Why do people cheat? Why do children misbehave? The reason is oftentimes simple.

A new study entitled “The Cheater’s High: The Unexpected Affective Benefits of Unethical Behavior” has shown that as long as you didn’t think your cheating hurt anyone, cheating often makes people feel great. Researchers attribute the exhilaration that people feel to pride and admiration in their own cleverness.

Apparently, this is not good.

“The fact that people feel happier after cheating is disturbing, because there is emotional reinforcement of the behavior, meaning they could be more likely to do it again,” said Nicole E. Ruedy, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington’s Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinking.

None of these findings come as a surprise to me. Nor should they.

Of course cheating feels great. Conquering the system, subverting authority, sticking it to the man, profiting from your wits and taking advantage of loopholes have always been reasons for celebration.

As long as no one is being harmed, I would feel great, too. 

One of the advantages that I have as a teacher is that I wasn’t a well behaved student throughout much of my childhood and teenage years. This offers me a perspective that the average teacher, who tended to love school and was exceedingly compliant, does not to possess.

I often find myself in a conversation with a colleague who says something like, “I just don’t understand why he would run down the hallway like that.”

My response is always something along these lines:

“Don’t you understand? Running down the hallways is fun. Fooling around with your friends instead of summarizing an magazine article or solving a division problem is fun. Interrupting the teacher to make the class laugh is fun. This is why many students misbehave. They are simply making the choice that will lead to the most immediate enjoyment.”

This isn’t only true for children. As an adult, I still think that running down the hallway is fun. I still think that fooling around with my friends is better than writing the required report or attending the latest professional development workshop. I may be more compliant and feel a greater sense of responsibility now that I am an adult, but there is also a part of me that desperately wants to do whatever the hell he wants, regardless of what the rules or expectations are.  

This makes sense. It’s certainly not a novel concept. Most rules are in place because the alternative is more appealing. If driving fast wasn’t so much fun, we wouldn’t have speed limits. If simply taking whatever you wanted from the store shelves without the exchange of effort wasn’t an ideal way to live, we wouldn’t have laws against theft.

There would be no need. 

I often tell these teachers that if given the chance, I would love to sprint down the hallway, throw rocks through windows, toss televisions out of eight story windows and slam sledgehammers into drywall because destroying things is fun, too.

Still. Even at my age, these things are appealing.

We misbehave because it is often the choice that leads to the most immediate excitement and happiness, oftentimes at the expense of our future selves.

Misbehaving is fun. It’s often costly and detrimental to your long term goals, but try making a ten year old understand that.  

Or even a forty year old.

 

You’re making your insomnia worse. Get out of bed and do something great.

Author Nichole Berneir tweeted the following last week:

One thing that made a tremendous difference in my productivity & happiness a year ago: Instead of fighting insomnia, get up and work.

I found that I'd usually had enough sleep to make it through the next day safely (with coffee), and I get a tremendous amount done 4-6am.

Brilliant.

Sleep is bad enough. Fruitless time spent in bed makes no sense at all.

It turns out that Nichole’s advice has support in the scientific community.

Restricting the amount of time you spend lying in bed may be one of the best weapons against conditioned or so-called "learned" insomnia. This kind of sleeplessness is caused by anxiety that comes from trying too hard to doze off when you can’t.

"The harder a person tries to sleep, the harder it becomes," says James Findley, Ph.D., clinical director of the behavioral sleep medicine program at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.

According to Findley, lying in bed when you’re alert strengthens the association between being in bed and not sleeping. Over time, the bed becomes a cue for being awake.

I don’t suffer from insomnia. On the contrary, I can fall asleep in less than two minutes after my head hits the pillow (and oftentimes much faster than that), and I remain asleep until my alarm goes off around 4:30 or (more frequently) I wake up naturally around that time.

There are a few secrets to my sleep success, in case you’re interested.

But when people turn to me for advice on increasing productivity, losing weight or achieving goals (as they occasionally do), one of their most common excuses for failure is a lack of time in the day to exercise, write, mediate, cook healthier meals or work on whatever goal they are trying to achieve.

I always say the same thing:

Everyone can sleep 30 minutes less. Everyone. If you really want to achieve something great, start by climbing out of bed 30 minutes earlier.

That’s 30 additional minutes in your day to exercise, write, meditate, prepare a healthier meal or do whatever is needed to get closer to your goal.

