SIMPLE MATH TO GUIDE LIFE

What to expect...

Tone: outside voice

Snark level: low but sprinkled throughout

Other special provisions: while i'll discuss some depressing material in this post, please know that i mean it to be helpful and inspiring, not a complete downer. but, to rob from an applicable cliche, it's within the darkness we find the brightest light.

in school, i was always a c math student. a c grade is kinda mediocre, which is average, so it ain't all that bad.

just as i often view my life through the lens of economics even though i made a d in my first collegiate econ class (but it ain't my fault the prof was boring af), i often view my life through the lens of simple math.

it wasn't always this way. but it started in 2011.

so let's hop in the wayback machine and see how it all began.

the simple math of grief

in 2011, at the ripe age of 26, i lost my parents just six weeks apart.

that summer my mother was pronounced dead, only to somehow defy the odds and resume breathing, staying on hospice for four months before she was pronounced dead for a second and (so far) final time. (for the record, she was cremated, so the odds of another revival aren't in her favor, though, if previous experience has taught me only one thing, it's that anything is possible at least once. maybe even twice.)

early that same year, a cousin, just a year older than me and who i was once close to but had drifted from as age sometimes makes us do, passed away due to complications with diabetes. then my mom got sick. a few months later, my dad got sick. just short of a month of his diagnosis, he passed away. six weeks later, my mom followed suit.

you may have already picked up on some of the numbers i can't help fixating on:

• 2011
• 26
• six weeks
• four months

but there are a couple other numbers i can't help fixating on too:

• 50
• 51

that's because my dad was 50 when he passed away. my mom was 51. so was my stepdad when he passed away two and a half years later (there's another number to fixate on).

now that the foundation has been set, let's bring the spotlight back to me (where it always belongs amirite).

the simple math that pushes me forward

as i mentioned above, i was 26 when my parents died.

now i'm 40.

if i live as long as my parents, i have 10—maybe 11—years left.

that's not a lot of time.

while i'm not a betting man, i'd say chances are good i'll outlive my parents. the odds are in my favor in that:

• i go to the doctor regularly and i'm unafraid to medicate when necessary.
• i've never smoked a cigarette, so i most certainly don't smoke multiple packs a day like all parental figures mentioned in this post (at least one smoked as many as four packs a day—another damn number to fixate on).
• i'm learning to take life less seriously, thereby lowering my stress levels.

let's say i make it to 85 years of age. that means i have 45 years to go. not too bad.

but how much time do i have left to do great work?

15? maybe 20 if i'm lucky?

as you get further along in your career, you're more likely to move into a mentor role. but i'm worried if that'll be an option for me, for at least a couple reasons

• will there be a new generation of oil and gas land professionals to mentor, considering each generation seems to care less and less about oil and gas than the previous generation? (for the record, i don't blame them. while i think energy is singlehandedly the most important industry in the world, that doesn't mean that it excites me on a regular basis.)
• will there be a new generation to mentor in any field if the c-suites replace all entry-level workers with ai? today's entry-level workers are tomorrow's experts, but where do the experts come from if we've destroyed their pipelines?

maybe i'll be able to mentor younger people in life in general, but, while that work may feed the soul, it doesn't exactly put food on the table.

perhaps you've heard it said that people on their deathbeds tend not to regret what they did but instead what they left undone. i saw that play out with my mother, who confided some regrets to me one day when i went home one weekend. one of those regrets involved me, and i try to remember that as i limp around this imperfect journey we call parenthood.

no matter how pretty a bow we try to put on this topic, i'll be dead one day. so will you. and so will everyone else know or know of or know nothing about or of.

spoiler alert.

i'm sure we'll die with regrets. a life with no regrets is most likely a life not lived at all—or the life of a psychopath. both options kinda suck, if you ask me.

but these days, i try to think of the regrets that would really gnaw at me if left unresolved.

on a purely selfish level, i wanna put my novel out into the world. maybe it's the only novel i got, and that's fine. but as the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket, i can't help wanting to get it out before it's too late. and maybe 'too late' is synonymous with my death, because, best case scenario, that's coming at some point. and no matter when it happens, it's guaranteed to be too soon.

then there's the professional regret. the truth is, i don't really like work—i see it as a necessary evil. and so, if i must give my time to someone else's dream and put my own ambitions to the side, then i want to do something awesome with that sacrificed time. i don't want to push paper on a daily basis, and i've proven i'm capable of far more. i want to do awesome work, not for the sake of work itself, but to poke my chest out and inflate my ego. if that sounds shallow, then so be it—maybe it is, but at least i'm honest. i may be a c math student, but i'm pretty good at sniffing out bs (bad systems), and i love nothing more than simplifying workflows to make everyone else's workday easier and genuinely more productive with less friction. sometimes the benefits of that kinda work are hard to math, but they're real and valuable.

don't forget to carry the zero

i often think of a youtube video in which kurt vonnegut quoted shakespeare:

There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

this post was not written with the intent of depressing readers. it's meant to be a call to arms. don't think of this post as sad and depressing. think of it as strangely inspiring and hopeful.

time is running out. do the math. this can't last forever.

but here's the messy math of life—

some people will say to postpone today's gratification for tomorrow's security. but what if tomorrow never comes? at some point it won't.

also, we don't know what math awaits us as we watch the unraveling of the global order. we can see what we're losing, but we have no idea what will replace it. there's a giant X for which we can't solve. (not the x formerly known as twitter. that one's easy to solve—just shut the damn thing down.)

my parents have been gone for nearly 14 years. in that time, i've been back to my childhood home to visit my mother's final resting place at least twice.

but i haven't seen my dad since the day he was buried, so i've never seen his tombstone. it may sound silly, but that's eaten at me over the years. and i have a feeling it'll continue to eat at me for however long i shall live. it's time to put some demons to rest.

so today, i'm taking a solo roadtrip across the bayou state to close out some business i've left unsettled for far too long. and i'm hoping to get some inspiration for my absurdist grief novel that flirts with the concepts of time and living in a simulation.

i'm 40 years old and i never got to buy my dad a beer. so i'm gonna buy him a miller lite and pop the top for him and catch up a bit. (people in north louisiana will frown at the idea; people in south louisiana will consider it good manners.)

when i get back home, i'm gonna refocus on my novel, because i gave myself a deadline for the end of 2025. i have six months to meet that goal. (damn, there's another number to fixate on. this one's actually making me anxious.)

there was a time when i'd say i'd never wish my experience on anyone. while i'd still never wish it on anyone else, i'm at a point where i can't imagine my life if certain things hadn't happened to me. the possibility simple does not compute. it does not add up.

There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

to pull in another math analogy, such events aren't always so binary. finding lessons in the pain makes the experience valuable. otherwise, it's easy to just keep painting yourself as the victim.

math might not help you make sense of life—as albert camus would say, there's no sense to be made, but we can't help trying to make it so. that said, math can give you plenty to think about.

what's the simple math that guides your life? please feel free to share, if not in the comments, then via email.

goodbye. adios. adieu.