This is my journal entry from February 14, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I'm shocked to report that I actually had an incredible day today. After as miserable as I was yesterday, the day that followed was amazing. I woke up this morning in the same mood I recorded the entry last night in. I was absolutely miserable. Thankfully, I had tennis scheduled already, and I met a friend to play doubles. We got mashed up against a couple of guys in their 70s who had not won a single game yet in the fourth week of the ultimate season and they got their first four games ever won off of us but we did win both the sets and it was fun to win our first ultimate game together. And after our ultimate it was great socialization too, the guys were so friendly, we had fun and laughed a lot.
And after Ultimate, my friend said, hey, you're going to go to a local street festival today. I'm like, first, I don't know what that is. And second, I wasn't planning on getting out besides this and an AA meeting. He says, oh, it's great. There's a bunch of local artists and businesses set up. They block off downtown. You should go. There'll be lots of single attractive women out there. I'm like, I'm not in the mood. I am just feeling destroyed today. I'm not in the mood. Then I say, maybe, maybe. He's like, well, I'm going down there with family. Let me know if you're going to go. I'm like, all right, maybe.
I get in my car, and I see my sponsor from AA has called me an hour or so before. I pick the phone up. My sponsor says, hey, I'm at the festival right now. I'm like, seriously? He's like, yeah, it's awesome down here. There's all kinds of women that are here by themselves. You need to come down there. I'm like, I'm not in the mood to pick women up. He's like, well, just get out. I suggest you come down here. And he doesn't offer direct suggestions to a fellow like me that often. I was like, fuck, all right. If my friend and my sponsor within 10 minutes of each other both made the exact same suggestion, I think it's a sign. I'm like, fine. And I go back to my house, which is like a 20-minute drive. I've been taking a break from audiobooks, so I'm not listening to anything. I talk to my sponsor, but I hang up after. I have some bean noodles with some marinara sauce, and I'm like, fuck it. You know what? I'll go. I'll go. I'll put on my nice clothes, and I'll go.
And the whole time, my mind is so toxic. It's like, this is so fucking stupid. You're never going to meet a woman here. What a waste of time. This is something you should have been doing with your wife and kids, but you often didn't do things like this. They used to go, the fuck you doing? What's wrong with your life? There's no hope. That's where my mind was at. Just whining and complaining and defeated and frustrated. I saw this one girl walking with a bag that said Finland on it. And she seemed like she was there by herself and I could have easily approached her. I'm like, nope, not doing it. I'm not in the mood to... to have one of these interactions, you know, turn into what it generally will turn into. No, I'm not, I'm not interested. And unless a girl like makes eye contact and smiles at me, I'm not initiating. Like if you don't give me a little bit of a sign, I'm not trying to break through these walls and stuff and play that game. I don't want to do that.
Thankfully, I'm only there like 20 minutes or so by myself before I meet my friend there with his family. It's so nice to meet his family because I've heard a lot about them by now. And it's nice to put names to faces. His son walks right up to me. His son's like 14 months old. His son just stares in my eyes and give me the biggest smile before we were even introduced. I'm like, oh, look at this little guy. It was a good reminder of why I just love kids and want more kids. And at the same time, it was a reminder of like, look, you're here without that. But it's like, no, I'm not like, no, I'm here with my friend and he has a wife and kids and I'm here with him and his kids. And he's there with a couple of friends as well. One of the friends he introduced me to is a man I met for the first time. And I see him and don't start talking to him right away. But, you know, thankfully, I open up right away and talk about how miserable I am. And he digs into what I'm miserable about. And I talk about dating.
And he's like, dude, there's this dating matchmaking service I use called a matchmaking service. It's awesome. He's like, they just matched me with someone that I had a great first date with and I'm really excited about. He looks right at me after listening and telling him I told him that I wanted a wife and more kids and a woman who's healthy and a sober lifestyle. He's like, you would be in such high demand on there because there's so many women that have careers that have money that are taking care of themselves and having a successful life. He's like, they struggle to find a man because most of the guys that are doing the same thing don't want to date a woman like that. They'd rather like date some hot waitress that wants to stay at home and raise the kids. Like they're not looking to date someone else often. They're often not looking to date someone else with a career. And then many of the guys who actually would love to date these women are, you know, stuck in their addictions and they live at their mom's house. And he's like, these women are struggling. He's like, I talked to so many women, and they're desperate to find a man like you. I'm like, really? He's like, dude, you need to get on that dating service. You will clean up like they will match you with someone that will be really excited to marry you and that you'll be excited about. I'm like, all right, well, I'll look into it.
