Chapter 271

It takes skill and discipline to bat away the pests of bad perceptions, to separate reliable signals from deceptive ones, to filter out prejudice, expectation, and fear.”Ryan Holiday

I am surrounded in later life by a great cadre of friends that send me reliable signals and never deceptive ones. It is one of the sweetest blessings in my life. People I can depend on to tell me the truth and move me in the right directions. Even when they are wrong. Yes I meant to say that. They are human. They make mistakes. Sometimes they invite me in to what they are doing. And sometimes it tanks. But that is ok, because they always had more in the outcome than I did and the fact that it tanked hit them hard. I could give you more examples of this than you would think, but it doesn’t have too much pain, because I got reliable signals and there was no deception. I knew the risks before following them on whatever thing it was that we got our butts burned on.

This is the way to live. Most of these adventures with people you can trust, turn out lovely, and the ones that don’t make memorable lessons and epic stories. All my favorite memories and trips and fun and adventures and investments (good and bad) and choices and paths involve these guys at some level. As I get older, fortunately I have the option of where I spend my focus and my energy, and I spend it with people like these.

For far too long I had little option in who I had to work with and which circle of people I got to live my life out with. When I got the chance, these were the first changes I made in my life.

Solid.