Well, it’s been a pretty big year.  Got engaged exactly a year ago (left that out of 51 Things – it was still a secret at press time), bought a house with a big back yard and my dream game room, grew my practice, and celebrated countless events and achievements, my own – but mostly for others. As the planned nuptials (10/10/26) draw ever closer, it’s that time of year again – to take stock of what I’ve learned, and to celebrate the fact that I’m still learning after all these years.  So, without further ado – here are FIFTY TWO things I’ve learned:

1. If you stop learning, you stop living. 
2. I was more wrong about what “love” means than I’ve ever been about anything.
3. Regrets are the product of an immature mind; grow up and grow old with confidence and style knowing that all of it is your story – and no matter how ugly you think it is, it’s actually quite beautiful. 
4. Mathematically speaking, either everything matters, or nothing does.  Choose your philosophy accordingly.
5. The best medicine for anxiety and depression is the service of others.
6. Despite a lifetime of nature documentaries consumed, the most baffling species I’ve ever come across is the American teenager.
7. The apex of modern music occurred in 1985; and it keeps getting more obvious, not less. 
8. Whoever said that “it’s always darkest before the dawn” knows a lot more about life then they do about science. 
9. There’s nothing more important to learn than math.
10. It’s not that you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain, it’s that you ultimately get to a point where you realize that heroes and villains are the same people, viewed from different perspectives.
11. Calling someone stupid is NOT a political take, especially if they are, objectively (and purposefully) stupid. 
12. No one is coming to save you, but nevertheless, your salvation lies all around you.
13. I honestly think I could have done almost any job had I put my mind to it… except teaching K-12 school.  That #### is insane and doesn’t make sense at any number.
14. Wave to everyone in your neighborhood.  You never know when you’ll need their help, but it will be too late, then.
15. Sure, Gen X didn’t grow up with all the cool stuff that kids today have, but there are also no known photos of the many, many fashion mistakes I made along the way, so you can have your internet, and know that I’ve always looked this cool (as far as you know).
16. You have way more in common than your enemies than you think. 
17. If you can’t find your tribe, build one. 
18. Music is good for your soul; spend more time with it.
19. Give the benefit of the doubt generously.
20. After a lifetime of seeking out the apex undertaking of the modern man, I have come to believe it is to make them out of the boys in your charge. 
21. If you’re full, stop eating.
22. Board gaming has taught me a great deal, but most importantly is that there is always a move to make – even if that’s reaching across the table and accepting defeat with dignity and a smile on your face. 
23. No one is more terrifying than someone who will not stop getting up after they are knocked down.  Be more terrifying. 
24. Winning means nothing if you haven’t really lost anything.
25. Everyone around you is living an infinitely complex life.  Remember that when you deal with them.
26. Good teachers don’t really teach you anything other than how to teach yourself.
27. Never trust someone soliciting faith; in anything. 
28. Wear less jewelry.
29. Give compliments to strangers, and mean them.
30. Being busy and being productive are two very different things.  Only one of them is valuable and impressive.
31. If you can’t teach what you’ve learned, you don’t really know it at all.
32. Being angry doesn’t make any sense. Blame makes even less. 
33. Everyone deserves way more than 15 minutes of fame.
34. The most dangerous drugs in this world don’t come in chemical form. 
35. Make room for others. Always.
36. Don’t answer questions with questions. It doesn’t exempt you from answering, it just makes you look scared and guilty.
37. You can’t argue with “whataboutism” – because it’s not an argument, it’s the lack of an argument. 
38. The second best time to do anything you missed is right f***ing now.
39. Pick up the damn phone.  Also, answer the damn phone.  Texting is a terribly poor substitute for conversation.
40. Introverts and extroverts have a lot to learn from one another. 
41. Go to every reunion you can. Your excuse isn’t as good as you think it is.
42. Memories are the most valuable commodity in the world, and they cost nothing to create.
43. Selfies should always have more than one person in them.
44. Nothing feels better than being useful.
45. No matter what you might hear or see “reported” – the kids are not just going to be alright, they’re going to be great.
46. We live in the greatest version of this world that has ever existed.
47. When in doubt, the first thing to do, always – is breathe.
48. Let people be.  Also let them be something new.
49. There are no good reasons not to be and stay curious.
50. There is no correlation between wealth and intelligence.  There is one between wealth and personal growth. 
51. You can’t be nice all the time.  But you can be for most of it.
52. Live a life that makes you want to be at home with the people you love for every free moment you have; I finally do.