That’s an additional 3.5 hours per week to do something great.  

Think about how powerful that is. You just made your day 30 minutes longer than it was the day before. You’ve given yourself the gift of time.

There is nothing more valuable.

Nichole is right. If you can’t sleep, get out of bed. People who are awake before 6:00 AM accomplish an enormous amount while the rest of the world sleeps.

So sleep 30 minutes less, or like Nichole, stop wasting time in bed, trying to fall asleep, and get to work.

Or you could try a reverse nap. I hear it’s catching on.

The only proper reaction to someone who has failed to give you a wedding gift

A piece by Abby Ellin in the Times discusses the reaction of some people when a guest fails to give them a wedding gift.

Ellin writes:

In the hierarchy of social transgressions, the wedding-gift omission, for some, is a sin of the highest order, the cause of relationship breakdowns and unwavering resentment.

I would like to propose a small edit to her paragraph:

In the hierarchy of social transgressions, the wedding-gift omission, for only the most petty, materialistic, and universally disgusting people, is a sin of the highest order, the cause of relationship breakdowns and unwavering resentment.

I was married seven years ago. I have few recollections of who gave me what gift. 

More importantly, I have absolutely no recollection of who failed to give us a wedding gift because I am not petty, materialistic and universally disgusting, at least when it comes to gift giving.

I can’t begin to imagine the level of mental stamina, materialism and pettiness required to perseverate over the absence of a wedding gift for years and years.

Honestly, the gifts that I received or didn’t receive were the least important aspect of my wedding. They were the absolute last thing that I thought about before, during or after that day.

My wedding was a day dedicated to my wife. It was a celebration of the love that we share. It was filled with food and dancing and well wishes from the people who we love.

It was perfect.

Honestly, only a petty, materialistic idiot would allow the absence of a crystal vase or a set of hand towels mar the memories of such an important day.

Even worse, I can’t believe that Ellin managed to find people willing to admit to this level of pettiness for her story. But she did.

Lisa Kaas Boyle, an environmental lawyer in Los Angeles, knows exactly who gave her what for her February 1994 wedding and is still upset about the absence of a wedding gift from some of her guests. Nineteen years later, she’s still holding a grudge.

“How could those miserly moguls have forgotten us?’ she asks.

I ask you:

Who is more miserly? The person who fails to deliver a wedding gift or the person who remains embittered about the material loss nineteen years later?

I find the person who remains bitter over the absence of the gift far more disgusting than the person who failed to deliver the gift.

Jodi R. R. Smith, an etiquette expert and consultant for the wedding industry, attempts to explain away this level of ongoing embitterment:

“Gifts are symbols of the relationship. It’s hurtful if this is someone I really cared about, who I thought was a great friend, who made the cut to come to my wedding, and she doesn’t do the right thing. For them to be so blasé about their relationship with me makes me think that maybe they’re not as good a friend as I thought.”

Gifts are symbols of a relationship?

Perhaps in some snobbish, materialistic circle of friends, this might be true, but certainly not in all.

My best friend for more than 25 years and I have never exchanged a single gift. In fact, of my top 10 friends (and maybe my top 20), I can’t remember exchanging a single gift with any one of them.

Not a single one.

While this is admittedly uncommon, it doesn’t mean that our relationships are devalued in any way, nor does it mean that they lack any meaningful symbols.

There are much better symbols of relationships than gifts:

Time spent together. Memories of these important moments. Cherished photographs. A well times note or email. Late night conversations over the phone. Important advice given at just the right moment. Assistance in a time of need. 

All of these seem a hell of a lot better to me than toasters and blenders.

Ellin also managed to find some more rationale minds for her piece, including executive coach Karen Elizaga, who said, “It’s a crime to let something material get in the way of the history of the friendship.”

Maybe not a crime, but one of the greatest acts of stupidity and selfishness that I can imagine.

Peggy Post, who writes a wedding etiquette column for The New York Times, agrees. “It’s a custom to give a gift if you attend the wedding, but I’m not sure I like the words ‘have to.’ The short answer is for couples to take the high road, not to get upset and graciously let the matter drop.”

It seems to me that a decent person wouldn’t get too upset in the first place, since we’re talking about things. Stuff. Material objects. Kitchen appliances and decorative ceramic.

We’re talking about attaching negative memories to your wedding day and damaging a friendship in the process for the sake of a place setting, a decorative bowl or a juicer.

