Humble Pursuit

January 4th is an odd duo of holidays: Trivia Day and Humiliation Day. Trivia Day may be the obvious one when it comes to "How does one celebrate?" Celebrate by bringing the obscure truths into your friends' and family's lives today! Tell them that Lou Gehrig was the first athlete on a Wheaties box. Tell them that pretzels were once hidden on easter instead of eggs. Tell them that Philedelphia Cream Cheese was created in 1872 by William Lawrence. Mine are all food related because I haven't eaten breakfast yet, but I think you catch my drift.

Humiliation Day, however, is completely different, and only related to Trivia Day if you often gloat and rub your Trivial Pursuit winnings in other people's face. It is a day to go to anyone you have humiliated and apologize to them. Yes, I know, it wasn't what I was expecting, either. Fair enough, though. I'm sure there are a few of those people in my life, as I'm sure there are yours. So take the time to say something to them today in order to get full credit for today.

No going halfsies on a two-holiday day.

Thanks for reading!
~Kyle

Grab your comfiest of pajamas.

Because January 3rd is the Festival of Sleep! Today is dedicated to those many hours of sleep you lost last year. To celebrate, you simply sleep. Don't let anyone call you lazy for it, but instead just tell them that they have no holiday spirit. Now, I realize that some people may have work or school today, which will make sleeping tricky. But rest assured there are many different methods of sleep for you to use. Anything above the 8 hours you always get (because that's healthy and you always do what is healthy) can and should be counted as a celebratory sleep session. Nodding off in a boring meeting? Consider each of those head bobs a nod of recognition and remembrance towards an hour of sleep you lost last year. Got a study hall and you have nothing to study? Power nap for the rest of those 45 minutes like you weren't already going to. You could even pay tribute to specific parts of sleep. Do you like the dreams you have? Then day-dream (also called using your imagination) today and discuss what the odd machinations of your inner mind are creating with your fellow dreamers. I'm sure you'll find a way to celebrate, and I'm sure there are many. As for myself, I'll be taking a few cat naps or doing something I like to call "Sleep Zoning"

Thanks for reading!
~Kyle

New Ideas

The second day of celebration is underway, and I once again find myself with a somewhat easy day to celebrate. "Run it Up the Flagpole and See Who Salutes" Day is the holiday for January 2nd, and I at first thought "I have no flag or flagpole, and I hardly want to wait around all day under one and count who salutes as I can probably ballpark that number at somewhere under 10." Luckily for me and my immune system (it's 30ºF outside and a little windy), that is not what the holiday is truly about.

No, "Run it up the flagpole (and see who salutes)" is an old phrase from around 60 years ago and means something to the affect of "Put out a new idea to see the general reaction to it." Much easier than standing under a cold pole in the winter resisting the urge to see if my tongue would really stick to it, right? If you truly thought hard about it, we are at no shortage for new ideas, but our filtering system has gotten so quick at auto-deleting the ones we deem as "stupid", "inefficient", or "incredibly life-threatening" that we may never run them by anybody. We have also become a little quick to shoot down others' ideas if they inconvenience us. In simpler terms, we've replaced our childhood's "What if" with a grown up "How about not?".

So today, I will resist no urge to suppress any idea I have, no matter how outlandish. If I think of a solution, I will recommend it instantly. All thoughts of innovation will be noted and then scrutinized by others, but I will have at least tried. None of my ideas may work, but I will have contributed all that I possibly could, and who knows, maybe pieces of my ideas would work with another person's idea.

After all, it would seem to me that other people's strange ideas have worked at at least some level of success for them.

1879

1908

2004

Thanks for reading!

~Kyle