This is my journal entry from February 13, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
It's Friday the 13th as my daughter points out. I wake up with snuggles from them. I'm super grateful. They are snuggling the hell out of me this morning. My daughter snuggles me on the couch. My son snuggles me in his bed. They both snuggle me at the same time and juice me at the same time too. Feels like I'm getting eaten by an octopus. It's as if I can tell what's coming and I'm trying to keep and hold on to the love that I have here with the kids. I can feel it coming in the air this morning. God, I hope I'm wrong, though. I go drop the kids off with my ex-wife. Her friends are there. It's slightly awkward saying hi to the one who had never been to the house, even though she was friends with my ex-wife since middle school. She hadn't been in the house the two of us lived in since 2018. She's just there now, staying the night, last night for the first time. The kids are happy to see her. I make an exit as her two other friends arrive. I'm driving to yoga. I'm like, man, this could be a great morning. I don't even want to think about what it's going to be like if it's not. Kind of spoiled it though with my tone and the audio version of this.
I get there. I'm there 10 minutes early. It's about as early as I ever get there. I grab my nice little rainbow towel. I walk in. Every time I've seen her, she's been there before me. There's a girl that kind of looks like her in the same spot, but it's not her as I notice as I walk over. I got a bad feeling about this. If she's not here, I hope it won't be too bad. But I put my mat over in the corner just in case. Maybe if she's coming in late, maybe she'll actually put a mat down over here. I look around the room, hopefully, for ten minutes. Nothing. No sign of her. I'm falling. I'm going lower and lower. The crying starts right after class starts. I'm fucking sobbing. I feel like an absolute idiot for caring this much. For getting excited about a girl I literally shook her hand and said hi to her a couple of times. I know almost nothing about her. God, I was hoping that what I was feeling was mutual. But nope. Wrong again, boys, my late father would say. Wrong again. I'm crushed. Not as much about her, but like, what the fuck is going on with me? Why do I care so much? Why do I open my heart and get excited so much when an attractive girl actually seems to have a little tiny bit of interest in me? I'm such a fuck-up. I'm crying and snotting all over my mat.
Still, ten minutes into class, I'm on my knees for cow pose, tabletop, and I think I have a big thought come through. A thought says, what do you need right now? What do you need right now? I'm like, well, I sure as fuck don't need a book. I don't need a counselor, a goddamn therapist. I don't need drugs, alcohol, video games. I don't need an AA meeting. I don't even need a friend. I need a group of people that can appreciate, oh, this moment. I need a group of people where I can stand up and say, yeah, picture me crying in yoga over some girl I barely know. I'm so fucking lonely. I'm so desperate to get a hot girl to love me again and have a family with me again when there's even a little tiny possibility of it and it doesn't immediately materialize. This is me going to pieces. I need a group of people that can stand up and say that in front of and that they'll understand and they'll share the same fucked up shit they're doing in their life. I do have a realization. I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess I don't really need to write books that much. What I need is not another book or another video. I need... people. I need deeper connections. I need to stop being so lonely. What is this? This is a sign, man. If you weren't this lonely, you wouldn't care this much about whether she was here this morning or not. You wouldn't give a shit. I mean, you'd hope that she was here, but it'd be no big deal if she wasn't because you wouldn't be a fucking loser who barely has any friends and who has no dating prospects and who would have enough guy friends they're passionate and hang out with. And who'd have enough, a big enough life that there'd be so many possibilities and so many people that you cared about that you wouldn't be so hung up on this person that you don't even know. And getting into all these fantasies.
I stopped crying about 20 minutes in. I go through the rest of class feeling like I don't even give a shit anymore. I'm just like dragging my body. But it doesn't care. It kind of likes the pain. I do feel alive at least. It's funny. I got so excited about her, but there's all these other hot girls in a room. I don't give a shit about any of them, and I get the feeling they don't give a shit about me either. I feel invisible. The yoga instructor notices me at least, but then again, she's working, getting paid to be here. One other woman, who's not very attractive, looks at me and smiles. I'm like, fuck. That's better than nothing, I guess, but not much. Like, look at us. All these beautiful women in the studio. There's probably a good percentage of them are single. There's got to be at least one who might like me. Nope. I walk out of my car, absolutely destroyed. I cry again towards the end of class. It's not my mat up, my yoga towel up. I get in my car. My friend texts me good morning. I want to text him, fuck you. Why do you even bother sending me these stupid ass good morning messages? I text him back good morning.