Not the stuff of a real friendship.

But Post is right. If you’re upset over the absence of a wedding gift, find the grace required to forgive and most importantly, forget. Don’t let this petty nonsense become part of your wedding narrative.

One more thing that I would like to add (and I think Peggy Post and most others would agree):

As disgusting and uncouth as you think it may be to forget to give a wedding gift, it is far more disgusting and uncouth to speak about the absence of the gift to friends and family, especially if you mention the perpetrators by name.

You just finished marrying someone, and that someone also failed to receive the same gift. If you need to complain to someone, make it that someone. That’s what spouses are for. Don’t begin the round of phone calls to parents, siblings and close friends, lamenting the absence of the gift and wondering allowed how so-and-so could ever do such a thing to you. 

I promise you that every time you make such a call or engage in such a conversation, the people around you think of you as a little more petty, a little more materialistic, and a little ore disgusting than the person who failed to give you a gift in the first place.

I promise.

Children: Ready-made victims for your cruelest pranks

Three years ago, I wrote a post about a cruel prank that I wanted to play on my children someday involving a Christmas present and a lesson about remembering the value of what they receive on a daily basis.

I was criticized for the idea quite a bit.

I was also told that once I had a child, my views would change dramatically.

It’s true. My views have changed, but only slightly.

My plan was for my children to find an enormous box under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, wrapped with an enormous bow, and addressed to all of the children.

I would tell the kids that this is the best present that they will ever receive, but that they must wait until all the other gifts are unwrapped before they open it. As they begin ripping through the other gifts, I would seek to build their anticipation over the enormous gift, referencing it constantly and encouraging them to hurry up.

Finally, the time will come to open the enormous box. I would ask them to wait one more moment while I ensure that I was ready to record the big moment. Ready at last, I would tell them to proceed and would record the tearing of wrapping paper and the struggle with the bow until the package was finally, blissfully open.

Inside the kids would find a slip of paper that read:

Food, shelter, and clothing. The best gifts of all, and given all year round.

Three years later, with two kids running around the house, my plans have altered only slightly.

There will still be a present under the tree, but it won’t be the largest or most impressive.

It will still be addressed to both kids, but I will not attempt to hype the gift in any way.

The note inside will remain the same.  

Slightly less cruel than my original plan, but amusing nonetheless. 

And hopefully less offensive to the hordes of readers who despised the initial iteration of my plan.

Ending the engagement is sometimes the only correct choice

A question recently asked of Slate’s Dear Prudence:

Q. Always Take the Wife's Side?: I'm about to get married and am caught in an argument between my fiancée and my parents. This will be the first time in over five years that our whole family will be together. My parents want to take a picture of just them, me, and my siblings, and a family photo obviously means a lot to them. My fiancée heard this and became immediately offended. She says it's rude to exclude her on the day she "joins the family" and any family photo should therefore include her in it. We're not talking about taking an hour for a separate family photo shoot; my parents simply want one photograph of themselves and their children. I don't understand why my fiancée is so annoyed and now she's even more angry because I'm not supporting "her side." Should I back up my fiancée on principle, even if I disagree with her?

Prudence describes this as “one of those silly little fights every couple has” and suggests that the groom calmly discuss the issue with his future wife and help her to understand that this is but a single moment in the grand scheme of the wedding and important to his parents.

I hate this advice.

First off, he’s already done this. He’s said as much in his question. And “talk to her” is not exactly what I would call advice in almost any circumstance.  

More importantly, I don’t see this as “one of those silly little fights every couple has.”

No reasonable, unselfish, decent human being would ever be offended by the idea of this photograph taking place. As a wedding DJ for seventeen years, I can assure you that these kinds of photos happen all the time.

As unrealistic as this advice may seem, I would advise the man to strongly consider calling off the wedding altogether. If he were my friend, the last thing I would want to see is him marry a person as despicable as this, and as his friend, I would say as much.

I’ve said as much to friends in the past, and though these words are often received poorly, I am also often in the position to say “I told you so” later on (as was the case just recently).

I actually think that breaking off the engagement is the only choice here. Try to imagine the level of selfishness, self-centeredness and narcissism required to reject a request as simple and innocent as this from your future in-laws.

It’s astounding. Don’t you think?