It’s great fortune to make it through four dozen years of life and never have lost someone close to you. As ever, all such streaks come to an end, usually tragically, and my story is no exception. 

2015 has no right feeling as long ago as it does, but nevertheless, that was the year I met my other dad. I had flown all the way to Florida to watch a dear Academy classmate get married. As I wandered in later to the festivities than most of the local guests, I went to find the groom, who quickly introduced me to a friend and mentor of his. This otherwise unremarkable guest was an old (well, old-ER) Army pilot who he thought I’d hit it off with. Boy howdy, was he was right. I sat down to talk to Charly Schell for the very first time that night, and we didn’t wrap up until almost three hours later, when both of our dates finally separated us just to get to bed. In the subsequent days, I was more formally introduced to Charly’s chaperone from that evening, his wife Kelli, and to his extraordinary wealth management practice (and its principals). We extended our conversations over the phone, and back to our respective hometowns.  

At that point, my relationship with my own father was less than a year away from exploding in a pique of politically-fueled rage and false criminal allegations (that still keep our family apart), and I would shortly be in need of a male role model in my life. Charly was one of the few people who helped me to make sense of my family breaking into pieces over politics that none of us had really cared about that much, and the directionless and detached feelings that the separation would bring. Our phone calls almost never clocked in under an hour, and while there was plenty of conflict, there was always more love than anything else.  We never concluded a talk with anything but.  He helped me through the starts and ends of relationships, business ventures, and chapters in life. In time, Charly would come to sign his emails to me, as he did to countless others, with the only title he really ever cared about: “Dad”.

There will be a larger crowd gathered to memorialize Charly than most of us will expect. Charly had a way of making everyone feel like they were the most important person in his life. It’s a shame that this is how many of us will finally realize just how many lives he touched in the same way, but there’s a beauty in it, as well, and I’m hoping to hold on to that for as long as I can.  I am heartened to know that neither Charly nor Kelli will have to suffer this world without one another.  I don’t know two people better suited to be together, and wherever they are, I’m glad they aren’t alone. It’s to those they leave behind to remember that we aren’t alone, either. It’s up to us to care for their legacy now, including Carter, Savannah, Cateechee, and so much more. I’m confident we’re up to the task, I just wish we didn’t have to start so soon.

I’ve often said that I refuse to eulogize anyone with rose-colored glasses. We ought to be, in death, the sum of what we were in life; no less, but certainly, no more. To that end, Charly was not a perfect man. He struggled with his own demons, but he almost never cared to share that fight, the wounds it left him with, or what he had lost along the way. Like the consummate father, he kept a stiff upper lip, his chest out, and his head held high. Even in his weakest and darkest moments, he found grace in paternity, and in giving peace to others, even as a war raged inside of him. Charly was a world-class pilot, financial and tax strategist, and leader of men; but I expect he would have traded every bit of that in just to be remembered as a great father. In some way, I suppose he has and now he will be.  

Rest in peace, Charly and Kelli Schell, from one of your many adopted sons, who loved you both more than he could ever say.

I have never been to a funeral.  It’s a sentence that used to feel fortunate and glib, but after forty-six years, it feels immature and cowardly.  I haven’t consciously avoided death, but it has yet to really hit me close to the heart.  This includes the loss of my estranged mother, and yes, I know how callous that must appear.  So, as I round the putative mid-way point (were I to be so fortunate as to see nine decades), I am cognizant of the fact that, generationally speaking, Generation X has started to lose its parents en masse, and as that milestone is as formative as any for a generation, and I am excited for what our generation will do with the opportunity.