So he and I have awesome conversations like I just can't stop talking to him. I just love it. Man, talking to him was the turning point of my whole day. Meeting my friend at the festival, after my sponsor and my friend both recommended it, all of a sudden, within a few minutes of talking to him, and seeing my friend and his family, meeting his wife and his kids, I just start feeling better. And it happened so fast. It was like, holy shit. I could feel the feelings just slipping away and hope coming back in. I'm like, wow. And then I'm just like, I keep talking with him.
My friend parks in a nearby neighborhood, which is like 10 blocks away from where the festival is. It takes us like 30 minutes to walk there. But I walk with my friend and the man I met because my friend's wife parked the other direction. So he walked her back first. So I talked with the man I met and another friend of my friend's for a while without my friend. And then my friend and the man I met and I walk back to his car and we get like 30 more minutes to talk. I spent probably at least an hour talking with the man I met and it just brightened my day up so much. And I told him, I'm like, dude, you've totally turned my day around. Like I, this is something. It's just broke my whole mindset, my hopeless mindset of thinking, oh, you know, these women are just stuck on Instagram. They're not serious. They're in plant medicine. Like so much of the data I've taken in is indicated that I'm not wanted, that I'm too much for women, that they don't want a husband that, you know, wants kids. And from his point of view, the opposite is true, that like my position is much easier than his from his point of view. He's like, dude, it'll be great.
So I walk all the way over, and my friend offers me a ride, but I'm like, no, I'm happy to just keep, I'll walk back and just see what happens. So I walk back, and I'm like, wow, that was awesome how my mood changed so drastically, and I'm so filled with hope. On the way back, I run into a guy I know from the tennis club, a fellow tennis player, and he's outside a coffee shop. I'm like, geez, this is starting to feel like a choreographed dance right now. Like this, this, you know, people talk about like, you know, perfect alignment or coincidences or God, all this stuff. And it's like, this is what, yeah, this, I'm on the right wavelength today. I sit down and talk with him for more than 30 minutes, maybe close to an hour at this coffee shop, which mercifully is in the shade after playing tennis in the sun and then being out at the festival. I have such a great conversation with him. He's written a couple of books himself and he loves to write. And he's got me thinking, I'm like, I want to help people with my writing, but I don't just want to, like, it doesn't seem like there's more books. We don't seem like there's that many more books that are really needed. I don't want to just be running Amazon ads and trying to sell to people and personally, like, I want to be helping people personally with my writing. I have a great talk with him about like money and dating. He tells me about the league, which I look up right after he talks about it. But that doesn't look like quite what I'm looking for.
So I have a great talk with him. I feel like, wow. And then there's a beautiful mom or nanny. Not sure which, but there's a beautiful woman, Asian woman pushing a stroller with a kitten and she actually looks at us and smiles. I wanted to get up and leave him and start talking to her immediately, but we were having a great conversation and we hadn't quite wrapped it up, but it just felt so validating. I'm like, man, out of all these people, this one woman like smiled and acknowledged me. And I was like, that felt so good. I get up — he has a tennis game. He's playing at the tennis club. So after about an hour, he leaves me to go to the tennis club. And I walked back into the festival by myself. And I just walk around. I'm like, you know, I was in such a funk before. I didn't really see. And I want to just look at everything again. And I was walking with my friend and the family. So I was so focused on my friend and the family and the man I met. I feel like I walked around a couple of times, but didn't really see it. So I walk around everything and I look and I just observe the people. I see if anyone's interested in connecting with me. It doesn't seem like it.
But then I run into one of the yoga instructors from my yoga studio is there with his girlfriend. And I say hi to him. He's one of the teachers who's always very friendly with me and always wished I'd do more of his classes, but his classes were hard. And then right after seeing him, I see a fellow tennis player, who him and I played those really long matches I wrote about at the tennis club a few months back. And he's there with his wife. I'm like, this is awesome just seeing all these people I know. I walk by my yoga studio's tent, though, and I'm like, nah, I'm good. Like, I'm not feeling that right now. There's, you know, a yoga instructor there. And, you know, I love them there. At the same time, it's like, you know, it's time to go our separate ways, right? And maybe I still need to clean up a little resentment. But really, they helped me move on to the next chapter and, you know, get over to a new yoga studio, meet some new people, you know, get some new vibes.