Some might attribute the bride’s actions as the result of the stress involved with planning a wedding, but in my experience, if you act like a jerk during the planning and execution of your wedding, it’s likely that you will act a jerk in the future when life becomes complex, challenging and stressful.

Planning your wedding is not an excuse to act like an animal.

A bridezilla often becomes a wifezilla after the wedding.

Worst things ever

Three years ago, I made a list of the worst things ever. They were:

1. Waiting
2. Not knowing
3. Not existing

Upon reflection, I stand by this list wholeheartedly.

How I determine intelligence: 2013

In 2010, I created a set of criteria that I use to unfairly judge the intelligence of others. Three years later, I decided to re-examine and revise the list. Surprisingly few changes were made.

Three items were tweaked for clarity.

Three items were added to the list.

Nothing was removed.    

• The amount of time a person spends watching television
• Smoker or non-smoker
• The scope of a person’s musical interests
• A person’s overall ratio of speaking to listening
• The amount of reading that a person does on a weekly basis 
• A person’s willingness to act self-deprecating
• The number of Supreme Court justices that a person can name
• The total number of tabloid magazines that a person reads in a week
• A person’s acceptance of the theory of evolution
• The ratio between a person’s degree of religious belief and the number of times that he or she has actually read the Bible, Torah, Koran, etc. 
• The answer to this question: Which super power would you choose? Flight or invisibility?
• The way in which a person spends his or her time in a waiting room
• A person’s acceptance of human-induced global warming
• The degree to which a person finds Jon Stewart and David Sedaris funny
• A person’s ability to debate without raising his voice, repeating an already-stated point or interrupting
• New York Jets fan or not

All the financial advice you will ever need

All the financial advice you will ever need, written onto one side of an index card.

I am no financial expert, but this is a damn good list. I would argue that the 20% savings is high, and you could be putting more of that money to work for you (and enjoying a little more, too), but otherwise I’m in full agreement.

Products I can’t live without: 2013 revised

In 2010, I wrote my first list of products I can’t live without.

Last week I published the 2013 version of the list, but it sucked. I left off a whole bunch of things that readers were quick to point out. So here is the revised list.

It was also suggested that my original list was more or less a list of apps on my iPhone, but upon reflection, this isn’t really the case. While products like Hootsuite, Evernote and the Google products exist on my phone, I use many of them on a variety of platforms, including my laptop. In fact, I access products like Evernote on my laptop and work computer more often than my phone.

6-iron
Asus laptop
Audible.com plus Audible app
Bose speakers plus iPod Nano (white noise for sleeping)
Carbonite
Diet Coke
Egg McMuffin
Evernote
Gmail
Google Calendar
Google Chrome
Google Docs
Google Maps
Hootsuite
Instacast
iPhone 4S
Mint
Mophie Juice Pack
Motorola Bluetooth headphones
Twitter
Wordpress
Ziplist

A second-rate solution to the tyranny of the thank you note

Look. A machine that will hand write a thank you note for you. The near-perfect solution to the tyranny of the thank you note.

It isn’t a bad solution. I just have a couple that are better. But before I offer them, please let me be clear:

I write thank you notes all the time and have no problem with anyone who does. My beef is with the tyrannical expectation of the thank you note and the back-biting, gossip-mongering, reputation-bashing chatter that takes place if you fail to adhere to the custom.

Basically, if you are the kind of person who awaits a thank you note and proceeds with negativity when it fails to arrive, you are the problem. You are the person for whom these solutions are required.

With that said, I offer two alternate solutions to the thank you note machine:

1. Ignore the lunatic traditionalists who believe that in addition to a verbal thank you, a written one is required in order for you to avoid being labeled a loathsome, uncouth jerk. Accept the label and move on. If someone hands you a gift, and you open it and say “Thank you,” only a lunatic would expect you to follow up this exchange with written appreciation. Send a note if you’d like, but the expectation that you will send a thank you note when a verbal thank you has been made is absolutely insane.
2. Send the thank you note via email. Once again, it is likely that doing so will cause a certain segment of the public to label you as unrefined and rude, but I make it a habit of ignoring idiots. It’s the words that matter. Not the medium upon which they are conveyed. In fact, I am likely to express a deeper and more meaningful sentiment through email, since my word count is unlimited. There is nothing wrong with a handwritten note, and I send them all the time, but I send thank yous via email as well, because it's the thought that counts. Only a moron would consider an electronic thank you note insufficient.