I do get a little bit of inspiration. I start to think, you know what, if I know what I need to do, then all I need to do is do it. Like I've been struggling figuring out what is it that I need to do. And if I know it's making my deeper connections event, then all I need to do is do it. So I do end up saying thank you a few times. Thank you for this clarity. This pain and suffering showed me what I really need and what I need to give other people. Just like in AA, the founders realized by helping other people stay sober that they'd stay sober themselves. Like, man, if I can help other people with their loneliness, maybe I won't be lonely again. I get home in a fever pitch. I take a shower, and I think I got to dictate a letter to write to people. The best way I can think to promote this event is to have a letter that really explains the problem so people can identify and see the pain, see that I understand the pain, and that if we work together, we can help each other. But we're not going to... Fucking get better sitting at home on our goddamn phones, listening to books, watching videos. No amount of fucking videos and books and courses is going to fix loneliness.
I dictate for an hour and I realize I come up with something that's kind of a breakthrough. Our lives are filled with synthetic connection today. The illusion that we're a part of this big world and big community, but the reality is most of our lives are smaller than ever. We're stuck on our devices. We're not really seeing or hearing each other lots of times. I remember listening to my mother go on and on about this dog that she was trying to get. And it struck me one time that one night when I was actually really listening to her that she was just lonely and wanted a dog. I'm like, damn, how have I had so many phone calls with my mother where she went on and on about dogs and I didn't hear the basic foundation thing she was saying. That I'm lonely and I'm doing my best to find a dog. And once I realized I really heard what she was saying, I'm like, Mom, I'll help get you a dog. It's not a big deal. And I got her a dog, and she loves this dog today. I'm like, holy shit, I actually was really listening to my mother on the phone once. I've been so distracted on screens myself that, you know, I've got decades where I didn't form relationships with people. My life is much smaller than it should be, and it's because of my choices.
I dictate an hour and 14 minute long letter. And I think, man, I should just edit this. I start editing it. But then I'm hungry. I eat lunch. I make the mistake of asking ChatGPT about it. And it says the letter's fucked. It's too long. It rambles. It sounds like a manifesto. And it gives me a nice one page letter I could crank out instead. Like, no, nobody is going to read a one page letter from a stranger and go to that fucker's house. Nobody's going to do that. I need more time to really identify and show somebody that I understand their pain and how I come up with a solution. What else I've tried. Here's the solution. Come to my house. We'll have this event called Deeper Connections. We'll get to really know each other. It'll be special. I need time to do that. Not one page. I realize genius is simplifying, but there's a certain level where you can simplify. And after that, it's to you lose the message.
So I re-dictate another letter because that first one is just not going to work and it's going to take too long to edit it. So I dictate a deeper connections letter three. I dictated an hour and 10 minute one yesterday, which I was starting to edit when the kids came over. I realized that one didn't have enough emotion. So I dictated the one today for an hour and 16 minutes, it turns out. And that one had too much, too many tangents. So I dictate a 41 minute version that I think has nice key points and stories I shared in the first letter, but is shorter. It initially is like 10 pages. I edit it down first myself, then with ChatGPT's help. I get it down to five pages. I think this is a good length. Now it's long enough. It's long enough where it carries a message, but it's short enough where it doesn't go on. I've edited a lot of kind of the crazier shit out of it. At least in my opinion, I added a lot of the crazier shit out of it. And it's 2788 words right now. But even as I'm dictating this, I'm like, This is this actually going to work? Can I stand to pass out 500 or 1000 of these and not get one person to book the event? I mean, it won't actually hardly cost me anything to pass out that many of them because I already have the printer ink. I already have the paper. I already have the envelopes. But can I stand to pass out? I have 750 envelopes. Can I stand to stuff all those letters and print out all those pages? Thousands of pages. Can I stand to do all that and get nothing?
I talk to my ex-wife on the phone about it. She's supportive, but she's clearly tired of hearing about my work and stuff. But she's nice. She listens. She tries to support me. She says the kids will be available tomorrow afternoon. After I hang up with her, I walk around Crescent Lake. I continue to edit the letter. And then I settle on going to a later AA meeting. I go to this AA meeting. And I thought I was sad sitting in a house by myself, but sitting in this AA meeting, I'm even more sad. I just feel like this is not what I need right now. But I don't have any better options. I really wish I had my deeper connections event going already so I could hold the space for it. But this AA meeting, this is going to have to do. I sit there and I start to go further down the drain while I'm in the AA meeting. I actually get called on right away. And I do my best to dump out, you know, the talk about surrendering. I'm like, well, there's a time to surrender. Like I had surrendered before that, you know, being sober sucks and I should just drink. It's like, no, you should fight for your sobriety and you should surrender to the fact and stop fighting to try and figure out how to drink. So that was basically what I shared. And then I passed and I called a fellow member the wrong name. And she's sensitive about being called the wrong name because I've called her wrong name a bunch of times. I would tell you what I called her that's not her name and what's her name, but, you know, we want to remain somewhat anonymous, right?