We grew up in a world almost completely foreign to our parents, and our relationships with them showed it. Parents went from masters curating a bespoke childhood experience within the family home, to Luddites, barely equipped to function in and operate their new homes and jobs, and hanging on for dear life in trying to keep up with their children who were being academically and technologically accelerated beyond their wildest imaginations before they even left home. But, despite their lack of qualifications, they endured as guiding forces in our lives. Their stoicism was a comforting and welcome respite from a world that wasn’t nearly as welcome on an individual level as it may have seemed for the collective (most of us were, “Freaks and Geeks” after all).

They still “got together” at their friends’ houses (families in tow) in the heady and pregnant hometown evenings of spring and fall and insisted on knowing their neighbors in a way that few of us recognize, today. Our parents came of age before the liberation of the 1960’s and the revolutions of the 1970’s, in a time when life was simple and small, and were forced to contend with a world that became globally connected so quickly that the wonder of it was almost immediately casual – with no time to consider what it all meant. More so than any generation that preceded them, they had to bridge wholly different realities, and raise their children without any relevant experience or guidance, and with the help of grandparents who had survived World Wars and/or the Great Depression, and consequently had little to offer on how to handle home computers and pop culture.

But like all mortal things, no matter how extraordinary, they must come to an inevitable end, and as they do, we begin to lose the bridge they provided and are forced to contend with the bridge that is demanded of our own generation.  While our parents’ past seemed colored in muted, even Sepia-like tones, our own past exists in far greater detail – not subject to the romanticism of anecdotal recital.  Our parents were the last generation to truly own their own stories, and we are forever indebted to them for the care and energy they put into telling those stories to us. The enormous courage and confidence it takes to write a life story is sometimes to hard to imagine, as the frailty of age robs our parents of their past bravado, but cannot be understated. What we know about what makes a “man” or a “woman” is almost entirely a function of these stories and how they repeat in our collective consciousness like a hit song on long gone 80’s pop radio. When I think of all the truly amazing people I know, I now think of what kind of parents it must have taken to create a person like that, and I am humbled in far greater measure.

Recently, a good friend lost her mother, and I was reminded, again, of this important debt. Were it not for this exceptional octogenarian, I simply would not have this person in my life. What’s more, she did far more than just launch her daughter’s life.  Like many parents, she endured and adapted her relationship with her daughter, letting it grow as they both did, serving as that same bridge between worlds, at a time when it’s never been more important to remember how we used to be.  But despite the overwhelming sadness that accompanied the news that her mother had finally succumbed to illness (after, as you might imagine, a protracted and brave fight), I felt like celebrating.

I am far from professionally trained in grief, loss or the psychology associated therewith, so this certainly isn’t clinical advice, nor should it be relied upon for that reason.  What’s more, I certainly don’t intend any disrespect in suggesting that the appropriate event to mark the passing of our parents is a celebration rather than a funeral, but while there is loss to contend with, there appears far more gain.  There are many ways to leave a legacy, but one of the most enduring is providing the world with excellent humans, who live, love, give, serve, laugh, cry, buy, sell, work, rest and so much more. In their wildest dreams, our parents could never have imagined the world that they populated, or the skills that would be required to master it. From their humble beginnings, they gave birth to every leader, hero, celebrity, influencer, and other amazing person that fills our world with wonder, today. No matter the immediate circumstances of their departure, it is difficult to imagine they wouldn’t be proud of the life they lived, and the gifts they’ve given us. Sooner or later, I’m going to lose someone close enough to me that attending a funeral will be inevitable, and it will likely be a parent of someone I care about. And while there will be plenty of tears and tissues, I’m hopeful that my own tears will be happy ones; that I’ll find occasion to smile, reflecting on what I gained from them and not what I lost when they finally left this world.  In the end, perhaps our own enduring generational contribution to this life will be a tradition of celebration of life and love to end a life well lived, from a generation who always turned to laughing – if only to keep from crying.