The thank you note machine is nice, but only if you find the need to conform to the expectations of morons.

I recommend avoiding this at all costs.

Rules on how to be a man, which should not include anything related to physical appearance or handcrafted firearms.

A list of more than 75 ways to be a man in today’s world recently gained some traction on social media last week (as lists are wont to do), and I found it to be simultaneously excellent and exceptionally disappointing.

There are some real gems on the list that I adore, but unfortunately, the list is also populated by rules enforcing image conformity and complete nonsense like these:

• Buy expensive sunglasses. Superficial? Yes, but so are the women judging you. And it tells these women you appreciate nice things and are responsible enough not to lose them.
• Your clothes do not match. They go together.
• It’s better if old men cut your hair. Ask for Sammy at the Mandarin Oriental Barbershop in Hong Kong. He can share his experiences of the Japanese occupation, or just give you a copy of Playboy.
• Own a handcrafted shotgun. It’s a beautiful thing.

Still, there are some items of brilliance on this list. Here are the ones I like the best:

• You don’t have to like baseball, but you should understand the concept of what a pitcher’s ERA means. Approach life similarly.
• Stop talking about where you went to college.
• You will regret your tattoos.
• When in doubt, always kiss the girl.
• There’s always another level. Just be content knowing that you are still better off than most who have ever lived.
• You may only request one song from the DJ.
• Measure yourself only against your previous self.
• Place-dropping is worse than-name dropping.
• Revenge can be a good way of getting over anger.
• No-one cares if you are offended, so stop it.
• Read more. It allows you to borrow someone else’s brain, and will make you more interesting at a dinner party – provided that you don’t initiate conversation with, “So, who are you reading…”

Soap bubble joy

The problem with adulthood is that the joy you once derived from something as simple as a soap bubble becomes harder and harder to find, and if you don’t commit yourself to constantly trying new things throughout your lifetime, that spirit of simple soap bubble joy may be lost forever.

That is what I tell my children when they get older. Try new things all the time. Leave your comfort zone constantly. Invite and embrace cognitive dissonance. Find the path of greatest resistance and embark upon it without pause. Place your ego in great peril for the sake of a newfound joy.

You may never find as much joy in soap bubbles as you did when you were a child, but there are other things that will life your heart and mind if you spend your life searching them out.

         

How to stop a friend from driving home drunk

Slate’s Troy Patterson recently answered a question about the best method of stopping a drunk friend from driving as part of his Gentleman Scholar series.

His advice strikes me as fairly obvious and likely ineffective. A lot of emphasis on talking and humor with the eventual threat of law enforcement.  

My advice is highly effective and much more practical.

Only once in my life did I have to struggle to stop a friend from driving drunk. Typically the offer of a ride home or an evening on the couch has been enough to convince my friends to stay off the roads.

When I spent time in bars when I was younger and saw someone leaving who was clearly inebriated, I would offer a ride to these strangers as well, and when they refused, it wasn’t uncommon for me to say something like, “Well, then I hope your mother is on the road tonight, and I hope that she’s the one who you kill or maim when you plow into someone with your car.”

This comment did not always result in a positive outcome, but on a least one occasion, the ensuing scuffle allowed me to wrestle the keys from the idiot and prevent him from driving home.

Only once did I struggle to convince a friend to stay off the roads after drinking too much. I was nineteen and hosting a party at my home in Attleboro, Massachusetts. It was a place that we affectionately referred to as The Heavy Metal Playhouse. Our parties tended to be large, alcohol-infused affairs, and most of our guests either sobered up before going home or (more commonly) spent the night sleeping it off.

On this particular night, however, a coworker and friend named Mike decided to leave the party early, and it was clear that he shouldn’t be driving. A few of our friends attempted to convince him into stay, but when it became clear to me that they weren’t going to succeed, I went outside and parked my car behind his.

In retrospect, letting the air out of his tires would’ve been a much better choice. Mike went outside, saw my car parked behind his and demanded that I move it. When I refused, he climbed into his car, started the engine and began ramming the side panel of my car, thereby confirming his high blood alcohol level.

In the end, Mike gave up and found a ride home with a friend. Our friendship, which wasn’t strong to begin with, was never the same again.

Both cars were slightly damaged as a result of the altercation, but when you’re nineteen years-old, dents don’t matter much.

Actually, even today, dents don’t matter much.

