77 Ways I Failed All the Internet Lists

Yesterday every blog post and Facebook status I came across seemed to marvel and mourn over the passage of time. Tempus fugit. The time, it is flying. Look out.

Thinking that every moment is immeasurably precious and irreplaceable is way too much pressure.

I also stumbled over Forbes' ten most important things that 20-somethings should know. And Forbes' twenty things that 20-somethings don't get. In two months, I'll be twenty-eight. Judging from my life so far, despite being more than halfway through my 20's, it seems I don't get or know any of the most important things. I have not devoted myself to a lucrative career or made a very decisive choice about what the fuck I want to do with my life. I have not fretted over my waning fertility. I have tried to calculate my hours of expertise in various things and I am nowhere near 10 000 hours in anything.* Before moving in with the Boatman, I did not vacillate over the implications of co-habitation. After one month of skyping and phone calls and one weekend visit, the Boatman said I could come stay with him as long as I want, and (I wanted to fuck his soul) so I did. More than two years later, we are still together, co-habitating and living in sin. But according to Forbes' ten most important things list, I may have made a huge mistake.

I am failing all the internet lists.

Hate that.

I need to read lists about things that I never fucked up. Things that I will never fuck up.

"50 reasons I regret starring in bestiality porn."

"33 unusual things I wished I'd known before I opened my cocaine business."

I can read these lists and feel no regrets.

Success.

I've mentioned this before but every month just as my vagina is ceasing to bleed, I feel overcome by all the babies I never gave birth to. All the books I never wrote. All the ten thousand hours I never put in.

This is something I call the Vag Time Death.

It is the One Thing I Invented During My Twenties.

The End.

(*For yoga, I have somewhere between 4000-5000 hours depending on whether or not you count meditation, teaching, reading, and geeking out on Youtube and other parts of the internet. Since it has been scientifically proven that getting up a 4 a.m. for a two-hour plus practice results in me lashing out irrationally at other sentient beings, I must reconcile myself to a maximum of 1.5 hours of relatively daily practice. Which leaves me with 12-15 years before I become a 10 000 hour expert... Oh well.)  



Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

What I Learned in India
The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
Three Easy Strategies for Feeling Smug and on Top of Life

 

Chuckie the Horse and the Day Jack Layton Died

Jack Layton died two years ago today. August 22^nd, 2011. He was the leader of the New Democratic Party. One of the reasons I like him was because he ate granola and blueberries for breakfast. Stephen Harper the conservative prime minister apparently eats something much grosser. Despite the blueberries, Jack Layton died of prostate cancer. On August 22^nd, 2011, I had been living with the Boatman for just over a month. During the afternoons, I often got drunk, tired of pretending I had something meaningful to do before the Boatman came home from work. The day Jack Layton died, I got drunk on gin and diet soda and I thought about Jack Layton and I thought about writing another book.



Jack Layton, our optimistic NDP leader. Source.

 Jack Layton wrote a letter to Canadians and he told them to be loving, hopeful, and optimistic. Filled with gin and other carcinogens, I hardly felt any of these things. I felt mild despair. But Jack Layton said that optimism is better than despair. I should try to be optimistic. And change the world.

So I tried. I tried to write this story about Chuckie the Horse and the Day that Princess Diana died.

The first time I ever saw a horse’s dick was the day Princess Diana died. It was an enlarged version of my father’s and about one and a half times the size of the wooden rulers we used in math class. I was at the Perth fair, watching the equestrian competition with my friend Janine. Janine had long, thick blonde hair that went down to her waist. She’d gotten a ninety-nine percent average in grade seven and she was so good at the piano that she’d been the pianist in the school’s performance of The Pirates of Penzance. Janine used to ride horses too. She knew all the horses in the Perth Fair and we were allowed to go back into the stables to pat their heads and brush them with a shell-shaped comb. The horse show was two days before our first day of grade eight. I was eleven and Janine was twelve.