And it's funny, I'm hardly even thinking about the woman from my yoga class today. At the same time, the most likely story I'm figuring is that she intentionally didn't want to see me at the class. Even though maybe I saw her walking in 10 minutes after the class was over, maybe she did and something came up, but I don't know. To me, you make the things happen you want to happen. At least that's how I am. And maybe I was too intense and she didn't want to see me. But who knows where that'll go. After walking around again, I'm like, okay, I literally paid for parking for two hours and then like paid another hour twice more. So my parking is running out after like four hours. I'm amazed the time just flew by here after that initial 30 minutes, which was, you know, hell. But then it switched into heaven and it switched because I had an open heart and I shared honestly from the heart about what was going on with me. And someone else was empathetic and had similar experiences and helped me. And then I put myself in a position to run into several more people I knew. I ended up meeting new people and hanging out with people. It was awesome.
I walked back to the car, which I damn near could have walked home as far as my friend got up to a nearby neighborhood. In fact, in the future, I might just walk. I get in the car and I drive back home. There was so much delicious looking food, but I choose not to have any of it. I had no food, no drink in four hours there. You know, all I would have was like a water or lemonade, but I'm like, no, I'm good. I got so much at home. It's fine. So I go home and I have a nice big salad and drink a bottle of my water. And it's a little after four. And I'm like, you know, why don't I check out that matchmaking service's website right now that the man I met talked about? Like it's the energy's fresh. The excitement's there. Let's just look at it. So I go look at their website and it has the thing, you know, a little application form. I fill it out. Takes me a while to figure out what I'm going to put for my job. I finally settled on entrepreneur because I feel like that most accurately captures the last decade. Being an entrepreneur from content creator. I mean, you know, I made whole business systems. I wasn't just a content creator. And going forward, I'm not just a content creator. So I put entrepreneur and asked, how much income do you typically make? Well, I'm glad you put typically because, you know, typically I'd be making over $100,000 a year. You know, according to the income from last year, I mean, we're going to be making tens of thousands at best. And last year was the lowest income year since 2019. And I made over $100,000 in 2021, and I'd like to think I'll be making over $100,000 on a regular basis going forward, so we'll just put $100,000 to $150,000, all right? And thankfully, there's no income verification.
So I click through, and they have the option to schedule a call with somebody. And I see they have the option. It's 4.50. By the time I fill everything out and look at their website, it's 4.50 p.m. And they have a call at five. And then the next call is not till 2.30 on Sunday. I'm like, okay, let me grab this call. Let me grab this call right now. Like I was, my ex-wife said that my daughter had an activity, you know, that they'd come see me afterwards. I was waiting for my ex-wife to call. I'm like, you know what? I just had a feeling like, let's just do this right now. Like, this is exciting. It feels perfectly aligned. Just do it. So I do it. I hop on a five o'clock call with them. I fill out more of my profile, and I get on the phone with a matchmaking-service rep, and she talks to me about their matchmaking. Now, my new friend, the man I met, already told me about some of the prices and basically how it worked, and the rep goes over everything in much more detail, and she says that they're running a Valentine's Day 50% off special for the 12-match package.
So for the 12-date package, they guarantee that they'll give you 12 dates with 12 different girls. And they suggest that they'll have like an 80% success rate with that package. And I'm like, God, that sounds good. How much is it? She's like, normally it's $15,000. But today for Valentine's Day, it's $7,500. I'm like, tell me about your other packages. And there's a three-day package for $3,900. And there's a 68 package for 5600 which sounds like the one that the man I met got, although he said you know if he had it to do again he might just put himself on the database and wait, but I know exactly what I want like I know what I want and if a matchmaker can just go look and do that work it could bring what I want fast, and that's useful, there's no time to waste in this life.
So I think very briefly about it. I also noticed in my one bank account that I've got a new balance transfer offer, a new 0% balance transfer offer for a year. I'm like, shit, that just popped up right now. Like I hadn't seen that before. Fuck it, let's do it. So I tell her, I'm like, you know, Valentine's Day, I imagine for a matchmaking service is like Black Friday. So I'm like, let me get that 50% off. Let me take 12 dates for $7,500. It seems like a massive expense, but what I also, my intuition says, go for it. Like my heart says, yes, do this. This is what you need. And my rational mind starts to protest like, oh, it's a lot of money. You're going to borrow for that? I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do that. So I dropped the money within a 40 minute phone call. I go from introducing myself, talking about the basics, learning how the program works, getting it packages, giving her my credit card number, buying the package, and then following up on what's next. I hang up the phone like, holy shit, I just dropped $7,000. I'm like, that was the easiest and fastest $7,500 I've ever spent before. Holy shit.