So when you find yourself with an inebriated friend who is preparing to drive and nothing will convince him or her otherwise, my advice is simple and practical:

Deflate a tire. Deflate all four if you have time, but one should be plenty.

It will work every time.

A simple way of identifying an idiot

A 2012 survey of more than 500 college graduates by Adecco, a human-resources organization, found that 8% of them had a parent accompany them to a job interview, and 3% had the parent sit in on the interview.

I try to avoid broad generalizations whenever possible, but we all agree that any parent or child who does this is an idiot.

Right?

I want credit for not being a jerk. Is that too much to ask?

I am known amongst my friends for my tendency to take credit (and sometimes demand it) for exercising restraint. A person irritates or annoys me, and rather than firing off the multitude of retorts that quickly pile up in my head, I keep my mouth shut and demand recognition for my willingness to avoid confrontation.

Not surprising, few (actually none) believe that I deserve credit in these instances. I’m told that everyone exercises this kind of restraint, and the only reason that I feel entitled to some credit is because I don’t exercise it  often enough.

As a friend once said, “You don’t get credit for not acting like a jerk just because you usually act like a jerk.”

Some friend. Huh?

Along these same lines, a friend recently pointed me to an NPR story on “moral grade inflation,” indicating  that these lines in particular made him think of me:

When you celebrate what should be ordinary behavior as extraordinary, experts say, it sends a dangerous message.

"I do worry about a culture in which people are giving selves credit for not having done terrible things. It sets a really low bar for what it takes to be a good person," says London Business School professor Daniel Effron. Effron, who teaches behavioral ethics, says feting folks for what he calls "the immoral road not taken" could actually encourage bad behavior.

Hogwash, I say, both because it’s nonsense and because the quote comes from a professor at the London Business School, so a word like hogwash feels right.

The desire to say something mean or stupid or do something mean or stupid is a powerful one. It's what causes people to do wrong. It’s the basis for evil. If people resisted their immoral urges more often, the world would be a much better place. It's great to imagine a world in which good deeds are the norm and surprising generosity isn’t so surprising, but a world in which  everyone resisted the urges to do wrong would be pretty freakin' great, too.

A low bar? Perhaps. But I would argue it’s a more realistic, less idealized bar, and one we have yet to clear. And if we ever did manage to clear that low bar, the world would change for the better in immeasurable ways.

It’s also harder for some to resist these kinds of urges than others. My first novel is about a fairly benevolent burglar who believes that he might be the best thief who has ever lived (and he might be right). He struggles with the idea of abandoning his life of crime because of his remarkable skill and expertise.

Imagine how difficult it must be to quit doing something when you’re at the top of your game.

This is why I take credit (and often demand it) for exercising restraint. I am extremely adept at verbal combat. Engage me in an argument and my mind works incredibly fast. Options for retorts, insults, counterpoints and more flash through my mind like the Terminator’s visual display. I find myself with a multitude of options, and it’s simply a matter of choosing the one that will do the most damage or hurt my opponent the most.

It’s what I’m good at. It’s my thing. I can’t throw a football or make simple household repairs or understand a word of a Virginia Woolf novels, but I am damn good when it comes to verbal combat. It’s a skill that was probably honed from a childhood of living with an evil step-father who made a living as a psychiatric social worker. 

It was a proving ground like no other.

So yes, when I am confronted with a stupid or annoying person, and I exercise restraint when I’m quite capable of eviscerating the person, I want some credit, damn it. I want it acknowledged that I didn’t do bad, and that while not doing bad isn’t the same as doing good, it’s close enough.

For some of us, it’s all we can do.

My 3 best pieces of parenting advice

A reader recently asked me for parenting advice. She is pregnant, reads my blog regularly and would like to know what are some of my best parenting tips.

I was honored by such a request, though I know that some might think it crazy to ask for parenting advice from me. I’m certainly not an expert on parenting, and some might even say that I’m the last person to ask this kind of question, but I’m not without experience.

I’m an elementary school teacher who has been teaching children for more than 15 years.

I’m the father of two children and a former stepfather who raised a stepdaughter from the ages of 6-16.

So yeah. I have some experience with kids.

I wasn’t exactly sure what my best parenting advice would be, so I scoured my blog for posts on parenting and found three that I think are my best:

Raising my daughter is a piece of cake, and there’s a good reason why I say this as often as possible.

It’s fine to be a slightly insane parent. Just don’t pretend that you’re not.

