Thanks for reminding us to fight the threat against optimism--love that! At the end of each year I try to do something similar. Two things I’ll be adding to mine this year started as negative, but have ended on a positive note:
1. My brother’s cancer came back. I donated superstar stem cells that kicked that cancer’s ass.
2. My youngest child’s opioid addiction finally hit an all-time low, allowing me to step in and offer two choices: homelessness or rehab. He’ll celebrate his 21st birthday on Tuesday and 7 months of sobriety on Christmas Day. And that’s all I want for Christmas.
Holly, these are incredible wins! I’m so happy for you and your family and I hope you keep winning!
Also, thank you for sharing these wins. If you wrote about them, feel free to drop the link here. I’d love to read about them and I’m sure I’m not alone.
I wrote a series on being a stem cell donor to bring more awareness to the donor process and great need for more people to register in the Be The Match database.
Bless your family-my husband has 30 yers, Son, 19, daughter has 15years, too. Healing from the pain take some time and effort but our family is stronger fir the trials- much love heading your way💞
Wow! Those are awesome numbers, Kathy! I have to agree with you about being strengthened by trials. My son and I were discussing this one day, and while he does have regrets, he's not sorry for what he's gone through. He has come through it a much better person who's still growing. I actually wrote about that a few months ago. I'll post a link here. Thanks for sending good wishes and love!
My year started out rough - dealing with the loss of my bf of 17 years, and all the strain of readjusting to single life. But despite that, I unlocked a few life goals and rekindled some personal passions. Three highlights:
1. I made it on to Jeopardy. Though I didn't win, it gave me entry into an exclusive "club" and introduced me to some awesome new friends. And it fooled a lot of folks into thinking I'm smart. 😝
2. I trained for and launched a new side hustle as a voiceover actor - the perfect outlet for all the weird voices that live in my head, without the stress of actually having to perform in front of people or even interact with them in person.
3. I got to return to Hawaii, visit friends in AZ, visit the weirdness of Vegas - and see the "weirdest" of them all - Weird Al, had visits from old friends (including one I hadn't seen in over 23 years), and spend more time with local friends new and old.
Your year did start out rough, but you put together some really impressive wins! Had you gone on a good Jeopardy winning streak, I think you would've had plenty of weird anecdotes to share. But still, I'm envious of anyone who goes on Jeopardy, win or lose. It's kind of a dream of mine. Maybe I need to make that happen in 2023. Finally, seeing Weird Al is always a win. Saw him several years ago at the Greek and I gotta say he puts on one of the best shows I've ever seen.
Love these! Congrats on all the very well deserved professional accomplishments! You put out a lot great work this year! Now I have to ask, what is a red panda and where do I find one?
The red panda is an adorable wonderful furry mammal that lives primarily in Nepal and China. Think cat + raccoon with a beautiful coat. The movie Turning Red is all about red pandas, and the Firefox browser is named after them. They live in trees and eat bamboo, but are unrelated to the giant panda.
At the Pittsburgh Zoo, they have a red panda encounter, where you can spend an hour learning about red pandas, pet one, and feed one grapes - all to benefit efforts to save them in the wild, as they’re endangered. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. They’ve been my favorite animal for a long time. It was like meeting a celebrity!
1) I got inspired by an excellent friend to celebrate my wins, which I REALLY needed a reminder to do.
2) I earned 34 rejection letters, each one giving me a little kick in the ass I need to work harder.
3) I learned to river tube with my son and husband and we’ve never laughed harder.
4) I learned the difference between a prairie dog and an actual dog the hard way, making my son and husband laugh every time they remember it. I REALLY love making them laugh.
5) We got our first dog and my heart grew 15 sizes bigger. Worth my imminent murder that the cat is surely plotting.
I love all of these, especially #6! But also I’m really proud of you for #2. I know it feels like getting your ass kicked, but you’re actually kicking ass!
SO GLAD YOU FINALLY WENT PAID. That's a real win! Or did I miss this earlier? Everyone should have the opportunity to fork over for your great newsletter, Mr. Estrin!
Congrats on your wins! What a good year you had. And I loved reading about everyone else's wins too. What a good idea!
I cannot start listing my wins for the year because I don't have all day. Haha!
