October 07, 2022 | Read Online

Killing time

What are we supposed to do between now and when we become plant fertilizer?

Cole Schafer
October 07, 2022

First, some housekeeping...

During November, I'm considering teaching a month-long writing course taught entirely via email. However, to make things interesting, I'm going to let you decide on the curriculum. You can place your vote at the bottom of this newsletter.

Now, some writing...

If all of us are destined to wind up lying flat on our backs spitting up daisies, it’s a perfectly worthwhile question to ask ourselves what on Earth we’re supposed to do between now and when we become plant fertilizer.

We don’t do this enough, I don’t think.

Hell, most of us dedicate more mental bandwidth toward coming up with our Friday night plans than we ever do toward deciding what we want to do with the little bit of time we have on this Earth.

This doesn’t mean our life plans must be overflowing with ambition, greatness and grandeur. In fact, I would argue all of us can live a much easier existence if we stopped expecting greatness and started expecting something less.

At least when you expect failure in everything that you do, you start living your life doing the shit you actually want to do versus doing the shit you think will help you achieve some unpromised outcome.

While I applaud Tony Robbins and all his positivity, I’m a bit skeptical that we can achieve everything we’ve ever dreamed of by simply reading his $29.99 hardcovers and practicing enough manifestation to make a yoga instructor levitate 10-inches off the ground.

I genuinely expect my writing career to turn out dismal at best. Yet, I find myself waking up every day wanting to write.

This is my definition of a vocation: something you want to do every day even if you know you’re going to get kicked in the teeth.

Like love, if you find a vocation worth bleeding over, hold onto it.

But a vocation can only fill so many hours in the day and to avoid driving yourself mad, you’ve got to figure out a way to fill the rest of these hours.

I think this is a splendid place in the movie for a “meet cute” to come in. Maybe you’ll be eating pizza at the bar of some Eastside haunt and look up to see a knock-out eating pizza, too.

Or, like so many, you’ll experience your “meet cute” on a glowing screen. This is perfectly fine. Love is hard to come by and we shouldn’t be purists regarding its arrival.

As much as we love a romantic first encounter, I think the romance is in whether or not the two of you can go the distance.

Loving somebody is the hardest most beautiful thing you’ll ever do. I’d argue it’s harder than launching rockets into space. Elon Musk has been three times divorced, twice from the same woman.

If you find somebody that’s worth doing life with, make a try at it –– make a real good try at it –– even when they make you so mad you seriously consider living out the rest of your days as a celibate monk, somewhere on a mountaintop.

Then, of course, we have to talk about happiness. Because finding something you love to do and somebody you love to do life with, is a pair of wax wings without happiness.

I’ve always struggled with happiness. I still struggle with happiness. I’ve tried religion and while Jesus Christ has one hell of a selling point –– eternal salvation –– the average American has about 79 years they have to wait until punching that ticket.

While all of us stand in line, there’s coffee. There’s Bach. There’s a book on the nightstand. There’s good food and good drugs. I’ve felt closer to God rolling MDMA than I ever have kneeling in a church pew.

There’s a 65 lbs black and white adorable terror named June. There’s feeling the kiss of Fall and the whisper of winter stepping out onto the back deck late at night, barefoot, telling June to go pee and leave the rabbits alone.

There’s London. There’s New York. There’s Nashville. There’s my parents' home in Newburgh, Indiana. There’s Jack, Trey, Conner, Ian, Jeremy, Robert, Taylor, Brian, Robbie and John. There’s killing time with the woman you love.

And the last thing I’ll say about filling the space between now and then, is that if all of us are destined to wind up lying flat on our backs pushing up daisies...

Even if we fuck this whole thing up bad, we’ll end up a bed of flowers for somebody to pick –– that's not a bad place to end.

Leave behind a few flowers.

That’s all you really owe any of us: a daisy or two.

By Cole Schafer.

P.S. If you're new to Sticky Notes, you can subscribe here.

Tell me, what would you like to learn?

Lately, I've become fond of teaching via email.

After teaching a couple of courses using this medium, I've found that with just an hour a day portioned out over a month, my students and I can cover a lot of ground.

November has traditionally been the month when writers make an attempt at producing an entire novel. But, because I'm not a novelist and you aren't a novelist, I figured we could dedicate the month to working towards something else.

The curriculum?

Well, to make things interesting, I'm letting you decide.

Place your vote here...

💌 🤔 🗣 👇🏾

Can't stand the idea of waiting an entire month?

If you simply can't stand the idea of waiting an entire month to begin one of my courses, you should consider enrolling in either my copywriting course or my cold email course.

They're affordable. They're fairly short (you can get through them in an afternoon). And, better yet, they're something you will find yourself coming back to, again and again.

Let's make this okay.

Share Sticky Notes

Assuming you think the words you just read are "good", you can spread the good word by clicking the big black button down below or highlighting that pretty red link.

You currently have 0 referrals.

Click to Share

Or copy and paste this link to others: https://www.getthesticky.com/subscribe?ref=RYyOzct9M5