Chuckie was the horse’s name. Maybe he was a thoroughbread. His hair was dark brown and his back legs looked like enormous chicken drumsticks. I didn’t know much about horses because my family lived in town. Janine and I squeezed into either side of his stall.



Chuckie the Horse and his long dick looked something like this.  Source

 “Yes, Chuckie, yes,” Janine cooed, stroking his nose. It was my turn to use the shell-shaped comb to brush his mane.

“I heard Princess Diana puked up her food,” I said.

“That’s revolting,” said Janine. Chuckie snorted. Janine's always said that her stomach stuck out more than mine did, and that it was softer. I said that she was smart and beautiful she had long perfect blonde hair and so she beat me.

“I think Princess Diana was beautiful.” I sucked in my stomach and rubbed Chuckie`s neck. During the school year, I swam two hours a day with the Perth swim team. In the summers, there was a break and I became intensely afraid of gaining weight. I spent my days walking our family dog around Perth’s perimeters, counting my steps and making sure I made it to at least 6000, or else I did not deserve lunch. While I stood still, I clenched and unclenched my buttocks, in the hopes that it would remain firm. Every night before bed, I performed 1000 abdominal exercises. I looked forward to the fall when swim practices would resume and someone else would have the responsibility of inflicting weight-management strategies upon me.

“I miss riding you, Chuckie,” said Janine. “Good luck.” We walked toward the end of Chuckie’s stall to comb his belly. That’s when his dick went down. Or up, I suppose. I knew very little about dicks at the time. Chuckie’s dick was long. Wide for its length, but still wide. In nine years, a sixty-eight year old intellectually disabled Polish woman named Jadwiga would ask me, “Erica, why men have the long thing?” Alas, I never had no satisfactory response for Jadwiga. Or for me.

“That’s really gross,” I said to Janine when I saw Chuckie the Horse’s dick. Grosser than Diana puking up her food. Much Grosser. Way Grosser. When Janine and I sat down on the bleachers, there were sixteen hours left if we wanted to die on the same day as Princess Diana. There were seven and a half years before I would touch a real cock. Eleven years, eight months until I would touch and suck and vaginally penetrate Simon’s.

The special thing about Simon’s dick was that he could cum from a blowjob and remain hard for a full blown session of intercourse. Shorter than Chuckie the Horse’s, but harder. Hard as wood. I was never thrilled about giving extensive blowjobs before sex. It took too long and by the time he came, I wouldn’t be in the mood anymore.
That’s as far as I got. I didn`t know what else to say. I wasn't in the mood anymore.
The End.



Oh, and here's Princess Diana. Source.
She died before Twitter even started.

Jack Layton's inspiring letter to Canadians

Exuberant Bodhisattva on FacebookTwitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

What the fuck should I do with my life, Part Two
What a Beautiful Face
How I am violent, by Erica J. Schmidt

 

 

 

 

 

What the fuck should I do with my life? Part Two

Part Two: Becoming A Princess and/or Having Children 
I could become a princess or a duchess and give birth to my prince and walk out to the world with an uncontracted uterus. 
 
When you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, all the little girls I work with have princess wrapped into some part of their desired occupation.

I want to be a princess chef.

A princess busdriver.
 
A princess policeman.

A doctor and a princess.

 

Little girls see these princesses on their diapers and their wallpaper, and they want to be them

Little girls see these princesses on their diapers and their wallpaper, and they want to be them

This is old news, but over the last couple of weeks, everyone was talking about Kate Middleton's uncontracted uterus. About the nerve she was sporting her "baby belly" to the whole world. Some people judged. Other marvelled at how brave she was. As though the scariest thing in the world is to reveal your uncontracted uterus.

Kate and her princes

I can relate. I fear the uncontracted uterus.
 
From a young age, my deepest fears included getting a double chin and having my stomach stick out more than my boobs. My boobs have always been tiny and so it wouldn't take much for my stomach to extend beyond them. To prevent the double chin, I used to read books and do my homework with my chin propped a pillow. To prevent the protruding abdomen, I was constantly doing crunches and sit-ups.
 