You didn't miss a thing! Actually, you're very observant. I switched on the paid option just before this post, so this was the very first opportunity to fork over some cabbage. So far, I'm really encouraged by how many people saw the opportunity and went paid without any real prompting.
1. My big win this year was finally being able to move out into my own apartment, and learning how to tackle all those household chores solo.
2. Also, finally coming out to my family, who simultaneously took it incredibly badly, but also took it better than I expected. We are...a very slow work in progress. I have one cousin who wants to meet my boyfriend, we're having dinner this week. That's a win.
3. A successful first Thanksgiving dinner with my boyfriend's family!
4. I too got back into movies at the theater and have really leaned into matinees on the weekends and it's been possibly my favorite thing to do.
5. Saw my favorite band live 8 times this year, including a 3 day in a row spree up and down the Northeast, which included my first solo vacation exploring Manhattan on my own, which was an incredible adventure.
6. With so much upheaval in my life I didn't write or read very much for a good chunk of the year, so I'm proud of myself for getting back on track for both in the last few months of the year, I read some great books wrote some things I'm really proud of.
Thank you for this post, Michael. I think as long as I keep reading your stuff, my personal quest for optimism is going to be a lot easier. Congrats on your big list of wins! I'm sure I could come up with as many, and I will before the year is out. I think my biggest win has been finding Substack. And I'm measuring that simply by how much more excited I am to create and share new things with total strangers on the internet. Strangers who are becoming less strangerly every day. Great writers and good people all over the place in here. 💘
That's a great win, Meg! I used to write these stories on Facebook, then TinyLetter, but it wasn't until I found Substack that things started to get exciting.
Such a wonderful post, Michael! And what a great year you had.
As a noted pessimist and cynic, I agree it's a slippery slope avoiding the full turn to the dark side. As cheesy as it sounds, I think what keeps me drifting toward the light is gratitude. The world is a tough place, but recognizing what's going right and staying present keeps me grounded and hopeful.
I'm overwhelmed by the fact you read 55 books. What an achievement! I wish I read more fiction, but I'm cursed as a slow reader and obsessed with The Economist, The FT and The New Yorker. Need to carve out more time for books. BTW, I'd like to think I encouraged you -- even if subliminally -- to subscribe to The Economist.
My biggest win of 2022 was launching my Substack and getting to know so many great writers and readers. The community keeps me energized and creatively fulfilled.
Congrats on your first year, Amran! And I’ll let you in on a few secrets about the books. First, I’m not a dad, so I have more free time. Second, I don’t watch much TV. Third, I’ve been an audiobook guy since junior high, due to some vision challenges. Audio makes it really easy to multitask. So for example, I can learn about what a total goon Nixon was while making dinner, doing the laundry and cleaning the house.
Can't address secret one without ending up homeless. I watch almost zero TV too, so with you there. I was a big audiobook guy for a while but then dumped Audible. I don't listen to any podcasts these days either, but find myself using the multitasking time listening to the audio version of The Economist.
The dad thing's an issue that's not going away any time soon, so maybe I should get back on the audiobook train. What service do you use?
I use Audible, but I’ve been drifting away from them, mostly because they’ve prioritized podcast and audio plays. Those are fun, but they’ve kind of buried a lot of great books, especially in the humor category. I also use Libby to access audiobooks from the LA public library. That’s my preferred service because I like supporting my local library, libraries still pay authors because they purchase the books, and using a library makes me more likely to take a chance on a new writer, genre, or topic. The only downside, and it’s a big one, is that you usually have to wait a long time for new books. Oh, and some authors do audio rights exclusive to audible, which means the library catalog may not have some books. So for new books and exclusives I go audible, but the library is always the first I search.
I caught myself feeling down about not having much to show for myself this year, and then thought about it again, and *goodness* it's been a lot more than I thought.
- Quit smoking...not for the first time, but hopefully the last
- Transitioned from a job I barely tolerated into one I genuinely love
- Got invited to speak on a panel at NYCC
- Met R.L. Stine and got his autograph
- Had my first live author event/book signing (and sold two books, lol)
- Have kept up with a bullet journal for my second year running and am getting a lot of joy from it
- Sold a book to a publisher (out in April 2023)
- Joined the Horror Writers Association
All in all, I'm pretty excited to see what the next year might bring.
