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The Bad Thing About Tax Refunds

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Tomorrow is tax day in the United States. For many years, Kim and I looked forward to a tax refund, dreaming about how big it might be and what we'd do with the windfall. It felt like a little present, which is weird, because if you buy a sandwich with a twenty dollar bill and the clerk gives you fifteen dollars back, you don’t thank him for the gift. Of course, it was really our money all along. We simply paid more taxes than we were required to over the course of the year, and the government sent us back the change. In the early days, the main reason we got such a good refund is because our business was not very successful. And by not very successful, I mean it lost money, which is the exact opposite of what you want your business to do. The interesting thing is what happened in my mind when the business finally started to thrive. The refunds got smaller, then stopped. We started having to pay more taxes. Because I liked the feeling of receiving a check rather than …

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A Message for When You Feel Like a Failure

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Grace is a tricky thing. It’s something we all need but are loathe to accept. Although we perhaps aren’t as generous with it as we could be, we’d still much rather give it than receive it. My son Ben is seven. He has been writing books, typing pages on the computer and printing them out, leaving plenty of space for illustrations. (As I have taught him. ;) His most recent version was about Ninjago, a weighty tome that was a full eight pages in length. Ben’s big sister Lucy served as editor, helping correct some misspellings and punctuation errors. Before her involvement, the sentences were choppy, missing some words, and as most of the copy was generated by sound-spelling, it was tainted by the common accent of childhood. For example: “Liybawey.” Can you figure it out? It’s one of our family’s favorite haunts. Also known as the “library." Now, do I look down on him for the missteps, for the obvious spelling errors, and the shallow, predictable plot? Of course not. Do …

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The Downside of Yes

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"The difference between successful people and very successful people is that the very successful people say 'no' to almost everything." –Warren Buffet I love that quote. But I still hate saying no, especially when I feel like I'm disappointing someone. Saying "yes" to new experiences and difficult challenges is an important ingredient of a great life. But the reason so many people are overwhelmed, unfocused, and always on the verge of burnout is because they say 'yes' way too often. Sometimes we say "yes" because we are good people who want to help make the world better. But too often, fear is driving the decision... We say "yes" to invitations to social gatherings that we'd rather not attend, requests to serve on boards we don’t care that much about, and calls to volunteer for groups we don’t have time for, because we're afraid of hurting someone's feelings. We say "yes" to signing up our kids to an insane amount of extracurricular activities because we're afraid that …

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Family First. Really?

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My dad used to work at a lumberyard. He would bring estimating projects home and work on them at night at the dining room table. The overtime pay he earned helped my parents pay ahead on their mortgage. I’m sure there were about a million other things he would have rather been doing, but he spent many evenings at that dining room table, after long days at work, earning a little bit extra. Family first. I will never forget the little watch he kept close at hand, logging his hours. If one of his sons wandered into the dining room, hoping to chat, he’d stop what he was doing, turn off the timer on his watch, and become completely attentive to the person in front of him. Not once did he ever shoo us away or urge us to wrap it up so he could get back to his work. Family first. I remember one of those dining room chats with my dad when I was a teenager. Things were not going well at all with a girl I was infatuated with. I was sure she was "the one," and yet my efforts to win her …

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Cristy Ward, March 2019 Adultitis Fighter of the Month

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An Adultitis Fighter is someone who rallies against rules that don't exist and engages in ruthless, senseless acts of silliness that undermine Adultitis and its unadventurous version of adulthood. Once a month, we shine a light upon the most remarkable among us, holding them up as a dazzling example of what we should strive for in this epic battle against a formidable enemy. Cristy Ward has been hanging around the Escape Adulthood Universe for the long haul! Working with sherpas (kiddos) on a daily basis, she is privy to the secrets of fighting Adultitis more than the average adult, and she uses this knowledge to shine a wonderful light in the world. We had the good fortune of seeing her and meeting her daughter at one of our book stops in Minnesota a few years ago, which was a real hoot. Another thing you need to know about Cristy is that she is a Yarn Wizard, as you can see from her amazing creations shared in this post. She even surprised us a fabulous Marty (actually two …

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