My stomach got hard and and chiselled. It's not that sad a story except once an osteopath told me that if I got pregnant, I would probably have a hard time. My abdominals would split in half and sag forever.
 
I'm ashamed that this terrifies me so much.

I'm ashamed that this is one of the main reasons I am terrified of having children.

One of the other reasons is that someone told me that since having kids, she can't use tampons anymore. They just slide out. As for the diva cup, alas, it leaks.

Apparently this is not that common.

Usually the vag recovers quite well.
 
If not, we all have high vaginas that will never ever desert us.

My High Vagina. Me and Keira Knightley both have one.

Once I wrote that birth was a Hideous Annihilation for someone else.
 
At the time, I think I was drinking too much.

Now I am thinking, What the fuck should I do with my life?

Despite my sit-up frenzies and pillow facelifts, I used to think that I would grow up and become a wonderful mother. I babysat like crazy and imagined that I would be like all my favourite moms, making whole grain banana bread, reading to my children, and having a job that allowed me to be around when they came home from school for lunch.
 
Now I am afraid of a saggy belly?

The saggy stomach, the tamponless vagina, probably these are terrible reasons not to have children. What are the good reasons?

Overpopulation. Climate change. Having children during a tornado or during the end of the world is impractical.
 
A couple of weeks ago I sent myself the following email:

Don't ever have children. No children for you. You are hysterical. Chill the fuck out.

I had just had a mammoth tantrum over whether or not to have a smoothie for breakfast, or oatmeal, or both. It was pathetic. 

27-year-old tantrums may be a good reason not to have children.
 
The other reason is, the kid may end up being just like you.

Fuck.

My friend Fern likes animals signficantly more than people, and children.

I was with her when she learned that someone who she didn't particularly like had given birth.

"Why the fuck did she have a kid? She barely has her shit together herself. What is it that makes people arrogant enough to believe that they are worthy of reproduction?"
 
She went on a rant about people passing on shitty genes and suffering and babies being bad for the environment. Her rant left me somewhat offended and taken aback. At the time, I had just begun to reconcile myself to contaminating the gene pool with my own hideous annihilation. This was before I got my job at the Montessori school.
 
Children are delightful for varying amounts of time. I might never be able to forgive my child if my stomach expanded and then never came back down to the same flat, hard formation ever again. What a horrible burden for the child to bear. It would have to spend its whole life making up for my sad saggy stomach. I tell myself that I would also resent a child if it wrecked my yoga practice, and that probably it would. But then I think, what is a better thing to do, to press into your hands and lift yourself off the ground with one leg behind your head and the other up your ass, or to make a real live person who in twenty years will probably be better at everything you’ve ever tried in your life?

Hard to say.

I guess we'll see how effective the withdrawal method turns out to be and then we'll find out, or we won't.  

The End.

What the fuck should I do with my life? Part One

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt

I fired my psychologist

Supersize versus Superskinny

Not That Kind of Girl

 

 

I fired my psychologist and wrote this post to save you 320 bucks and provide you with almost as many thrills as a Stephen King novel

Maybe it's good when your psychologist pisses you off. Probably a lot of psychologists would say that it is excellent. I am firing my psychologist anyways.

Psychologists are expensive. Most of them are around 150 or 160 bucks a pop. And that's for fifty minutes. Not even a whole hour. They use the last 10 minutes of your session to absorb your angst and take notes.

The love of my life from elementary school is a psychologist now. His name is Alex Crampton. My grade one teacher Mrs. Vanden Bosch said that I was a gifted child, and so after grade one, I got to be in Alex Crampton's grade three class. At the end of the year, the school put on an underwater ocean musical. Our grade three class got to be the starfish. Me and Alex got to say the opening starfish line together. I was thrilled.

"They sparkle and shimmer oh so bright. The starfish is really quite the sight."