Bullet journals are kind of like a combo of diary and planner. They’re a free form way to keep track of things, record thoughts, to-do lists etc. regular day planners are too restrictive and stress me out so the bujo format has helped me get organized
Oh! I guess I've been keeping a bullet journal for years. It's a giant legal pad on the side of my desk where I write EVERYTHING down. Never knew it had a name. Maybe I should ditch the pad and get a notebook, but I just love legal pads for some reason.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy your humor Michael. You tread a fine line between cynicism and humor and it makes it more interesting and engaging. I think you've got a great hold on that. Congrats on all of your hard work and accomplishments this year. I look forward to more Situation Normal in 2023!
Dec 11, 2022·edited Dec 11, 2022Liked by Michael Estrin
Honestly, that’s an admirable attitude towards humor as a pursuit and tool. I don’t think enough about the wider ecosystem, and occaisionally release something that could eat through a glass beaker. Which is fine when it matters, or I believe in it. But should something be that way because I had a breakup that month? Or skipped lunch?
I’ll try some more light side techniques. If nothing else, it’ll give me a trick at Sith parties.
For what it’s worth, I think your best stuff comes from an optimistic place. Everything Abridged is a prime example. Each entry is hilarious, but it’s the book’s ambition that speaks to your optimism. Only a Jedi master would happily tackle EVERYTHING.
Every time Michael drops knowledge about being less cycnical I fear he's directly going in on me! But I hard agree writing is itself an optimistic enterprise. I write satire/dark comedy because I want to reflect and refract the world I see -- and often don't like -- into a vision of the world as I'd like it to be. In that sense, I guess I'm a delusional optimist as well.
Also, since we saved the country, we should probably team up again soon. Maybe we can save the world this time.
Dark comedy, also known as gallows humor, is a deeply optimistic comedic response to circumstances that either seem, or truly are, hopeless. For what it’s worth, your democracy screenplays are remarkably optimistic and darkly funny.
I have a terrible habit of celebrating other people's wins - getting excited for them and telling them to be so proud of themselves, but not doing the same for myself . Recognising that bit of "I did a good job and I can compliment myself" is a hard for me. I'm so critical of my own successes.
However, here are a few wins for me.
1. Read 14 books this year - a bit of a sham to your 55, but my goal was just to read 12 this year. One a month.
2. Hit the gym three times a week, minimum. I did that and started running a 5K regularly. I still hate running but being in shape again has given me a better relationship with my mind and body.
3. Launching my Substack and finally taking the leap to pursue some creative writing has been the biggest win for me. It's been a really slow building an audience and sometimes really difficult to not focus on the numbers, but I've set new writing goals for next year which I'm excited to tackle.
Thanks for reminding us to fight the threat against optimism--love that! At the end of each year I try to do something similar. Two things I’ll be adding to mine this year started as negative, but have ended on a positive note:
1. My brother’s cancer came back. I donated superstar stem cells that kicked that cancer’s ass.
2. My youngest child’s opioid addiction finally hit an all-time low, allowing me to step in and offer two choices: homelessness or rehab. He’ll celebrate his 21st birthday on Tuesday and 7 months of sobriety on Christmas Day. And that’s all I want for Christmas.
(You may have convinced me to try yoga again.)
Holly, these are incredible wins! I’m so happy for you and your family and I hope you keep winning!
Also, thank you for sharing these wins. If you wrote about them, feel free to drop the link here. I’d love to read about them and I’m sure I’m not alone.
I wrote a series on being a stem cell donor to bring more awareness to the donor process and great need for more people to register in the Be The Match database.
https://hollyrabalais.substack.com/p/on-being-a-stem-cell-donor-part-1
And whew...I've got several posts about my son's recovery--one is actually dropping this Saturday. Until then, take your pick.
https://hollyrabalais.substack.com/p/midweek-musings-the-brotherhood (heart-warming)
https://hollyrabalais.substack.com/p/choosing-the-wrong-path (reflective)
https://hollyrabalais.substack.com/p/dear-george (appreciative)
https://hollyrabalais.substack.com/p/midweek-musings-sand-squirrel-snake (funny)
https://hollyrabalais.substack.com/p/longer-tables (celebratory)
Thank you for sharing this, Holly!
