Author: Neil Pasricha

Ring the bell.

We’re supposed to run around.

We’re not supposed to be still. We’re not supposed to be quiet.

Pull out to our spinning planet swirling on its axis in the middle of our solar system. Pull out to us spinning around the sun flying through the ever-expanding blackness at breakneck speed. Everything outside is flying faster than we can move and faster than we can imagine…

And here we are, sitting at our desks, staring out our windows.

Pull into our chubby bodies full of pumping blood rushing through beating hearts. Pull into eyeball electrons swirling around eyeball atoms in front of flickering brain cells, swallowing stomachs, and flashing nerves. Everything inside is flying faster than we can move and faster than we can imagine…

Everything outside us in spinning and swirling, everything inside us in spinning and twirling, everything around us is flying and soaring…

We’re not supposed to be still. We’re not supposed to be quiet.

We’re supposed to run around.

Ring the bell.

AWESOME!

Photos from: here, here, here, and here

Big buildings full of flickering lights, faded paint on rusty water towers, and mirrory windows of familiar stores welcome you all the way back home…

Smile and hit the gas as familiar feelings soak back into your brain. Smooth streets and bumpy sideroads, flashing orange lights and dented stop signs, and tipsy toddlers on teetering bikes riding past your front door…

Going away is overrated.

Coming home is

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

I have a fat wallet.

Stuffed to the gills with plastic cards and old receipts it sort of looks like a messy paper sandwich. I barely squeeze it into my jeans and when I sit down it sharply jabs my leg, cutting off all blood supply from my femoral artery.

Every couple of months I get frustrated with the extra baggage and my dead, black leg so I sit down to perform emergency surgery on the kitchen counter. I furrow my brows and snap on some rubber gloves before cracking open its rib cage and digging in with both hands. Tiny folded pockets and little plastic card holders are combed through and shredded receipt guts fly … before I eventually collapse from exhaustion.

The sad part comes next when I try and close the cage back up and realize… it didn’t work. My wallet is still fat. It’s stuffed. It’s packed and I can barely close the thing.

Peering down with sad eyes I’m forced to slowly come to terms the root of my problems: that thick wad of loyalty cards. Hot salty tears drip onto my coffee punchcards and movie theater popcorn passes as I realize I always fall victim to their seductive ways.

I am an extremely cheap person so I sign up for every loyalty card offered to me. Drug store points, gas pump cards, grocery store deals — yes, yes, yes, I say, smiling eagerly and nodding my head with my tongue out like a Cocker Spaniel before stuffing another laminated card into my paper sandwich.

So! Stuffed-purse-and-fat-wallet penny pinchers of the world, heed my call: baggage, back pain, and blocked arteries are no laughing matter so when we finally glance at the cashier with a satisfied smile and toss a card full of stamps on the counter to score a free bran muffin… well just tell me that isn’t all worth it… and just tell me that isn’t all

AWESOME!

Photos from: here, here, here, and here

And driving it right out.

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

It’s what life’s all about.

Seeing old people holding hands is a symbol of a lifelong companionship full of knowing glances, inside smiles, and warm feelings in waiting hearts. As you watch them mosey down the boardwalk during the sunset you can’t help see the connection of two hands that helped shape the world. Those hands made meals, held babies, mowed lawns, and fixed cars. They held faces, went places, called friends, and touched stars.

They tried and built and grew together. They lived and learned and loved together.

Seeing old people holding hands is a simple expression of long lasting affection that fills our hearts with hope. They show us a future world exists of tied-together hearts and long lives lived with someone we love.

AWESOME!

Best book of the year? My vote is for the new PostSecret book!

Photos from: here and here

Umbrella karma is when you lose your umbrella somewhere but then randomly find another one somewhere else.

Whoops, left your rainshade in the restaurant? No worries, there’s an extra one in your front closet from last week’s party. Shoot, did you leave yours at the back of the bus? Well don’t worry because there’s six of them in the corner of this coat rack.

Let your mind slip back and remember all the umbrellas you’ve left under movie seats and in taxi cabs over the years. Smile because you’re part of our great big Secret Shared Umbrella World and we’re all looking out for you. So don’t worry next time you forget your umbrella somewhere… because we’ve recorded your donation and we’ll leave another one out for you soon.

AWESOME!

Congratulations to Frank Warren of PostSecret on his new book! I have read it and absolutely loved it.

Photo from: here

Also known as the M&M Encore.

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

We’re all going down.

People, it’s sad but it’s true: nothing’s gonna stop your big final drop. So live it up now, live it up large, because at the end of the day you aren’t really in charge. Look, we’re not spinning, gninnips, spinning on this wet rock for long, so let’s all enjoy singing our songs with big days full of belly laughs, loving moments, and late nights with close friends.

One day you will have a funeral.

Now, none of us want it to happen but we all know it will. Stuffed in a suit, buried in a box, you’ll burn to ashes, walk through pearly gates, chill underground, or maybe reincarnate. Point is, your life as you know it will end with red eyes, wet tissues, and tearful speeches filling churches or homes or big grassy fields.

One day you will have a funeral.

But wait — but wait, wait, wait — because before we get way out there let’s stop for a moment and look at your life. Look at gurgling babies in the bedroom, sultry glances late at night, and cracking high fives with friends… look at skinny dipping after dark, swinging under moonlight in the park, and coming home after school to your puppy’s little barks…

Yes, your life’s full of dirty inside jokes, laughing till it hurts, and smiling so hard till the end.

So one day you may have a funeral in a heavy room full of black clothes, somber glances, and heart-wrenching moments of gut-wrenching grief, but … maybe if you’re lucky there will also be some lighter moments too. Maybe there will be some  little jokes, funny anecdotes, and silly smiles shining through the pain.

Laughs at a funeral cut the tension, bring us closer together, and remind us all of the big banging life we shared with you. They slice through the searing weight of your loss and swirl us into smiling about everything we had together while reminding us we’ll all be okay …

AWESOME!

Photos from: here, here, and here

Finding out someone shares a birthday with you feels like stars aligning, hearts criss-crossing, and lives twisting and tangling together.

If they share your actual year it’s even more special because you grew up sharing moments and memories and histories and horoscopes, too. Libra to Libra, Pisces to Pisces, you break it down around town chatting about childhood birthday parties, deliciously disgusting foods, and hometown habits that died hard.

Suddenly it’s a reminder it’s not just about you because someone else is partying hard on your party day.

Suddenly it feels like you’re sharing a secret.

Suddenly it feels like a friend.

AWESOME!

Photo from: here

Your brain is a machine.

Yes, that soft and squishy lump is bursting with colors and pictures and people and places and smells and sights and sounds. Your brain knows things it hasn’t even told you yet. Sometimes it surprises you with forgotten flickers, crystal-clear connections, or moments of sparkling intensity. Lightning bolts zap, connections crackle, and memories zoom and float around the distant outer recesses of your ever expanding world.

Of course, sometimes things also fade away.

People leave, distances grow, and memories dissolve into blurs. Photo albums collect dust in creaky attics, cracked jewel cases get buried in the closet, and today’s moments plaster over yesterday’s highs and lows.

That’s why it’s great when your brain surprises you once in a while.

When an old song pops on the radio it’s always beautiful when your spider-web recesses suddenly spin the wheels and crank out all the lyrics to that dusty gem. Your head bops, your eyes twinkle, and you flash back into a moment from your past… to late night driveways chats… nervous hearts in dark basements… and beautifully distant memories that remind you who you are.

AWESOME!

Photos from: here, here, and here