Our costumes were big clunky stars made out of bristol board. Mine was yellow and covered with sequins and glitter. At the time, Alex had a big black eye from getting hit in the face with a soccer ball. I thought he looked very cute.

We nailed our lines together. Then all of the grade threes did a little song and dance about starfish. "Star light and star bright, We make such a pretty sight."

Mostly the dance was extending our arms at different angles and wiggling our fingers. The wiggling fingers were supposed to make everyone think of shimmering starfish. Starfish aren't very cuddly. I don't think that Alex and I ever got to touch each other. I would have remembered that perfectly.

In grade eight, I remember writing a story on a computer in the home ec room. It was about a character named Martha. Martha might have been a hippopotamus. I'm pretty sure she wasn't a human.

The story began with,

"A very long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday...."

Perhaps last Wednesday, Martha the hippopotamus or whatever animal she was went for a walk in the forest or did her laundry or some other mundane thing. Alex Crampton read the first paragraph and said,

"Wow, you're such a good writer. I never met another writer like you. You're the best writer I know. Except for Stephen King."

My heart glowed beneath my chest, and then it melted. My cheeks got all red. When I was in grade eight, I used to blow dry my long, thick curly hair. Then I brushed it until it grew wavy and enormous and as thick and coarse as a horse's mane. Underneath my overalls, I wore homemade tie-dyed t-shirts. I wanted the overalls to conceal my nipples. I refused to wear a bra because I was too flat-chested and I thought that people would make fun of me if they saw me wearing a bra when I didn't need one. As far as making it or making out with Alex Crampton, I didn't stand a chance.

I think this might be grade seven. Obviously I also played the violin.

Now Alex Crampton has a beautiful baby and fiancee and a PhD.

I limit my Facebook stalking to about once a year.

When I found out that Alex had his PhD in psychology, I was surprised and somewhat jealous. Alex never seemed to like school that much. He was busy with swimming and girls. Meanwhile, I was a mega-nerd. At grade eight graduation, we all made silhouettes of our heads and wrote down what we wanted to do when we grew up. I wrote that I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher with my PhD.

Now I am essentially a kindergarten teacher's assistant with no PhD.

I throw tantrums on my way to work.

At work, I spend hours with bottles of lysol, spraying tables and blocks so that the children won't get diarrhea. They get diarrhea anyways.

I have also been to way more psychologists than Alex Crampton. It takes a lot of lysol spraying to pay for each session.

I'm sure that Alex Crampton is worth your money.

While Alex Crampton was getting his PhD, I was puking in my mouth. Now I'm puking in my head. My most recent psychologist kindly informed me of this during our last session.

At our first appointment I mourned, "I'm a gifted child, but I'm not doing gifted things." He told me that the hallmark of happy people is that they're in touch with their own values and they chase after these values just like my Big Black Dog chases the raccoon he wants to murder.

For our next session, I had written down all my values. Yoga, the Boatman, my dog, writing. External affirmation, physical health. I turned on my Verbal Machine Gun and rattled off the list to my psychologist, whining and blabbering away between every point. The job with the lysol gets in the way of everything. I will never have enough money. Nothing you do can ever make you happy. I ended the long list of sorrows and grievances and money and lysol with "I really wish my mother had never had me. I am angry at my mother for having me."

"You're ruminating," said the psychologist. "Do you ruminate a lot?"

"Yes," I said. And wasn't it interesting? I used to puke in my mouth, and now there's puke in my head and having an orgasm is very difficult. "I'm a writer," I said. "I talk a lot."

"When you talk that fast, I shut off," said my psychologist. I told him that I thought you were supposed to talk a lot in therapy. He said that therapy wasn't just that. It was about creating a mutual relationship. "And when you talk like that, I feel like I'm not a real person."

What real person charges 160 bucks an hour for a mutual fucking relationship? Being a psychologist and not letting your patient blabber away is kind of like being a prostitute and not giving blow jobs. It's unrealistic and guaranteed to reduce your clientele.

