Shit Happens

I was sitting on my couch the other day, talking on the phone, when my wife came in from swimming laps in the pool. She dropped a small object into my hand. It was one of my earrings, which had been missing for about a year. I guess it fell off in the pool? But then again, you’d think that the pool vacuum would have sucked it up by now. Maybe it fell off on the pool deck and it got kicked in the pool somehow? I have no idea how it got in there. But I was happy to have it back—it was one of my favorite pairs of earrings. And before we go any further, yes, I am a man who wears earrings. I am secure in my sexuality.

I’m sure you’ve had this experience before, when you’ve lost your keys, and you’re looking all over the house for them, in your closet, on the kitchen counter, on the couch, in your office, it’s none of these places, and you start to panic, oh my God, I left them somewhere, and you’re totally freaking out, and then you get in your car and they’re sitting on the center console. That feeling you get when you find your keys. You know that feeling? I want to put that in a bottle and sell it. That is the best moment of your day, week, or month. That was how I felt when I got that earring back—I thought it was gone forever.

So I took the earring up to my closet to put it in my jewelry box, and I was very glad that I saved the other earring, and then I turned to look at my clothes, and I noticed that there was a small tear in the suit jacket that I had just brought to NYC for client meetings. I must have snagged it on something. It was a new suit, too—got it about 8 months ago at Suitsupply in New York. It was ruined, and as happy as I was at getting that lost earring back, I was sad about my ripped suit. Now I have to take the jacket back to New York and get a replacement. Prices have gone up over the years, and it was an $1100 suit, versus $20 for the earrings, so net net, I was out $1,080.

This is life, right? Some good shit happens, and some bad shit happens. Sometimes a lot of good shit happens—I have pretty much been on a roll of good shit happening for over a year, now. But sometimes bad shit just rains down on you, over and over and over again. I like to tell people that I have the occasional bad day, but I used to have bad years. 2003 was the worst year of my life. I was convinced I was going to get fired, I was drinking heavily, I was bipolar, I couldn’t make money at work, my marriage was on the rocks, and one day, in the winter of 2003, I was walking through Times Square to work at Lehman, and it has just snowed pretty heavily, and you know how when it snows in New York it turns into black slush within about 12 hours? So I was crossing 49^th Street, and I slipped in the black slush and landed squarely in an enormous pile of it. Coat ruined, suit ruined, shirt ruined, shoes ruined, and I trudged the last 100 feet into the building, walked onto the trading floor, and sat down in my seat completely covered in mud. I was utterly defeated, and probably hung over, too, from drinking alone in my house the night before. That was about the final straw, and I attempted suicide a few days later.

A hypothetical: let’s say that happens to me now. Absurd, since we don’t get much snow in South Carolina, but let’s say I fell in a pile of black slush in South Carolina today, in 2025. I’d probably have a good laugh about it. I mean, yes, I’d have to take a trip to the drycleaners, and yes, some of my clothes might be destroyed, but in the grand scheme of things, is it really that big of a deal? Of course not. None of this is a big deal. So why did I try to kill myself in 2003? And why, twenty years later, in 2023, when my precious little kitty Uma passed away, which actually is a big deal, did I mourn her for a week and get on with my life?

There is a lot going on here, but I will point at what I think is the root of the problem: substance abuse. If you are addicted to alcohol or drugs, you won’t have the occasional bad day. You will have bad years. You will have an inability to react or respond to things in a sober, adult way. Everything becomes a big deal, and it feels like shit is raining down on you all the time. I used to wonder, when I was drinking: why does shit rain down on me all the time? I never made the connection, and I am a pretty smart guy. You see, bad things didn’t always happen when I was drinking. But every time bad things happened, I was drinking. Also, bad things happened when I wasn’t drinking, primarily because drinking had destroyed my character and I was finding myself doing un-esteemable acts. You feel terrible about yourself as an addict or alcoholic, pretty much all the time. You feel bad, so you drink, and then you feel better momentarily, but then later, you feel worse, so then you drink some more, and it’s just a downward spiral. Eventually, I figured it out, but a lot of people don’t.

I am going to get the details wrong on this, but in recent years, some researchers completed a 70-year long study on happiness. They took a graduating class from Harvard, and measured every aspect of their lives. What types of jobs they got, what their politics were, how many kids they had, where they lived—even the length of their scrotums! They were trying to find what behaviors or characteristics had the highest correlation with self-reported happiness. You know what they found out? Nothing! After 70 years, they never got to the bottom of it. But they did find out one interesting thing—the people in the study who reported the lowest levels of happiness reported the highest levels of alcohol consumption. We don’t know what makes people happy, but we know what makes them unhappy—alcohol! I’m not talking about the occasional drink at a party—I’m talking about alcohol abuse. Did you know that 10% of people consume 60% of all alcohol? Found that out recently. If you see a Travelers Whisky commercial on TV with Chris Stapleton, that ad is not intended for you. It is intended for the 10% who are heavy drinkers. Incredible. Brown Forman earnings are dependent on the alcoholics. Seen a chart of BF/B lately? Going down for the dirtnap. There has been a collective revulsion against alcohol in recent years, mostly by young people, because after all this time, people have figured out that hangovers suck and you do stupid things when you drink, like get arrested, have affairs, and crash cars, and nobody wants any of it anymore. The Temperance Movement worked—almost 100 years later. And we didn’t have to ban it and create a huge black market and kill people in enforcement of prohibition. That chart of Brown Forman is one of the best developments for humanity that I can imagine. It is also very bad for the nightclub industry, and as a DJ, that bums me out.

If you’re not abusing drugs or alcohol, you can roll with stuff. If you are, you can’t. It is that simple. Sober, you can handle pretty much anything life throws at you. Since 9/11, I haven’t had much in the way of tragedy in my life. A few pets dying, but few major deaths or illnesses with me or friends or family. I have been mostly living a tragedy-free life. But it’s coming. I’m due. Somehow, I will be tested. I haven’t had a drink in almost 20 years, and my faith is unshakable. I am pretty sure that no matter what happens, I will be able to handle it. My hands get chopped off in some farm equipment accident? I will dictate my books and newsletters with voice-to-text. House burns down? That would be indescribably awful, but I would get through it. I know other people whose houses burned down and they got through it. You can take pretty much everything away from me and I will still have my relationship with God, which is the most important thing. And I don’t have to drink over any of it.

As I’ve written before, there is a place for pessimism. Shit happens, and it’s okay to be upset—for a short period of time. The “everything is awesome” crowd is downright delusional. Most of the time, when something bad happens, it just sucks up money or time. A nuisance, but not the end of the world. One last thing. I read an amazing short story recently, a futuristic short story where rich Westerners would outsource their feelings to Indian IT workers. Have to go to a funeral? Have to break up with a girlfriend? Connect with Vijay telepathically so he can experience the sorrow and pain so you don’t have to. Great premise for a story. But in the story, you could outsource your feeling for pretty much any bad thing, except for the death of a child. They would not offer a price. The last time the Indian feelings firm had someone pinch-hit for the death of a child, that person ended up in the hospital. Nothing could possibly be worse. But you know what? You can get through that, too, if you are sober—I know people who have done it.