Remember to love what you have and forget the rest

As the summer comes to an end, I wanted to take this time to philosophize for a moment or three.

Indulge me.

I want to get three tattoos. I’m almost certainly not getting any tattoos, but there are three I want. They are …

Now granted: I can afford to do this. I am gainfully employed, living in a solidly firstworld country, want for nothing. I don’t need to worry about where my next meal is coming from or how to put a roof over my head.

But I’ve spent the better part of my adult life wrapped up in all manner of nonsense, from politics to sports to Facebook to holding petty grievances to getting upset with Comcast (which I am currently upset with, more on that another day).

But it’s true: Maybe it’s advancing age — I’m 50, for the love of Cobain — maybe it’s my kids getting older, maybe it’s the realization I’ve seen more sunrises that I will see, maybe it’s …

Well, you know what it is, really? It’s watching people — present company included — keep losing their ever-loving minds over “the state of the country” and “Donald Trump” and “Joe Biden” and “Roe v. Wade” and “Black Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” and everything else that gets spit out at us on our social media feeds.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about this stuff — obviously we should.

But it shouldn’t take precedence over our day-to-day lives.

We should be spending our day-to-day lives treasuring the moments we have with the people we love and saying a big fat “whatever” to everything else.

Much like everything else, the “world” we live in is best taken in moderation.

You can’t spend all day, every day, ticked off at Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It’s unhealthy, it’s unproductive, it’s not the way we were built.

Seriously: Go back 100 years. Radio barely exists. If you want to get yourself all in a lather about the state of the world, well … you really couldn’t. It wasn’t in your face 24 hours a day. It wasn’t allconsuming. Now? Sheesh. Between social media and 24-hour cable news, we are fed a non-stop diet of misery and despair and hate.

And I fed off it for most of my professional life.

No more.

I’m done.

Sure, I’ll still get myself in a lather sometimes — after all, it’s kinda-sorta my job (so watch out, Comcast) — but it’s going to be less and less and less.

I am becoming a pandemic of positivity, trying to get everyone to put all the nonsense aside and just … well, and just be happy.

You may scoff, you may laugh, you may think this is actually a legalized weed column in disguise, but the truth is out there, man: Love, cherish, and forget about the rest — at least most of the time.

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