"When you're like this with Robbie, does he turn off?" I admitted that sometimes he does, but I don't pay him, and often he finds me quite entertaining. Then again, he could just be lying because I'm so excellent in bed. 

My psychologist suggested that he let me know when I'm ruminating in session. And that perhaps during my day I could have a bracelet that I can look at when I feel like I'm slipping into a frenzy. A Frenzy Bracelet. Maybe the children can make one for me out of painted macaroni. We can market Frenzy Bracelets and sell them for 160 dollars each.

The other thing he told me to do was to pay attention while walking the dog. I pay lip-service to meditation and mindfulness and yoga, but my head is all over the place and I'm apparently not "walking the talk."

I left feeling like I'd failed the session. Maybe it would be very useful for me to discuss these feelings in therapy. Probably it would be excellent. But like I said, I am firing my psychologist anyways. Who can resist firing someone who makes 160 bucks an hour? When will I ever have this opportunity ever again?

If Alex Crampton lived in Halifax, perhaps I could go see him. I could ask him about his beautiful daughter and fiancee, and how he manages to keep fit. But until Alex Crampton moves to town, I think I will focus on being the best writer he knows except for Stephen King. Maybe I can resurrect Martha the Hippotamus into a brand new short story. 

A long time ago, perhaps last Wednesday, Martha the Hippopotamus had a Frenzy. Then the expensive doctor gave her a macaroni bracelet and she fired him.

The End.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

What the fuck should I do with my life?
What the fuck should I do with my life? Part Two
High School Reunion 

 

Three Things to Make the World a Better Place

When it all comes down to it, we all have about three things inside of us that will make the world a better place. It's a good mental exercise to think of more than three things. Ten things. A million things.  But if over the course of your great big life, you're able to pull off your three favourite things on your list, you will probably change the world. Last Friday night, I was sitting (and perhaps drinking) on the couch with my boyfriend the Boatman and our cool friend Liz. I surveyed everyone on their Three Things and wrote them down.

Here they are.

The Boatman

The Boatman and the Maxi Pad

1. At school they should bring back Shop and Home Economics class.  Everyone is fighting for music and arts, which is important, but in the long run, it would probably be more useful for people to know how to fix things and make things than it will be for them to play the clarinet.  The Boatman played the saxophone in high school.  Maybe that's why he's so good at giving head. I think the long-term benefits of music are evident.  But it's true, nobody knows how to fix and build anything anymore.  Kids should be learning how to build things and fix cars.  And cook and clean and sew.  First this, then the clarinet and then maybe algebra. That's what the Boatman thinks. 

2. Finance Class. In schools, we're very fixated on how to get a job. We start planning by grade seven, or earlier.  But once we get a job, a lot of people don't know what to do with their money.  Nobody's teaching kids about budgets, or mortgages, or even how to get a student loan. Money is this vague stressful thing for a lot of people.  Most people get all their ideas about money from their parents.  That's two people's opinions out of the whole world. The Boatman is passionate about the Finance Class just as he is passionate about Excel Spreadsheets.  He'll spend days watching youtube excel tutorials.  He wants to spread the joy.

3.  Sex Ed (As you can see, the Boatman is very big on Education.)   Sex Ed shouldn't be about teaching children where their hair is going to grow, or how to put condoms on bananas.  We should be teaching kids how to have sex.  How to get and give pleasure.  How to talk about sex. It shouldn't just be the clarinet players who get to be good at giving head.  Everyone deserves a shot.  Our sex hero Dan Savage goes on this rant regularly on his podcast. The hell with putting condoms on bananas.  Probably the whole world can do this with their eyes closed. And we all know where the pubes are going to end up.  This isn't so important. What's important is knowing that sex is supposed feel good.  Really good. And if you want to know how to make it feel good, you should talk about it. And probably schools should hold a Vagina Appreciation Day.

