WYFP: 11,000 Days Old Edition

October 21, 1987. The stock market was recovering from its crash two days earlier. Robert Bork was two days from being, well, Borked. And a woman at Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro, NC, gave birth to a bundle of joy. Or maybe it wasn’t joy. Maybe it was a bundle of class, sass, and kickassery.*

Whatever you call that bundle, he just turned 30 years old on October 21, and today, December 2, he celebrates another milestone:

Today, I have been alive for 11,000 days.

11,000 days!

So I figured I’d do what I did on my birthday and celebrate by asking what your effing problem is. But first, I have to share 11 things I’ve learned in the last 11,000 days. These aren’t necessarily the most important things I’ve learned, but they’re on my mind today.

1. Relationships matter.
2. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it still sucks to have a limited income.
3. It hurts to be excluded.
4. It hurts even more to be rejected — especially if it’s for some bulls**t or irrelevant reason.
5. You can lead someone to knowledge, but you can’t make them think.
6. You don't need sex, drugs, or beer to be happy. But you may need rock and roll.
7. Leadership isn’t always based on position.
8. Michigan is beautiful, but Colorado and Arizona are nice too.
9. When someone close to you dies, the grief is often worse before they actually pass.
10. Take nothing for granted.
11. The Detroit Tigers don’t have a bullpen to speak of.

Well, those are just a few of the things I’ve learned over the past 11,000 days. My FP, such as it is, is that I’ve learned lessons 2 through 5 the hard way in recent years.

So what’s your freaking problem?

*That autocorrected to “chicanery”. Make of that what you will.