How to sleep train your child.

All are slightly controversial to one degree or another, but I stand behind all three posts just as much today as when I wrote them years ago, and I’m fairly confident that my wife would do the same, but with less bravado and certainty.

And if the proof is in the pudding, just look what I have to show for it?

Two pieces of only slightly snarky advice for wedding photographers (and the couples hiring them)

Another wedding season has drawn to a close. Now that my DJ partner and I don’t advertise and actively turn away weddings that don’t appeal to us, we are doing considerably fewer gigs each year.

We did a total of 8 weddings this year, down from our record total of 48 several years ago when we were actively pursuing business and promoting our company. I served as minister and DJ at last weekend’s wedding, a dual role that I seem to be doing a lot lately.

People apparently like the one-stop shopping aspect of the DJ/minister.

Even though I’ve only worked 8 weddings this year, I am not without a handful of stories, wedding advice and lessons learned from my 17th year as a wedding DJ.

Here are two pieces of advice for wedding photographers:

• If the number of photographers on the dance floor during the newlyweds’ first dance meets or exceeds the number of people actually dancing, you have done something seriously wrong. Guests should not be craning their necks around two or more photographers in order to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom dancing.

At my most recent wedding, for example, the bride and groom enjoyed their first dance while two photographers stood side by side with them on the dance floor, less than 10 feet away,and a third stood just off the dance floor, also obstructing the guests.

At the most, there should be one photographer on the dance floor at any one time, and if the dance floor is small enough (as this one was), is it too much to ask to stand just off the dance floor for most, if not all, of their dance?

• The cake cut is not a photo-shoot. It is a ceremonial event that should be enjoyed by the bride and groom with minimal intrusion from any of their vendors. As such, wedding photographers should not be the ones directing the newlyweds through the cake cutting process. The result is often a stilted, disjointed affair that provides the photographers with ideally posed shots and superior angles but strips the fun of the experience from the bride and groom. If you need to pose a shot or two before the cake cutting begins, fine. But then back the hell away.

At my most recent wedding, the photographers directed the entire cake cut, nudging me out of the process entirely.

There were three of them. I was outnumbered.

As a result, the bride and groom’s every move was choreographed, paused, adjusted and paused again before proceeding. It wasn’t a cake cut. It was a series of frozen moments designed to maximize the photographer’s performance.

Not cool.

Step 4: Do anything but “ENJOY!”

I can’t stand it when the final step in a series of instructions is something like “Enjoy” or “Have fun!”

It belittles the rest of the list.

It undermines the importance of the previous instructions.

It implies that the reader of the list is incapable of the most basic form of deductive reasoning.

It wastes time, energy and precious natural resources.

It represents a level of cheeriness and exultation of spirit that I simply cannot abide by.

It must be stopped.

Here is my proposal:

Every time you see a sign that advises you to “Enjoy!” or “Have fun!” or something similar, cross out that final step in an act of protest. Draw a line through this nonsense in hopes that it will send a clear message to future list makers and direction writers.

This kind of thing will no longer be tolerated.

This is my plan. Are you with me?

Sentimentality has its benefits.

I’m not a sentimental person when it comes to physical objects. I rarely attach meaning to things, even when given to me for specific reasons and by specific people.

Truthfully, I rarely recall how or where I acquired a possession. While my four year-old daughter can often tell me the origin of  each of her toys and much of her clothing, I can’t come close to doing so with almost everything I own. I often can’t recall if I purchased an item or it was given to me as a gift.

My wife could not be more dissimilar to me in this regard. She comes from a home where nothing was ever thrown away, which I would find mind-numbing, except that she can now watch our children play with toys that she adored as a child. My daughter loves playing with those toys, and presumably my son will, too.

I can’t begin to imagine what that must feel like.

To be able to give your daughter your favorite childhood stuffed animal when her tummy is upset, as she did recently, must be amazing.

I think there is a lot of benefits to avoiding attaching meaning to physical objects. The ability to dispose of items that have ceased to have value in your life is liberating. I’m convinced that my ability to eliminate clutter from my life makes me more efficient. I’m also rarely upset when one of my possession is damaged or destroyed.

But all of this may pale in comparison to a moment like this, when your daughter is cuddling with the same teddy bear that you cuddled with as a child. 

A different ending for every reader

I agree. This is a brilliant idea.

Now I just need to become a famous author.