Those are the Boatman's Three Ways to Change the World.

Now it's my turn.

Two pictures of me and the things I should have learned in Sex Ed:

My Three things:

1. A diaper-free world.  I've ranted and raged about this one. In our so-called developed countries, children are able to make complete sentences about sour pineapples before they are able to shit in the right place at the right time. In India and the majority of other developing countries, there are no diapers.  Parents figure out what sort of noise and grimace their babies make when they have to go and accordingly pull their pants down and sit them on a pot. By the time the kids are a year and a year and a half, most kids can piss and shit in the right place at the right time. With diapers, kids are enabled to be cut off from the sensations of their bodily functions.  Because we don't respond to our infants' signals of having to go, the signals and the awareness stop.  At two, children have to relearn the sensation since it is no longer socially acceptable to shit in their pants.  Being two is difficult and traumatizing enough as it is. I feel like the whole set-up is unfair and excessively challenging for everyone involved. And it is bad for the environment.

Isn't it obnoxious when people who have born absolutely no children dispense parenting advice? 

Absolutely.  It is absolutely obnoxious. But as they say, "those who can't do, teach."

2. A chair-free world. Wearing diapers for the first couple of years of life likely has horrendous repercussions on the state and our relationship to our pelvises, lower backs and sexual organs.  But what's even worse for us is the amount of time we spend sitting in chairs.  The two-year-olds at the Montessori school are capable of doing the most beautiful squat. Pelvis elevated, knees behind toes.  But what do I have to tell them when they're squatting on a chair, doing a puzzle or eating snack?  "On your bum, please!" Tighten your groins and lower back from and early age!  Begin the journey towards cardiovascular disease, erectile dyfunction, hip and knee replacements, osteoporosis, obesity, and a generally painful and shitty life, NOW.

Last week I had a dream that someone asked me whether or not I wanted to have children. “Hell no,” I said.  “Why would I bring children into this world?  They get 6 months to two years of happy boob sucking and then the rest of it is a big disappointment.  Our whole education system is just preparing kids to sit in a chair for a really long time. You go to school where you have to follow the rules and put things back on the shelf and sit on your bum in a chair.  Then when you finally grow up and finish university, and get a job, guess what you get to do? Sit in a chair. No, I am not bringing children into this world.”

I think that I make this speech once a week. In my dreams, and while awake.  While, standing walking, or sitting in a chair. Maybe it’s a little one-sided.  But nobody ever died from an exercise ball.

3. The whole world should do sun salutations every morning.

5 Surya namaskar A’s.  If you’re feeling really enthusiastic or ambitious, go for some b’s.  Sit down, not on a chair, fold forwards, take some deep breaths. Sit up, take some deep breaths, try and lift yourself off the floor then lie down.  Or just skip the whole sitting down, lying down part.  Just do some sun salutations. Do one sun salutation.  Stand on your two legs, or however many legs you have.  Find your breath.  Raise your arms above your head and look up at the ceiling.

Kino MacGregor, doing Surya Namaskar A. Your sun salutations don`t have to look like that. Just do your best. And you can do it anywhere you want. In Bali, or in Dartmouth.

People think they need to do elaborate and fancy yoga postures.  They think they’re too busy to do yoga. They’re too stiff and too busy and it’s no use.

Everyone has time for a sun salutation.

I tried to be a rich and famous yoga teacher for awhile.  I think I was too ambitious.  If I go back to teaching yoga, my goal will be for everyone to learn how to do sun salutations, and to do a couple every day. 

All you need are sun salutations.  They will reverse the damage from wearing diapers and sitting in chairs for so long.  This is what I recommend.   Now you have read my three thing for making the world a better place.  Here are our cool friend Liz’s Three Things.



Our cool friend Liz



1. Diapers are acceptable at any time.  Liz is a producer for Vice.  She’s a busy lady, and sometimes she doesn't have much time to go to the bathroom.  Well, fair enough, I suppose.  Although we all know my views on potty training,  if  I am ruthlessly honest and envision myself pissing in a diaper, it does seem rather intriguing.

