can have a body you're happy with. Both you and your neighbor can live in a home that feels like home. Both you and your ex can forgive, learn, grow and go on to find love.

Isn't this a lovely way to live? To live with the belief that everybody can win.