Bless your family-my husband has 30 yers, Son, 19, daughter has 15years, too. Healing from the pain take some time and effort but our family is stronger fir the trials- much love heading your way💞
Wow! Those are awesome numbers, Kathy! I have to agree with you about being strengthened by trials. My son and I were discussing this one day, and while he does have regrets, he's not sorry for what he's gone through. He has come through it a much better person who's still growing. I actually wrote about that a few months ago. I'll post a link here. Thanks for sending good wishes and love!
https://hollyrabalais.substack.com/p/choosing-the-wrong-path
Incredible Holly! Congratulations!
Thanks, Anne! Doing lots of happy dances over here these days!
Lovely, just lovely. Fantastic post!
1. I started writing.
That’s phenomenal! 👏👏👏 Huge win, Rebecca!
My year started out rough - dealing with the loss of my bf of 17 years, and all the strain of readjusting to single life. But despite that, I unlocked a few life goals and rekindled some personal passions. Three highlights:
1. I made it on to Jeopardy. Though I didn't win, it gave me entry into an exclusive "club" and introduced me to some awesome new friends. And it fooled a lot of folks into thinking I'm smart. 😝
2. I trained for and launched a new side hustle as a voiceover actor - the perfect outlet for all the weird voices that live in my head, without the stress of actually having to perform in front of people or even interact with them in person.
3. I got to return to Hawaii, visit friends in AZ, visit the weirdness of Vegas - and see the "weirdest" of them all - Weird Al, had visits from old friends (including one I hadn't seen in over 23 years), and spend more time with local friends new and old.
Your year did start out rough, but you put together some really impressive wins! Had you gone on a good Jeopardy winning streak, I think you would've had plenty of weird anecdotes to share. But still, I'm envious of anyone who goes on Jeopardy, win or lose. It's kind of a dream of mine. Maybe I need to make that happen in 2023. Finally, seeing Weird Al is always a win. Saw him several years ago at the Greek and I gotta say he puts on one of the best shows I've ever seen.
Oh, I still came away with plenty of weird anecdotes (including a crazy contestant coincidence that I'll have to tell in person). 😜
You are my hero, Jodi! (so are you, Estrin) Sending you both tons of love and admiration. <3
😘
Wow, very interested in the voice acting. Any place in particular you frequent?
Thanks for creating the space to celebrate wins! It’s always fun to look back on the year. Here are 5 quick ones for me, in no particular order...
1. My partner and I pet and fed a red panda!
2. Adventure Snack has over 1500 subs and counting.
3. I was asked to speak at Narrascope, a convention for interactive fiction.
4. I had the top ranking short game of this year’s IFComp.
5. We adopted a new cat, a beautiful tiger striped bub named Madeline.
Love these! Congrats on all the very well deserved professional accomplishments! You put out a lot great work this year! Now I have to ask, what is a red panda and where do I find one?
The red panda is an adorable wonderful furry mammal that lives primarily in Nepal and China. Think cat + raccoon with a beautiful coat. The movie Turning Red is all about red pandas, and the Firefox browser is named after them. They live in trees and eat bamboo, but are unrelated to the giant panda.
At the Pittsburgh Zoo, they have a red panda encounter, where you can spend an hour learning about red pandas, pet one, and feed one grapes - all to benefit efforts to save them in the wild, as they’re endangered. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. They’ve been my favorite animal for a long time. It was like meeting a celebrity!
Very cool! I always wanted to visit Pittsburg, so you just added another reason to the list!
1) I got inspired by an excellent friend to celebrate my wins, which I REALLY needed a reminder to do.
2) I earned 34 rejection letters, each one giving me a little kick in the ass I need to work harder.
3) I learned to river tube with my son and husband and we’ve never laughed harder.
4) I learned the difference between a prairie dog and an actual dog the hard way, making my son and husband laugh every time they remember it. I REALLY love making them laugh.
5) We got our first dog and my heart grew 15 sizes bigger. Worth my imminent murder that the cat is surely plotting.
6) We made a BIG decision as a family.
I love all of these, especially #6! But also I’m really proud of you for #2. I know it feels like getting your ass kicked, but you’re actually kicking ass!
I read the same page of a book 55 times, does that count. I may have to unsubscribe because of the whole yoga thing.
