Twitter, 2022 thoughts, I suck at goals, and other things (#29)
I quit twitter in December of 2022. My substack is my new twitter. I'm sorry / you're welcome?
Several folks have reached out to me recently asked why I haven’t been keeping this newsletter as up to date as I used to. The answers range from “I am lazy” to “I built a big ass shed/office (“shoffice”) in my backyard and that soaked up all my time” to “someone has to teach the children how to break dance”. But really it has to do with goal setting. More on that below.
Anyway, I’m gonna start trying to do the newsletter with some regularity again. Thanks for sticking with me!
I quit twitter (and why that matters here)
I started on Twitter back in 2008 when it was primitive, weird, and the use cases for it were still unclear. At least the founders seemed like neat dudes?
I quit Twitter in December of 2022 when it was still primitive, not as weird anymore, and the use cases and solidified into a mixture of trolling, yelling at random Russian bots, and watching the richest man on Earth act like a garbage human being. It wasn’t fun anymore? Despite meeting and getting to know so many wonderful people on the platform over the years, it was time to bow out. I downloaded my tweets (all 26,000 of them), deleted my account, and watched my iPhone use plummet. But for real, I’m on my phone 29% less!
Why does that matter to this newsletter? I think what will happen is this substack will kinda become my twitter: a collection of smaller thoughts that are insanely witty, incredibly insightful, and particularly annoying (to the MAGA crowd).
I suck at goals (and why that’s probably ok?)
I promised above I’d tell you why I got so shitty at keeping up with this blog. Here’s my life story as it relates to goal setting.
I hate goals. Life comes at you fast man and what I’ve found with many goals is by the time you set them, something has come up that requires you to course correct. I prefer to keep things kinda loose and strive to do things that are fun, impactful, engaging, or things that just, like, make me happy.
I do, occasionally though, make goals. Like I did for this newsletter. I told myself I wanted 500 weekly readers and 100 subscribers. I’d never really built an audience before (I just build things; I have no idea how to get people to show up to want to use them) so this newsletter was a good opportunity to expand that part of my brain.
As with many things in my life, as soon as I hit that goal, I moved on to something new (building a backyard office to be specific). Instead of expanding on my original goal, maybe pushing for 1000 weekly readers and 500 subscribers, I was content to move on to something else. Because of this approach to life, I’m one of those “jack of all trades, master of none” types. I bounce between things that interest me or catch my fancy rather than devote myself to becoming an expert at any one thing (besides nachos and building humanitarian databases I suppose).
And you know, I’m ok with this. As it relates to Dad Stories, I kinda want that for my children too. I’d rather my kids be pretty good at a lot of things instead of a complete badass at one particular thing and terrible at everything else. Life is weird and having a broad set of skills, even skills in need of refinement, is a better place to be. It makes you more resourceful, better prepared for when challenges head your way, and a more interesting person to talk to at parties (people really love that I have no idea what I’m doing).
I also just really don’t wanna have to take my 6 year to 15 different gymnastics practices every week if I’m gonna be perfectly honest.
Favorite weird thing Nora said over the holiday
Our 4 year old, Nora, is well known in our family for saying really random shit at really random times. We’ll be in the middle of dinner and she’ll blurt out “I love penguins” (that’s cool) or we’ll be having a donut and she’ll say “Tia lives in Houston” (command of geography ✅).
Right after this past Christmas, the girls were skating in our garage. For reasons that are unclear to me, Santa (Megan) got the girls roller skates. Mind you we live outside of Seattle where the hills remind you of a roller coaster and the weather reminds you of one of Dante’s rings of hell (a cold and rainy ring I guess). So until at least July, there won’t be many places for the girls to practice their roller derby skills besides our garage.
Anyway, Nora was zipping around the garage in her sweet new skates and unrelated to anything we had previously been discussing blurted out “At least Nanny is still alive!”. Nanny is my mom and I can confirm that she’s alive and well. I really hope that as Nora ages, she remains the queen of the non sequitur.
Thanks Ed!
Ed Peterson is a friend of mine back in ATL that I’ve known since Obama was president (that waypoint feels like a million years ago doesn’t it?). At the end of the year, he always publishes one of my favorite “Year End” lists and in his 2022 list, he mentioned Dad Stories as his favorite parenting advice blog. Ed, you’re a sweet son of a gun! I appreciate you!
Ok friends, that’s the “new” newsletter format. I’ll still tell stupid stories about #dadlife, I promise. Lemme know how you feel about this new format!