2. Social Media- Help! What the shit are we supposed to do about social media? With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Blogs, Google +, it is eating up our entire lives. No wonder adult diapers seem so appealing. It is all too much, too overwhelming. People should cut down their social media time by at least 75%. Some good suggestions for using your salvaged time: drinking, having sex, eating chips, handstands.  You can do these things every day. Liz also suggested smoking, but I say that was just the liquor talking and so I am omitting it.

3. Creative Exposure. I like this one. People need to be exposed to creativity every day. Watch someone make something, help someone make something, make something yourself. You can make a movie, a radio show, a biodegradable poem, an ugly children’s toy, a blogpost, a macaroni necklace.  There are lots of things that you can make.  You can expose yourself to creativity while wearing a diaper, or in your bare bum.

And that’s the end of our Three Things to Make the World a better place.  Everyone has at least three things inside of them.  What are your three things?  How will you make the world better?

Your three things need not be groundbreaking and monumental.  Just some things you really believe in. Some way to make the world ungeneric.

In the future, 2016, I will write haikus about a Generic Married Man.

I hope they make the world a better place.

The End.

The Big Black Dog made the world a better place over and over again.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

Three Outstanding Gifts to Buy Your Loved Ones on Black Friday
Performative Text Messages
Memoirs of a Brief Affair

I read "Choose Yourself," by James Altucher and my oxytocin levels increased immediately.

I have owned James Altucher’s book “Choose Yourself,” for one week, and already it is covered in avocado stains.

Choose Yourself, by James Altucher

Choose Yourself, by James Altucher

James Altucher and I have tons in common.  We both recognize the immense value of taking a shit.  The benefits are physical, emotional, spiritual, physical, creative and financial.
If your bowels don’t function well enough to take a smooth and thorough dump, life is going to be more difficult than it has to be.

Also, James and I both have very curly hair that is usually messy.

Here is a picture of me reading “Choose Yourself.” You can’t see the avocado stains.  They are on the inside.  I am reading the chapter, “How to release the God Hormone.” It is based on James’ blogpost 10 unusual ways to release oxytocin into your life. At first I thought that oxytocin was the same as oxycontin, but I guess it is a little different.  Oxycontin is a narcotic while oxytocin  is this natural thing that your body releases when you hump your lover’s leg, or like someone’s post on Facebook, or eat a bunch of eggs and bananas and peppers mixed together.  The words are similar.  Just like the words vague, vagina, and vagus are similar.  James Altucher points this out in his oxytocin chapter and it made me laugh and release oxytocin. James says that when your vagus nerve is inflamed, you’ll feel pissed off and stressed out.  When it feels good, the whole world will seem orgasmic. Knock yourself out, everyone.

PROCRASTINATION

I just took a break from writing this post to hump the Boatman’s leg.  He was lying on the couch reading a book about philosophy.  I interrupted him and we had sex and now my vagina and vagus nerve feel spectacular. The feelings are not vague.

In his chapter, “The Seven Habits of Highly Mediocre People”originating from this post, James recommends Procrastination.  I am grateful for this and I find it convenient.

 “Choose Yourself,” has the tagline, “Be Happy, Make Millions, Live the Dream.”  I’m pretty sure that for James, what is most important is being happy.  On a couple of occasions in his life, James has had millions of dollars.  But he wasn’t happy and he wasn’t living the dream.  He was barely sleeping, his body was a wreck, and he didn’t have any friends.  In 2002, he lost fifteen million dollars in fifteen weeks.  He had a similar crash in 2008.

 

Each time, what got James back on his feet is something he calls the Daily Practice.   Essentially, it means taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

What’s the use of millions of dollars if  you hate yourself and you have no friends and you can’t take a comfortable shit every morning?

