After the four-day extravaganza of the recent Florida steemit meetup, I’m performing a bit of a mental post-mortem on some things. Mostly a random rambling. Feel free to ignore. (well, this IS steemit, so that's not hard to do :)

You know how sometimes when you come back from a vacation, and even if you had a great time and are happy and all that, you get kind of depressed when you slip back into the well-worn shoes of your life’s routine? It’s kind of disappointing to find that nothing changed or improved while you were gone; everything is the same as how you left it, just waiting for you to pick up the yoke again and start pulling.

That’s how it is for me, anyway.

I think a lot of it is because you experience something different, and somehow it feels that different is better. Suddenly, your regular life isn’t quite good enough, and maybe even a small lust for hedonism sets in. You were enjoying life, having a good time, and now you have to stop and be a respectable adult again. Why can’t life always just be fun and games?

Still, you have to be happy with the things you have, not the things you wish you had. However...stealing is sometimes permissible.

Taking Something Away From It

(aka, stealing something from someone without them knowing it)

Some of the minor depression after a vacation, or a gathering of friends or family, or really anything you've looked forward to or planned on for a while, is due to being exposed to a different lifestyle. You see how others are living their lives and wonder if they’re happier than you. You wonder if perhaps they’re doing better than you, if they’ve made better decisions. Other times, you’re exposed to new ways of thinking or bits of knowledge or perspectives. Some of them you find yourself envying, particularly if they’re successful or handsome or wealthy or free to enjoy life.

Whenever I find myself in that position, whether it be after a family reunion or a night out with the wife when we’re surrounded by others, or back from a long vacation, I try to find something (at least one something) I can take away from what I saw and use that to improve myself or my own life.

I’m a writer, or pretend to be, so I spend a lot of time observing and watching. I see one person is handsome, another person is happy, a third has a great sense of humor, a fourth has made excellent financial decisions, etc. I try to imagine the reasons why they are the way they are.

I also try to find something I can take away from these people to improve myself. Maybe I can learn from a decision they made, or a way they behave, or something they plan to do. Interacting with others is a great way to steal their knowledge and experience and opinions and try them on for yourself. Some fit, most do not, but examining them all grows your mind.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Size Doesn’t Matter

If you're scrolling through and just happened to jump to this header, then I guess this mild ramble ended up just being a commentary on self-improvement.

There’s a fair amount of balance between observing others to look for ways to improve yourself, and observing others and being jealous of what they have or how they act or who they are.

I’m not saying I’m entirely successful with that balance. Still, when I fail, I can just tell myself that size doesn’t matter.

_right?

_{Photos by @negativer

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