In many ways, life is a bunch of tragedies and heartaches just waiting to happen, and it’s not like anyone makes it out alive yeah?

Rather than make everything shit and pointless, those tragedies waiting in the wings can drive us to value all our sparkling moments and make the most out of everything we’ve got; every minute with the people we care about, every encounter, every wave, every drink. In a perfect world that impermanence should push us to devour life and new things. Be more and see more, always. In practice we often get dulled and lulled by the day to day, we rarely live fast or follow our dreams/passions. Shout out to those that do. That takes some effort and fearlessness. That takes courage, and the truth is we prefer comfort. It’s a trap.

In a nearby old folks home, a lady recently turned 100, I read about her in the local paper. She said her only regret was to have been so scared all her life, to have done and tried so little. You don’t want to be that lady.

Yet, the truth remains that life will throw you curve balls. Little ones, where you go, oooooh, you thought that was annoying? That’s cute. But also big ones, asteroid sized diamond hard balls of flaming death, headed straight for you at 600 miles per hour. Less cute, much more devastating. There’s not much to do when that happens.

So on one hand you need to be adventurous, on the other, life will occasionally kick you in the ovaries, hard and repeatedly.

How do I deal? Until the day I find Faith, I chose Tipsy Zen Stoicism. I squished three concepts together and sort of made it a thing.

I want to keep it brief, so I won’t launch into a full explanation of stoicism, there’s a good intro here. Stoicism can be pretty extreme and I certainly wouldn’t advocate its more self-denying/mortifying tenets, life can be hard, no need to make it harder just in case it does eventually get hard. The way I choose to understand/apply stoicism is as a simple question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. It’s about recognizing and accepting that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Thanks to the Bahamas for that one. It doesn’t mean you need to let life and people constantly fuck you over, it means that when it happens, freaking out about it won’t help. So you don’t. It’s also about putting things into perspective. So you missed your flight, is it really the end of the world? No. Go to the bar and have another beer.

Next I use a semi-mystical personal, mangled, Western understanding of Zen. One important aspect of religious thought, both Eastern and Western, is that it is world renouncing. It can be boiled down to spirit good, material world bad. I don’t buy into that for a second. Either everything is part of the cosmic order, in which case the material world has as important a part to play as any other realm, or everything is accidental, and then you might as well enjoy it because it’s all that you have. Zen in this context, with or without greater meaning to life, signifies being mindful of the beauty of the present moment, even when that moment appears imperfect. Whether it’s drinks with strangers in a loud bar or walking through a museum by yourself, put the phone away and be, try to appreciate, and engage with, whatever is going on.

Finally the tipsy part.

I do not mean you should go through life with 1.5 stiff cocktails in you always (but honestly part of me does). I mean you should approach life LIKE you had 1.5 stiff cocktails in you. Taking a couple of notches off your inhibitions, saying yes to more things, and also having a fuck basket close to empty.That’s what I’m talking about, that of kind of smiling, adventurous, rather laid back tipsy.  And if you need 1.5 margaritas to get there, you know to rehearse the feeling, I won’t judge. Just don’t trade one dulling agent for another, the poison really is in the dose.

It’s amazing all that can come to pass when you say yes more often, worry less, don’t get angry as much and enjoy the present.

And here’s for the weird part, though sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, most times it does.