This marks the eleventh year of this annual tradition, which officially makes it my longest (voluntary) commitment.  I served my country for ten years and have attended about ten years worth of post-secondary education, as well.  But eleven is new territory, and hopefully, this is one I can take all the way to the proverbial “end zone” (which turns out to be a much better pun than I intended). It is poignant to sit down once a year, every year, to take stock of the life lessons I’ve learned. But no matter how long it takes to get started, once I do, they all come flying out – and every year, I’ve had to cut to get down to the appropriate number. So, it turns out that I’ve learned how to learn (and how to write) along the way. What’s more, I’ve gotten good at it, and the things I learn get better every year.  My true hope for publishing this is that I will inspire at least one of you do undertake a similar venture, and that if you do, you’ll share it with me. Because the most important thing I’ve learned in 46 years is that if you can’t or won’t share the knowledge you’ve gained, you never really had it in the first place. 

And with that… here are the forty-six things I’ve learned this year:

1. All of it, and I mean all of it, is relationships.
2. Every generation’s “uncool” becomes their kids’ version of “cool” – which makes every generation of middle-aged parents lament about how they were “born too soon…” No, it’s called “rebellion” and teenagers will always be maddeningly good at it.
3. Even after eleven years, teenagers still aren’t funny. Yes, none of them.  No, not even a little. Some truths are indelible.
4. We are the sum of the commitments we’ve made, and our character turns out to be our willingness to make more of them. 
5. There are only two choices when it comes to finding meaning in the world around us: either none of it matters or all of it does… and nihilism is stupid.
6. You can tell an awful lot about a person by their jeans. Also, don’t be cheap with your jeans. 
7. This one took me a long time to learn but here it is: all martyrdom is stupid (and useless).
8. In business, you shouldn’t use the word “millions” if you don’t have at least “thousands” to spend.
9. When you think everyone is looking at you, no one is looking at you.
10. Everyone is serious.  Yes, everyone.  And yes, that’s both the scariest and most inspiring thing I’ve learned this year… or ever, really.
11. The only guaranteed ineffective way to get someone to calm down is to tell them to “calm down.”
12. Being cool is about being wholly committed to being yourself, whatever that is. 
13. Meditation is one of the best things you can do for your health – but you have to be ready for it. 
14. Have the damned doughnut.  No one went to their grave, wistfully thinking of all the kale they’ve eaten. 
15. Life is risk and pain, punctuated by moments of unadulterated bliss.  If you can’t handle that, book a trip to Sweden and check out, already.
16. I used to think the idea of Bill & Ted saving the world was completely ridiculous.  Now, I’m not so sure we shouldn’t just start with being excellent to each other (and partying on, dude).
17. There is love all around you.  Constantly.  It’s up to you if you accept it or not. 
18. Of all the pending future innovations, the one I’m most excited about is driverless cars – because I don’t hate anyone as much as I hate everyone while I’m driving.  Can we all agree that driving stopped being fun about 10 years ago?
19. Intellect is directly correlated to helmet usage.
20. It isn’t just OK to cry, it’s fantastic to cry. People that cry aren’t weird, people that don’t cry are weird!  Let. It. Out.  You’ll feel better. Promise.
21. There isn’t a good reason not to call an old friend.  There are lots of reasons not to call an old girlfriend/boyfriend.
22. There are two possible percentages of the world’s scientific knowledge that you can believe in and still be an ethically consistent and reasonable (i.e. real) person: 100% and 0%.  Anything in between is the height of self-indulgence.  Honestly, what qualifies you to decide how much of science to believe in?!?
23. Wear the hat.  Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but what makes it great isn’t how you put it on, but how you pull it off.   
24. You can still love the journey and want to get places.  Doing just one is really missing out.
25. I will always see the world through the lens of a John Hughes movie – and I’m completely OK with that.
26. The one thing you know to be true about someone that says they don’t need any more friends is that they absolutely need more and better friends. 
27. Never be ashamed of your vocabulary. Making people more knowledgeable so they can understand you isn’t a burden, it’s a gift.  You’re welcome – all my associates, ever.
28. You don’t Google enough things.
29. After living through five decades of music – I’m confident it will never get better than it was in the 80s. 
30. Success is loving and working with two of the best people you’ve ever known, and I am successful AF.
31. Peace is underrated and conflict is overrated.
32. Youth isn’t wasted on the young, love is.  Young people are great at being young and horrible at love.  Old folks, just the opposite.  Maybe we should disconnect love and fertility.
33. We demand way too much of people before they are 25.  Honestly, can any of us say we qualified to make the life-altering decisions we were forced to make back then?  I’m not sure I had a functioning adult brain before age 30.
34. The amount of “energy” you have is completely within your control.  My hyperactivity isn’t a disability, it’s a GD superpower.  Do you know how much I can do in a day?  I do… and it’s impressive. 
35. Learn. Every. Day.
36. You’re not allowed to “abstain” from civil rights – failing to pick a side is picking a side and yes, it’s the wrong one.
37. The hardest and most rewarding thing I’ve ever learned is how to genuinely be happy for someone else.
38. True evil never dresses the part.  To survive, it looks just like the rest of us do. 
39. Showing up isn’t 80% or 99% – it’s everything. 
40. Relax, everyone else is faking it, too.
41. I’ve truly come to appreciate almost every holiday, because celebration is always a good idea.  Except Halloween.  Fuck Halloween.
42. I like health and variety in all my meals… except breakfast – which I eat like a 1960’s plumber – pork, eggs, cheese, bread, in almost any format, always.
43. You should only see a concert again if you can get better seats – otherwise, stay home and watch it from the cameras on stage.  You’re too old for the “Upper Levels” – you know you can’t see that far.  
44. Love isn’t anything like I thought it was.  It’s so much better.
45. I seem to find everything right when I need it. 
46. I really love who I turned out to be, and I have everyone to thank for it. 