😂😂😂
I started my own substack called the weekly beginner !
https://abdullahiadam.substack.com/
Congrats on starting your newsletter!
Tips for growth?
Write consistently. That’s the most important thing when you’re starting out.
How do I grow via social media especially Instagram?
No idea, sorry. I don’t get many readers from social media and I don’t use instagram.
So how did you grow 🤔
SO GLAD YOU FINALLY WENT PAID. That's a real win! Or did I miss this earlier? Everyone should have the opportunity to fork over for your great newsletter, Mr. Estrin!
Congrats on your wins! What a good year you had. And I loved reading about everyone else's wins too. What a good idea!
I cannot start listing my wins for the year because I don't have all day. Haha!
You didn't miss a thing! Actually, you're very observant. I switched on the paid option just before this post, so this was the very first opportunity to fork over some cabbage. So far, I'm really encouraged by how many people saw the opportunity and went paid without any real prompting.
Yay that's very cool!
1. My big win this year was finally being able to move out into my own apartment, and learning how to tackle all those household chores solo.
2. Also, finally coming out to my family, who simultaneously took it incredibly badly, but also took it better than I expected. We are...a very slow work in progress. I have one cousin who wants to meet my boyfriend, we're having dinner this week. That's a win.
3. A successful first Thanksgiving dinner with my boyfriend's family!
4. I too got back into movies at the theater and have really leaned into matinees on the weekends and it's been possibly my favorite thing to do.
5. Saw my favorite band live 8 times this year, including a 3 day in a row spree up and down the Northeast, which included my first solo vacation exploring Manhattan on my own, which was an incredible adventure.
6. With so much upheaval in my life I didn't write or read very much for a good chunk of the year, so I'm proud of myself for getting back on track for both in the last few months of the year, I read some great books wrote some things I'm really proud of.
Spencer, these are fantastic wins all around! And guess what, these wins will fuel future writing, I can promise you that. You are crushing it!
Thank you for this post, Michael. I think as long as I keep reading your stuff, my personal quest for optimism is going to be a lot easier. Congrats on your big list of wins! I'm sure I could come up with as many, and I will before the year is out. I think my biggest win has been finding Substack. And I'm measuring that simply by how much more excited I am to create and share new things with total strangers on the internet. Strangers who are becoming less strangerly every day. Great writers and good people all over the place in here. 💘
That's a great win, Meg! I used to write these stories on Facebook, then TinyLetter, but it wasn't until I found Substack that things started to get exciting.
Indeed. I'm in a good mood all the time now, and it's freaking me out. 😂
My biggest accomplishment is
1. Researching how one knows when it is time to retire?
2. Looking at what I would gain, rather than lose if I retired.
3. Asking lots of retired people “what do you do all day?”
Maybe next year I will get to celebrate being retired-if I can ever decide the wins outweigh the losses.
That’s great, Kathy! I think you’re winning whatever you decide!
Such a wonderful post, Michael! And what a great year you had.
As a noted pessimist and cynic, I agree it's a slippery slope avoiding the full turn to the dark side. As cheesy as it sounds, I think what keeps me drifting toward the light is gratitude. The world is a tough place, but recognizing what's going right and staying present keeps me grounded and hopeful.
I'm overwhelmed by the fact you read 55 books. What an achievement! I wish I read more fiction, but I'm cursed as a slow reader and obsessed with The Economist, The FT and The New Yorker. Need to carve out more time for books. BTW, I'd like to think I encouraged you -- even if subliminally -- to subscribe to The Economist.
My biggest win of 2022 was launching my Substack and getting to know so many great writers and readers. The community keeps me energized and creatively fulfilled.
Here's to 2023!
Congrats on your first year, Amran! And I’ll let you in on a few secrets about the books. First, I’m not a dad, so I have more free time. Second, I don’t watch much TV. Third, I’ve been an audiobook guy since junior high, due to some vision challenges. Audio makes it really easy to multitask. So for example, I can learn about what a total goon Nixon was while making dinner, doing the laundry and cleaning the house.
Can't address secret one without ending up homeless. I watch almost zero TV too, so with you there. I was a big audiobook guy for a while but then dumped Audible. I don't listen to any podcasts these days either, but find myself using the multitasking time listening to the audio version of The Economist.
