It starts with the recognition of joy in your own heart. This involves learning to look past the misery others want to drag you into and rising above the level of immaturity of the culture around you.

True joy is not a feeling to be chased, but a way of being in the world. It’s not miring yourself in the minutia of petty daily nuisance, but appreciating all of what life has to offer.

It’s also a bigger vision of the world.

In fact, it’s a vision that extends beyond this world. It’s a vision that extends into deep time and putting yourself into the river of cosmic history—we are merely at one point in a 13.8 billion year history.

It’s a vision that is hard earned when the passage of time you have here on Earth comes frighteningly close to its end.

Once you see it, you recognize how foolish we must look at items we consider to be issues.

You recognize the joy in each moment.

And then you can’t help but pass that along to others.

There was a world where only those given permission by a self-proclaimed monarch with divine rights were allowed to rise and be noticed.

As civilizations morphed, fell and formed again, the one granting permission changed forms. There were emperors, lords, rulers, military leaders, nation leaders, government officials, professors, CEOs, agents, directors and now, social media influencers.

Although there is still the lingering of the past embedded in our consciousness, willfully giving power over to those we deem necessary to impress for our own validation, the story has changed.

The illusion is disappearing.

The only validation we need is the one that comes from within.

All we need to do now is give ourselves permission to accept that, then push ourselves to move forward.

One day, people will discover I am not a real writer.

They’ll discover I’m not a good teacher…

or speaker.

It’s also the same day my kids discover I don’t know what I’m doing as a parent and I’ve been making it up as I go along. Doing my best.

One day, somebody will find footage from my old shows and discover I wasn’t a real magician.

And then, people will know my entire life has been nothing more than a façade.

But—

they haven’t found out yet.

So I’ll keep the illusion going, the imposter that I am, and hope I make it to the end without anybody finding out.

Sitting down on the pillowed chair, supported by a solid wood frame that is painted black and purchased from the surplus warehouse, the house is quiet for a moment. The curtains are shut and there are only a few lights on; dimmed just enough to see. In front of me is a blue journal with the matching ribbon sticking out of its pages to indicate the blank page that will stare me down this morning.

Sleep is still in my eyes and the brain is foggy. It’s barely 6am, but my daughter is happily enjoying a glass of warm milk while watching cartoons. She will be appeased for the next fifteen to twenty minutes until her stomach hangers for breakfast.

Beside the book is a fresh cup of coffee, cooling just enough to take a few sips and get my system working. A grey canister pen, specially ordered from Japan with accompanying refills, makes its way into my fingers.

The book opens to the blank page and before the resistance every writer faces to shutdown at seeing such an empty canvas, I put the date at the top and immediately write:

“How am I going to be a better person today than yesterday?”

Then it’s time to be honest and see where the first thoughts of the morning take me. All the lingering threads of yesterday flow through the ink and onto the page. My hand works hard to keep up with my mind, but since it cannot, some thoughts disappear and my brain is forced to hold on to others. It’s getting a morning workout in focus.

Thoughts flow, the pen writes, the paper fills and the coffee cup empties.

At the end of the page, I offer up a simple prayer.

I click the pen shut, close the book and drain the last few sips from the mug. Suddenly, my disgruntled morning has transformed into an energizing part of my day.

It’s time to open the curtains to the world and make some breakfast.

Few people know the background as to why I got into teaching. It’s something I rarely talk about and almost feel embarrassed by it because… well… I still question it.

It was evening and my mother was driving me home from a karate lesson. Sitting quietly in the front seat of her blue Ford Tempo, mindlessly looking out the window of the houses streaming by with the street lights pouring down, something strange happened:

I heard a voice echo in my mind that I need to teach Religion.

It threw me off guard and I was confused.

Sure, my mom was a very religious person and we had “our pew” every week at Church, but many of my Sunday mornings involved me borrowing the car to attend Mass, then skipping to eat breakfast with my friends.

We all feel a calling to something at some point, but I was a clueless teenager. What the hell did I know?

First, I had no desire to teach. My goal was to leave high school and get as far away from it as possible.

Second, I was good with computers and there was a better future in it. Almost everyone recognized that in me at the time.

So, I did the only logical thing a person could do and completely ignored it. Ran as from it as possible. Chalked it up to some kind of mental psychosis. Jumped headfirst into computers.

Hated it.

By what seemed like divine providence, all the stars lined up for me to spend a year doing missionary work. I was far from the ideal Catholic, but the opportunity to see my own country seemed too great to pass up.

A memorable experience… for many reasons. Not all good.

Came back with the certainty that I shouldn’t be pursuing a career in computers.

Jumped headfirst into videogame programming.

Hated it.

Decided to spend time revisiting that ‘call’ I received as a teenager. I couldn’t shake it off, but I seriously doubted it was real. However, the idea of studying Theology seemed to give me peace and I checked into Universities who would accept me with my lack of high school university credits and experience in college.

Only one did.

Moved to Ottawa. Fell in love with the city. Fell in love with the school. Discovered in my first year there was a working agreement with the local teacher’s college that graduates from the Theology program had a guaranteed seat there. It almost felt like I was being pushed along a path.

And here I am.