But what I get for that is massive. What I get for that is that my brain can stop thinking about dating. I've outsourced that. I've paid for help. Clearly, if I'm fucking crying in yoga class yesterday and I'm in that much pain, I could use help. Meanwhile, I drove by some shocking abortion poster on the way to the festival. So I'm like, you know, somebody who dove that deep emotionally and hurt that bad over a little bit of positive attention at that yoga studio from her, a little handshake, giving her a compliment, somebody that sobbed on their mat after that because they're so desperate to date. They're so ready to date. I know exactly what I want. You could use help. And my intuition was just being very clear. Go for it. Buy it right now. No hesitation. Get started immediately because it'd be way too easy to think about it and back out and be like, I'll just leave my profile, you know, and then maybe you don't even get a date at all. Maybe you get one. It's not that great. It's like, no, just fucking do this.
It's like I felt divinely guided today. It's like this. You suffered yesterday. You said thank you for the suffering. You learn lessons from the suffering. And now it's time to reap. The harvest of the suffering. The suffering is you're going to try something drastically new. And you're going to ask for significant help. Like this is an entire business system. People work their full-time jobs. The rep said that the matchmakers, what they do in exchange for my money, they do background checks on me and everybody else. And they qualify people before fixing me up. They get to know me really well. And then they call girls and get the date, see if the girl is compatible with me. And if the girl is interested in meeting me, then they set the date up. And she said, sometimes they'll go through hundreds of people before they find one to match you with. And I'm like, my God, that'd be nice. Like, I hate doing that. I hate swiping on apps. It fucks my brain up. I would love for somebody to go through that for me. I would love for somebody to help me with that. And I would love to unload that from my brain and to just think that my dating is taken care of. I don't need to get numbers in person. I can be nice and friendly, but I don't need to ask girls out on dates.
I think it'd be ironic if the energy of buying this actually led some woman in person to like advancing and hunting me down because she could see how relaxed and at ease I was. Like that could easily happen too. And if that happened to be fine, and if I only went on one date and it went great, that'd be fine. A 12-date package leaves me confident in being able to say no. Like if it's not awesome, no. And as I buy the package, I think, man, I'm amazed how good this feels. I'm grateful I have the courage to drop $7,500 on one credit card and then use that balance transfer offer at 5% to pull it over to another one, despite not making any income right now. But what I see is that my mind is now free, that the dating has been taking up a bunch of my background attention and focus. And I need my full attention to obsess and focus about giving people value that they will then provide money for in exchange. I'm ready to dictate I'm seeking money book at this rate. Like, it's perfect.
Thus, I'm like, man, I get off the phone. And I am quiet and I reflect on my decisions. Right after I get off the phone, my ex-wife calls and says she's on the way over with the kids. I'm like, my God, the timing of this is just amazing. I was on the phone for 40, 44 minutes. And my ex-wife calls right after within a minute of hanging up. I'm like, this all feels just amazing today. Meanwhile, a guy at AA that was really friendly with me last night that really was there to support me. He texts me today. He's like, hey, you know, thank you for last night. I want to be your friend. Let's do something. So I tell him, I'm like, hey, let's meet up at an AA meeting. And he's like, all right, I got one I'm going to tonight. And I'm like, good, I'll meet you there. My ex-wife comes over with the kids and the kids go right away to go play with their friends. I take a walk around Crescent Lake Park feeling relieved. I'm like, I don't need to be trying to pick a woman up anymore. I've got help with that. I paid for help with that. I can relax when it comes to dating. I can just be.