After the meeting, she talked to me, another guy talked to me, and people asked how I'm doing, and I'm like, fucking shitty. Like, I feel like I have a relationship with God, if you will, or with my body, with life. I'm like, you know, my mind's got to have some better ideas, and there's got to be a way to have a relationship and love. But at the same time, there are things worth fighting for. And then I get scared. I'm like, you know, what really keeps me here is hope. Hope that my life's going to work out in a way that I'm excited about and I'm proud of. Hope then I'm going to have lots of great experiences that I'm going to love and enjoy, hope that I'm going to be happy.
I started to think about my late father's life. So much of the last 15 years of his life was just misery, just loneliness, sitting around watching TV, the news, having a dead relationship with my mother. Fault finding and criticizing her, a life filled with resentment, dealing with children that were in their alcoholism, being pains in the ass. And I'm like, you know, my late father should have changed his life and tried to make it better. And I have kids. I want to be there for my kids. I love my kids. Like, God damn, this life is hard sometimes. And I want to help people. I imagine if I wasn't so lonely, if I had better connections with other people, I wouldn't hit emotional bottoms this thoroughly. I sure would love to have a business that was all about helping build those for other people because my life is actually pretty easy. Like, I have time to socialize and get out there. I have time to meet people. I have time to develop little crushes in yoga classes. But what if I was a single dad that had primary custody of my kids and I had some shit online job? When would I meet people? Like my life is so easy that it makes me angry that so many other people's lives are so much harder. Like if my life seems a bit hopeless sometimes, like a lot of the rest of you are totally fucked. And I don't even see how or why you tolerate it.
I talked to a guy, you know, he seemed to be feeling as bad as me, but yet he seems to feel that way normally. I'm like, see, that's the problem. You shouldn't have gotten used to feeling this shitty. The hedonic treadmill works in both directions. You get used to having things good and that becomes normal and you don't appreciate it, but you also get used to having things shitty and you take it for granted that things are that bad. I'm like, no. So. I didn't even want to talk about this tonight at all. I was like, man, fuck this. I should just go to bed. This whole section makes me look like such a fucking loser. But at least I have the balls to tell the truth about it. Not be a little liar and bitch like so many other people would be. I'm glad I can at least be honest and say, look, this is my life and this is what it looks like. And I'm thinking going forward, the only thing I'm going to publish are these diaries. That the only work I'll do on books. You know, or that almost the only work I'll do will be publishing these. Because for the long term, I mean, these, the best I can share is my honest life experience. Instead of, you know, that's the realest raw shit I've got.
God, I hope tomorrow's a better day than today. You know what it's going to be tomorrow? Fucking Valentine's Day. My first one single since 2010. I wonder if some of my emotions are related to that. She probably has some boyfriend. And she regrets being friendly to me and getting compliment and all that heavy energy. Although when I drove by the studio at just a few minutes, I went to the 830 yoga class. I left at 9 a little after 930 and I drove by about 942. I was driving, so I didn't have time to really check thoroughly. And there's a lot of hot girls there and a lot of them look somewhat similar to her. I could have swore I saw her going in for the 10 a.m. class. But if I hadn't left so quick, I might have ran into her. I easily could have stayed and lingered like five more minutes. I might have ran into her and been able to see her. Then I felt even stupider driving away from the studio. I'm like, what am I going to do now? I just went to this class. I'm gassed. I need to go home and eat. What am I going to do? Drive back there and go to the fucking 10 a.m. class too just to see if she's there? I'm like, what if she had something come up? Or she did want to make it and she did want to see me, but she had work or school or who knows what else would have came up. Now I'm not going to know. I'm like, what if I never see her again? I mean, I very well could easily never see her again, never even know. I'm like, God damn it. I start getting toxic in AA meeting too, thinking, you know, all the... if I only could find, if I knew that I never would meet an attractive woman that I really loved and had more kids with, if I knew that wouldn't work out... I don't know, but I guess we're gonna find out.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.