See you next June, kids.   

I am a 10-year military veteran.  I was both enlisted and commissioned.  I graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served onboard a ballistic missile submarine that was underway and “loaded for bear” when 9/11 happened.  And yet, I do not consider myself a “warrior.”  Sure, I spent a few weeks in Quantico, running around in the mud.  I’ve conquered plenty of obstacle courses, worn in a pair of combat boots and trained in multiple hand-to-hand combat disciplines. But I’ve never taken fire, engaged an enemy or had to kill anyone, up close or at a distance. Those are the things that warriors do. Of course, that’s not to say I’m without military expertise, I know plenty about operational service, morale and leadership and after nearly two decades in the law, I know my way around the justice system – including the military version. So, I find myself in an interesting place when it comes the case of Navy SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher – with a reluctant but important perspective on why we’re getting it wrong and what we can do about it.

First, in the interests of full disclosure, I am a vocal and vehement opponent of President Trump and the overwhelming majority of his policies.  I find him morally repugnant and academically farcical, and while his involvement in this matter inspired my first look into it – he is not the reason I decided to write about it.  The reality is that Donald Trump is far from the only American who feels that Eddie Gallagher is wholly above reproach and deserving of the treatment he’s received from the POTUS. There are tens of millions of people who feel this way, and you likely know many of them. This segment of the population fetishizes combat and violence, and views “warriors” as one of the highest actualizations of human beings; individuals so supreme and disciplined that they can end a life with the same effort that the rest of us deploy in getting in and out of our cars. Their reverence for military service derives from this fetish, so they often reserve contempt for those who serve like I did, far from the probability of enemy fire.  Unfortunately, many of these same individuals are called to serve, themselves, and end up serving for the wrong reason.

That’s right, there is a wrong reason to serve, which I know to be blasphemous among these same warrior worshipers.  But it’s still true. Serving because you enjoy violence and want an excuse to engage in it is dangerous and wrong. There is a reason we don’t deploy prisoners into combat alongside our professional soldiers – and if you don’t see any problem with that, then you’re part of the problem.