And my mind starts generating all kinds of random ass money ideas. It's like, what if you asked like a thousand people for twenty dollars? I'm like, that's that's that's creative. You know, that's creative. I doubt you'd get 100 people would say yes. But if you did, that'd be a couple thousand bucks in cash. That's a donation. That's not taxable. So, yeah, that'd be pretty sweet. If you ask a thousand people for 20 bucks and 10 percent of them said yes. How cool. I'm like, that's creative. What else you got? I was thinking today that I need to have a show. Yesterday I was writing that letter and thinking that it needs to be more of a serious connection circle. And today I'm thinking, no, it needs to be a show. Like the Jerry Banfield show should make a comeback. But I'm like, ah, getting people to show up to a show just seems difficult. And then do I want to have it in my living room? Everybody says I need a venue. My friend, when I talked to him, he's like, you need a venue. And I'm like, damn it.
I take a walk around Crescent Lake Park. I get dressed in my nice clothes again, and my ex-wife comes over to pick the kids up a bit before my meeting, and I have an awesome talk with her for 30 minutes. I tell her about the matchmaking service, the cause of my spiraling yesterday of feeling a little something for somebody in yoga, and they don't show up, and my ex-wife's really supportive. She's like, I'm actually relieved that you've... It is a lot of money, but this clears you up to focus on the kids and your work. And this is going to connect you with women that are serious about getting married. And that's exactly what you're looking for. I think this will go really well for you. I'm excited for you. And I told her, I'm like, you know, this might be a perfect thing for you. If you ever felt like dating, you could just stick your profile on there for like 10 bucks. And I could get $100 referral fee if you went out on a date. She's like, I'm definitely not ready for that. I need to be by myself for a while. I'm like, I understand. At the same time, you know, if you ever feel like you might be ready, you know, just throwing your profile in there could be a really easy, passive thing to do. And she's like, well, I'll let you know if I'm ready for that.
And we have a beautiful talk. I tell her, I mean, I'm like, my first choice was to have our marriage work out. Absolutely. I cry a little bit. I'm like, I absolutely, my first choice was for us to compromise and work together and be on the same page. And, you know, either you have more kids or me stop wanting more kids. And, you know, for us on the major issues to be on the same page. And I said, you know, the matchmaking service asked, they're like, why don't you upload some profiles of women you think are attractive. I'm like, the first thought I had was to upload a photo of you, you know, like you are just beautiful. And I would love to date another woman that looked just like you. And my ex-wife appreciated the compliment and the validation. And it just felt like a beautiful, heartfelt connection. Sometimes I feel like my ex-wife doesn't care about me anymore. She doesn't love me anymore because we got divorced. But I can see having this conversation, that's obviously not true. She still cares a lot about me. And in fact, it's kind of hard because she does still care a lot about me. And the ways we used to express our care for each other, like through physical touch, are not there anymore. But that doesn't mean she doesn't still love me. And we still say we love each other. It's like this. There's different ways of loving each other. And there's another woman. My ex-wife said she's glad she could outsource me to another woman. Like, I'm so glad to outsource you to another woman.
And I go to the AA meeting. It's a newcomer meeting. And these people have a lot of interesting material, much more interesting than the old timers that, you know, often share stuff from the big book. Well, these newcomers are wild. I'm enjoying it. I see the guy from last night at the meeting and I talked to him after the meeting and he says that he was really excited about a date that he was having himself today. And, you know, he discovered that the person on the date was, you know, still into like the drugs and the club scene. He's like, man, that's just a deal breaker for me. I felt so destroyed after the date. I got all excited. You know, I haven't found anybody in years. And then, you know, I'm just wrecked afterwards. And I'm like, I feel you. And I told him about the matchmaking service I signed up for. And he's like, hey, let's get together again, you know, and do something. I'm like, sure. I'm thinking, you know, I'll meet up with him to do like a walk around Crescent Lake Park or something like that. Like this is, you know, this guy was there right when I was struggling. And, you know, then I'm there when he's struggling. It worked out perfectly. And he sent such a nice message that like, you know, he's there to be a friend if I need one. I'm like, it's beautiful.
Oh, I'm amazed. I called my mother, too. She didn't answer. It's a big day for her. It's, you know, my late father's birthday was Valentine's Day. So my ex-wife reminded me to call her. So I called her and texted her. I didn't get anything, but I'm so grateful. Today turned out so amazingly well. I'm so grateful that I, you know, that people help me, that I asked for help and I consistently get the help. And I'm like, the festival, I'm so glad I didn't just sit at home today and like try and work or something. And it's really cool. Like if you'd have told me yesterday, like, you know, tomorrow you're going to drop 7,500 on a matchmaking service. I'd have been like, are you fucking kidding me? That's crazy. But today I'm like, nice. I'm so excited about that.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.