This resonates so hard. I have all these goals and projects that sit in the to-do pile held down with a paperweight of procrastination, when I know that if I just sat down and did them it would take me literally an afternoon to finish. Why do we do this to ourselves? Anyway, congrats! That sounds like big progress!

I'm sorry to hear about your friend - that's really tough...

Ah insurance, the golden handcuffs of employers everywhere.

Back in my working days whenever we were issued a COLA "raise" the insurance premiums magically rose to match that increase in pay. Every time. You know there was some collusion going on.

There are millions of workers whose sole motivation for getting their butts out of bed and going to work is only for ...

Loved reading your musings on abundance. Thank you for sharing.

I can't tell you what to do with SS ...Sorry, ertyu, I must be coming across more melodramatically than I intend to. As far as retooling my regimen to better align with reality, I definitely feel a generous dollop of frustration along with some disappointment. It falls in the it-is-what-it-is bucket...

I see two very different approaches to nature/bio/eco.

One "love nature" is about conspicuous consumption of nature. Flying to the Galapagos, eating eel, going whale watching on the other side of the continent or the world, discovering the rain forest, buying expensive flown-in bio food.

Another "love nature" is about respect for nature. Sorting waste, getting seco...

I would say that what hasn't changed is poor designation of success signal at initial goal-setting. Because, what we do have now is an intelligence that is still clearly "stupid" relative to average human in some respects, but also much more capable than all humans in other respects. So, any self-respecting Doomer should have already realized that the triggering system he instal...