The reality of war is far from its glamorized and fictional counterpart. Talk to any battlefield veteran (as I have) and they’ll tell you, even the “hardest” movie doesn’t come close to real war.  It is the ugliest thing that we do as humans, and the day we don’t have to do it anymore will be a glorious day, indeed.  To aspire to be “good” at the dirty business of war is be hopelessly juvenile and absent of even the basest maturity, because the psychosis of prurient satisfaction from committing violence against others is incompatible with any measure of practical human existence.

Nevertheless, we have not yet advanced as a civilization to the point where we can abandon war – so we must master it, and develop individuals to master each discipline within it, if for no other reason than to ensure the survival of our way of life. Despite the anecdotes and allegories, modern warfare isn’t conducted by hand-to-hand combatants, and it likely won’t be again. This isn’t as much function of maturity as it is one of efficiency.  Since the very first days of professional soldiering, we’ve used technology to increase the speed, efficacy and efficiency of our killing efforts, and the simple truth is that killing with individual hyper-talented, hyper-trained “super soldiers” just isn’t good enough anymore.

I can already hear the common dissent spoken by those same fetishists – that, you will always need a bad man with a gun to do the real business of war – but will you? Really? Ask a modern day flag officer and find out how wrong this is.

The remaining issue is one of confusion in training. I can tell you that there are few places in the U.S. military more warrior-oriented than the service academies. It was there I learned to make my “war face”, where I jumped into the Severn River in December to prove my toughness, where I chanted that “blood makes the grass grow” and even memorized Conan the Barbarian’s famous quote about what’s best in life. These things motivated me as a young man. I was looking for a fight, and the Navy gave me more of them than I could handle. There were fights everywhere and being a warrior way the only way to address those long odds.  I drank it up and used it to complete the hardest thing I’ve ever done – graduate from USNA.  But I knew; I always knew that it was allegory.  I never really thought I’d kill someone with my hands.  I never expected to storm an enemy compound or to watch a friend die beside me in battle.  The point was that these harsh truths made for hard lessons, and that those who had suffered before us could pass these lessons on without the scars to go with them – and future generations of soldiers to apply them, without having to lose so many brother and sisters along the way.  But for those in the grips of a violence fetish, these slogans are confirmation and commitment. Beyond motivation, they become license and haven.  They end up on t-shirts, car stickers and tattoos – and they quietly move from allegory to dogma.

I’ve heard it said that what differentiates humans from other animals is that we are the only animal that doesn’t usually die screaming. Of course, there are still plenty of (if not, too many) screaming human deaths, they just get more attention.  In fact, we’ve been trying to reduce that number for all of the time we’ve been around, because if we hadn’t, we might still be roaming the world in nomadic tribes, wearing the skins of animals we’ve killed.  The world’s most powerful people aren’t warriors and they don’t command warrior armies; nor will they ever again. Modern power derives from wealth, assets and influence, and the world’s best “real” warriors often die broken, penniless and alone. In fact, all that’s likely left for Chief Gallagher is to serve this same fetished subset of Americans – hawking products and services to them by lending his faux mystique. If seeing him on a late-night commercial selling reverse mortgages, “easy” loans or investment in collectible coins doesn’t demystify him, I don’t know what will.

There was a time when I looked at men like Eddie Gallagher with reverence and envy.  His easy smile and casual cool, even in uniform, was part of what I imagined a military man to be; what I wanted to be. But from the other side of my twenty-year Academy reunion, he looks much smaller and more fragile. Rather than hate him, I really just feel badly for him. I suspect that in his quiet honest moments, he’ll feel badly for himself.  At some level he knows that he’s just a bully that killed an 18-year-old kid and took a photo with his body because it made him feel good and there was no one with enough conviction to stop him.

For the foreseeable future, there will be men like Eddie Gallagher, and people who worship men like him, but when we start holding both groups to account, even when it forces us to look at ourselves, we can begin to see them for who they are, and see ourselves for what it makes us to count them as our own.