The dad thing's an issue that's not going away any time soon, so maybe I should get back on the audiobook train. What service do you use?
I use Audible, but I’ve been drifting away from them, mostly because they’ve prioritized podcast and audio plays. Those are fun, but they’ve kind of buried a lot of great books, especially in the humor category. I also use Libby to access audiobooks from the LA public library. That’s my preferred service because I like supporting my local library, libraries still pay authors because they purchase the books, and using a library makes me more likely to take a chance on a new writer, genre, or topic. The only downside, and it’s a big one, is that you usually have to wait a long time for new books. Oh, and some authors do audio rights exclusive to audible, which means the library catalog may not have some books. So for new books and exclusives I go audible, but the library is always the first I search.
I caught myself feeling down about not having much to show for myself this year, and then thought about it again, and *goodness* it's been a lot more than I thought.
- Quit smoking...not for the first time, but hopefully the last
- Transitioned from a job I barely tolerated into one I genuinely love
- Got invited to speak on a panel at NYCC
- Met R.L. Stine and got his autograph
- Had my first live author event/book signing (and sold two books, lol)
- Have kept up with a bullet journal for my second year running and am getting a lot of joy from it
- Sold a book to a publisher (out in April 2023)
- Joined the Horror Writers Association
All in all, I'm pretty excited to see what the next year might bring.
Wow, you kicked ass and literally took a name (R.L. Stine) this year! I can’t wait to see what you do in 2023!
Dumb question. What’s a bullet journal?
Heck yeah :)
Bullet journals are kind of like a combo of diary and planner. They’re a free form way to keep track of things, record thoughts, to-do lists etc. regular day planners are too restrictive and stress me out so the bujo format has helped me get organized
Oh! I guess I've been keeping a bullet journal for years. It's a giant legal pad on the side of my desk where I write EVERYTHING down. Never knew it had a name. Maybe I should ditch the pad and get a notebook, but I just love legal pads for some reason.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy your humor Michael. You tread a fine line between cynicism and humor and it makes it more interesting and engaging. I think you've got a great hold on that. Congrats on all of your hard work and accomplishments this year. I look forward to more Situation Normal in 2023!
Thank you, Brian!
Honestly, that’s an admirable attitude towards humor as a pursuit and tool. I don’t think enough about the wider ecosystem, and occaisionally release something that could eat through a glass beaker. Which is fine when it matters, or I believe in it. But should something be that way because I had a breakup that month? Or skipped lunch?
I’ll try some more light side techniques. If nothing else, it’ll give me a trick at Sith parties.
For what it’s worth, I think your best stuff comes from an optimistic place. Everything Abridged is a prime example. Each entry is hilarious, but it’s the book’s ambition that speaks to your optimism. Only a Jedi master would happily tackle EVERYTHING.
Every time Michael drops knowledge about being less cycnical I fear he's directly going in on me! But I hard agree writing is itself an optimistic enterprise. I write satire/dark comedy because I want to reflect and refract the world I see -- and often don't like -- into a vision of the world as I'd like it to be. In that sense, I guess I'm a delusional optimist as well.
Also, since we saved the country, we should probably team up again soon. Maybe we can save the world this time.
Dark comedy, also known as gallows humor, is a deeply optimistic comedic response to circumstances that either seem, or truly are, hopeless. For what it’s worth, your democracy screenplays are remarkably optimistic and darkly funny.
Thank you! I've got a related one coming in January I think you'll enjoy.
I have a terrible habit of celebrating other people's wins - getting excited for them and telling them to be so proud of themselves, but not doing the same for myself . Recognising that bit of "I did a good job and I can compliment myself" is a hard for me. I'm so critical of my own successes.
However, here are a few wins for me.
1. Read 14 books this year - a bit of a sham to your 55, but my goal was just to read 12 this year. One a month.
2. Hit the gym three times a week, minimum. I did that and started running a 5K regularly. I still hate running but being in shape again has given me a better relationship with my mind and body.
3. Launching my Substack and finally taking the leap to pursue some creative writing has been the biggest win for me. It's been a really slow building an audience and sometimes really difficult to not focus on the numbers, but I've set new writing goals for next year which I'm excited to tackle.
Natalie! These are great wins! Thank you for sharing them and for showing up all year with great comments!