You know how sometimes you are really behind in your work, you just have so much you are in the middle of and then someone says c’mon lets go out tonight or come hang out in the Hamptons or whatever for the weekend, and there is this real temptation to go for it. people will tell you, live a little, or all work and no play makes jack a dull boy, or you have to learn to relax, there’s so many. We hear them all the time. and man that’s true. You have to learn, I have to learn, to balance having a good life with achieving your goals. But this morning I was thinking about all the work that I am in the middle of right now. sometimes you can be made to feel guilty for not being as social as others may want you to be. but in the end it is going to make a real difference. Even now at this age we see the differences. And we’re still young. Between the people who go out every weekend and drink and party and all that and the ones who are more focused on some driving passion. and I believe that although I am not yet of the age to know this for sure but I bet that in ten or twenty years when people are in their forties and fifties I think the differences are going to be even more pronounced. And its going to be a difference in quality of life and in access to goods and services. There are people who are just totally passionate and driven. And then beyond that there are people who are almost mad in their ambition. They are beyond passionate. I’m somewhere around there. I’m not saying that one way is better than another. It’s a big world and different strokes for different folks. But what I am saying is that I don’t think you have to feel guilty if sometimes you just have to stay really focused on working and you can’t go out or hang out with your friends for a while. Just until you build things up to get to where you want to be. Some people are aiming high. 

Sometimes I have to remind myself of this. Especially times like now, when I am working seven days a week, with no breaks, not even taking time for the basics like going to the gym. Beaver is doing the same thing. Working six days a week, sixty hour weeks and going to college at night. crazy. the kid is out of his mind. But we know. when we know, we know. you know what you want. [we watched mom do the same thing. A single mom in her early twenties raising two sons by herself. Dirt poor just starting off. And by the time me and Beaver were teenagers she was insanely wealthy. She had achieved the American dream before she hit 35, all on her own. through her own brains and hard work. How she lost that money is another story and can best be summed by four very important words: always get a pre-nup. That was mom’s big lesson. Lets hope me and Beav don’t make the same one.] I have a lot of friends who don’t even own houses or anything and they are always complaining about their money situation. But then come the weekend they take the whole time off and go out and drink and hang out with their friends. And I always think, this person deserves to be where they are. that is why they are where they are. no one is going to hold your hand and kick your ass into working double time. You either want to do it or you don’t. But if you don’t do it, don’t envy your buddy’s Porsche or mansion. Cause you are where you are because of how you live each day. you see these chicks from the hood working at the drive through sometimes, or wherever. And then you find out they’re driving twenty thirty minutes to get there because they make more money there than they do in their own hood and they’re going to school at night on top of it. And I drive away so impressed and inspired by that person. you want to send them a little magic dust, like whisper a prayer for them. cause you know in ten years they are going to be in a much different place than someone else their age who instead sat and complained about being born in the hood and how hard it is and how you can’t get out. And that takes some balls and some courage and some strength and some self discipline. And a good dose of luck doesn’t hurt either.  

Last screening: kissing Jessica stein. What a fun movie.