The Daily Practice can be overwhelming if you haven’t pooped or had sex in a long time, and you’re tired and you hate your job and your brain feels stale and dead inside.  The good news is  James says that you don’t need to fix everything all at once.  Remember, we are only becoming highly effective, mediocre people.  No sweat.  We can all do this.

I was listening to an interview with James on  mygreenlight.com, and James says that if you are looking to begin somewhere, start by getting enough sleep and then recognizing the abundance that is already in your life.  For instance, James says, if you’re stuck in traffic, instead of being pissed off about wasting time, focus on the abundance of cars.  So many cars, so much human development.  So much prosperity.  Or at least a lot of car payments. 

From about January to the end of May, I’ve been pretty irritated about my life.  I’d been waking up at 4 or 4:30 a.m., cranking myself through a vigorous and somewhat neurotic yoga practice and then hoofing it to work where I nag at small children to push in their chairs and wash their dirty hands in French.  Every week, I was missing more than a full night of sleep, about two hours every night.  I became volatile, hysterical. I thought I would kill the children I worked with. My body developed these weird neurological twitches.  Throughout the day, my shoulders would shrug involuntarily. My esophagus would contract as though I were going to puke. Most mornings before leaving for work I would throw a hysterical fit about some tragic issue like how I didn’t have time to take a shit, my pants were dirty, the new kid was a total brat, and my boss would probably make me stay late. 

The miracle of yoga had never been less abundant.

Fortunately, about a month ago, my left knee swelled up on my way to work. 

Here’s my knee, after the physiotherapist taped it up and it looked like a scrotum.



My Scrotum Knee. My pants pulled down

Now I sleep in until about 5:30.  I do half as many yoga poses.  I am two hundred times less bitchy.

My knee is healing really well.  It doesn’t look like a scrotum anymore.

And my shoulder and esophagus twitch significantly less.

I have energy to do more of the Daily Practice.  I read. I write down ideas, even the stupid ones, not every day, but when I think of it, and don’t feel too self-conscious.  I try not to be so pissed off about everything.  That was hard when I was really tired.  Now I am not as tired and so it is easier.

It is also easier to see the abundance.  Before I would look at my work day and see eight and a half hours to kill and waste, plus the commute. 

Being grateful for what I had seemed impossible.  I could barely say thank you to the busdriver.  He was driving me somewhere I didn’t want to go.  When I thought of saying thank you, I’d get a lump in my throat and feel nauseous and ashamed. 

I’ve been forcing myself to say thank you to the bus driver, every day.  As I get less tired, I feel more sincere. 

Although I’m not making millions of dollars, or living the dream exactly, I am trying to be as happy I can be, right now.  Sometimes I feel bitter and disappointed that I don’t have as much time to write and do yoga as I want.  But at least I have some time.  More than most people. 

Also, there is some abundance in my job.  I get to walk all the time.  This helps me to not be constipated or fat.  The school has really big windows and I can always see the sky.  Plus the children are full of abundance. They are full of youth and snot and sometimes diarrhea.  And if you listen, they say many interesting things.

Last week, a five-year-old asked me if I had boobies.  An hour later, a two-year-old looked at me from across the sandbox and said, “Erica, you don’t have any nipples.”

James Altucher says that most people should quit their jobs.  Probably he is right.  Someday I will quit my job.  Or maybe I will get fired for my radical views on potty training. That is my dream. To get fired because of the potty training. But while I am waiting, I'm going to think about my nipples and laugh.

The End.

Thank you, James. You’ve done wonders for my outlook.  And you don’t need to pay me back for the book, because my life is already full of abundance.

Watch James Altucher explain Choosing Yourself, in 13 minutes:

 

Follow James Altucher on Twitter: @jaltucher

Check out James's Blog www.jamesaltucher.com

Me and my vagus nerve: @mypelvicfloor

Ecstasy, Exuberance, Oxytocin and Abundance on Facebook

I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt 

What the fuck should I do with my life, Part One
Not Separate From All That Is
Prozac Made Me a Better Person