But, every year I question whether I’m actually sane. Life has worked out really well and I wouldn’t trade where I am for anything… but the entire seed that started this was due to a moment that I still chalk up to a hallucination.

You’d think being a graduate and lifelong student of Religion and Theology, I would be convinced that was a moment of God. However, it’s because of my formal training I am more skeptical about it now than as a teenager. I’ve read countless essays and papers on the neuroscience of hearing voices to see if there’s some explanation… but the decades between the moment and now make it harder to scrutinize.

And yet, it still feels right.

Then I look out into the world and see the exponential rise in mental health issues among young people, the complete isolation people have been feeling (even before covid) and the existential cries for some kind of meaning and think–maybe there’s a bigger classroom to teach.

All this from a moment that I don’t think was real.

Like I said, it’s embarrassing.

Not so much a law, but an idea for writers as suggested by Kate Wilhelm:

Throw away your first three ideas.

The first is low-hanging fruit that anybody can figure out (or already know). The second is something still a little obvious. The third is something few can figure out… but the fourth… that’s the gem you need to dig up.

It’s this law of writing that plays out in the back of my head every time I sit down to the keyboard. Whether I’m writing on this site, gathering my thoughts for the day, my journal in the morning or even a simple tweet, I’m always asking how hard I’ve had to dig to get at it.

The harder the dig, the more honest the writing and subsequently, the more vulnerability that is shared.

We can all engage on the surface (small talk) and while it has its uses, it’s not where the conversation needs to be. I try to get there, but sometimes, there are places I fear to tread.

Perhaps that’s why Wilhelm’s law is such a powerful idea–it forces you to come to terms with yourself.

The real retirement is when you don’t sacrifice today for tomorrow.

Naval Ravikant

Bear with me as I attempt to scratch the surface of this topic as I know many readers of this site are retired, but this quote struck me particularly hard today.

The whole dream of planning for retirement typically revolves around three pillars:

Enough money to do what you want
A life without a schedule
Doing nothing

Now, anybody who is retired will laugh at the last two on the list as many retirees are actually busier than ever. Life has become less about the pursuit of that “end date” and more about what creates meaning every day. Sure, all three of those come into play, but not in the way they (or others) might expect.

I’ve had the good fortune of tasting a variety of flavours of life and know what it feels like to have busy days that never feel like work. For instance, of the thousands of hours of time I spent practicing magic, not a single minute felt like a burden. It was fun!

Same goes with the writing.

Colleagues often ask if teaching will be my last career and to be honest, I’m still unsure. Probably, as I seem to like it more every year and I get the joy of being in a profession that encourages you to constantly learn new things.

However, the idea of waiting until we can do ‘nothing’ or ‘live without a schedule’ sinks us into a mindset of just grinding out life. It’s not possible to be happy with that state of mind.

And given the way the world turned on a dime close to one year ago, even the best laid plans can be destroyed in an instant. Tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone.

We’re better served if we can learn to ‘retire’ today.

It’s 10:30pm after an exhausting day and I’m propped up in bed, book in hand, winding down for the night. Just as my mind drifts towards the beautiful realm of unconscious bliss, I’m suddenly reminded of that stupid thing I said to someone as a teenager..

The dumb thing I did as a young adult…

The time I did something awful when the right choice was clear…

You know, all the things your brain decides would make you feel horrible, guilty and regretful. It plays out like an out-of-tune symphony that somebody forced you to attend. It’s re-watching all the horrible parts of movies you normally like to skip over (or avoid), except you can’t.

It’s all pelting me like a torrential rainstorm, caught unaware and ill-equipped to deal with it. I can no longer sleep as I lie in bed thinking about how horrible of a human being I am.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just let it go?

It is possible if there is a willingness to forgive.

While it takes an incredible amount of strength to forgive others, it takes a whole lot more to forgive ourselves.

We may never perfect it, but the path there will lead to victories.

And those are the victories that help us sleep at night.

My mother was a master of using silence to coerce a confession.

All she would do is ask a question and then glare. Her stance indicated a position of strength, one that knew she was the one in charge, while her face remained passive–waiting for me to respond.

I would reply with as much muster as I could. It would be honest. Maybe not the whole story, but an honest one.

And that’s when her brilliance shone through because she wouldn’t say a thing afterwards.

Nothing.

It would get horribly uncomfortable and the few moments that passed felt like an eternity. It was enough to break me and verbal diarrhea would spill out. Most days, I’m not even sure if what came out of my mouth made sense.

To be honest, I probably confessed to things I didn’t even do.

For whatever reason, we are afraid of silence and leaving space for it drives us nuts. Our brains have a built-in mechanism that assumes a few moments of silence stretches for much longer and we need to fill that void.

It’s silence that forces us to confront ourselves and we live in a world that does its best to protect us from any self-reflection. We are bombarded with noise in order to uphold the illusion that happiness will come with one more click… one more show… one more purchase…

Even more, times of silence may be a reminder that you can do without most forms of media, especially on a constant basis.

Or, it might even be the time when you realize there’s something you need to say.

But, it’s a powerful force. If you can learn to harness it, not only would you be in the same echelon as my mother, it would lead you to a path of self-reflection and self-mastery.

Is to talk less and listen more.