I know. Some of you were getting along just fine until I reminded you.
Before we face the week, let’s settle an important matter: I like calling you folks. It’s a warm word. It leaves room for the people I know well, the people I’ve just met, and the person standing behind me at the coffee shop who can see that I still haven’t decided what I want.
“Friend” is different. Friendship takes time. We might get there, but if we’ve never met, please don’t greet me with “Hello, my friend” while reaching for my wallet or trying to sell me a new roof. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.
“Folks,” though? That works. It sounds like someone pulling out an extra chair at the table. No promises required. You can sit down, have a cup, and tell me how your weekend went. If Monday has already tested your patience, you can tell me that, too.
So good morning, folks. Pour the coffee. Find your shoes. Check that you have your keys before you close the door. We’ll get this Monday started together.
And if we become friends along the way, I’ll be glad to call you one.
By the Time Hollywood Gets to Georgia – The GOP Will Be Crying…
Conservative states may believe they are taking Hollywood away from California. But movie productions bring more than cameras, celebrities and California money. They also bring thousands of workers—and some may decide to stay. While political leaders carefully redraw their districts, could they also be importing the very voters who might redraw their political future?
This will be a morning that you also should take bite out of something sweet. I suggest an Apple Fritter. Heavily glazed. The sugar rush will come in later regardless.
Now then.
Benjamin and Sheriff Otis
A cinematic map connects Hollywood with major production hubs across the United States.
Sheriff Otis and I have been listening to all this talk about re-districting— those voter’s districts being re-drawn, challenged, redrawn, rechallenged and hauled through the courts until nobody is entirely sure which district they live in or whether their congressman is still their congressman.
Several conservative states apparently believe they have discovered the perfect lines. They may have won.
Or have they?
While everybody was staring at the political maps, California may have been looking at a much larger map—the one showing where the movie studios are going.
California, after all, is not some little roadside economy surviving on oranges, movie stars and photographs of the Hollywood sign. Its economy is larger than those of most countries. If California were an independent nation, recent economic figures would place it among the largest economies in the world.
It could probably afford its own army, navy and air force. With Hollywood involved, it could film the invasion, win an Academy Award for it and sell the streaming rights before lunch.
Yet many people continue to speak of California as though it contributes nothing useful to the country.
Nothing, that is, except the movies, television programs, technology, agricultural products and enormous amounts of money they would very much like California to bring into their states.
Georgia, Texas and other states have been offering film incentives to attract productions away from Hollywood. They see studio lights, camera crews and production money arriving, and they begin smiling from rear to rear, believing they have finally found the end of the rainbow.
“Bring us your movies!” they shout.
“Build your studios here!”
“Spend that California money in our restaurants, hotels and Hoot-and-Whistles!”
But they may not have thought the entire thing through.
Productions do not arrive by themselves. They bring actors, camera operators, costume designers, makeup artists, writers, carpenters, electricians and thousands of other workers. Some remain only long enough to finish a production and return home. Others may decide they like the lower cost of living, the warm weather or the fact that a person can still find a parking space.
Those who genuinely establish residency may eventually register to vote.
Sheriff Otis howls out “BLUE VOTERS, MAYNARD!”
You heard me (he barks.)
Liberals moving east from California.
Or as Otis refers to it, A very bad area to sniff. (It smells of cow and oil drums.)
The very states hoping to attract California’s entertainment industry could also attract Californians. Those newcomers might vote in school-board races, city-council elections and contests for governor, Congress and the Senate.
They will not necessarily vote alike, of course. Californians are not produced on a political assembly line, even if Hollywood probably owns the rights to one.
Still, imagine the irony.
Political leaders redraw districts hoping to protect their party, then approve enormous incentives that encourage thousands of workers from another state to move directly into those carefully constructed districts.
Who Shot J.R.?
It would be the greatest political plot twist since television viewers learned that J.R. had been shot.
And who helped encourage the great migration of studios, corporations and media operations across the country?
The same political leaders who wanted California’s business without California’s influence.
They wanted the gold.
They just forgot that California is called the Golden State because Californians tend to arrive with it.
Perhaps California does not need to fight every redistricting map in court. Perhaps it merely needs to send a film crew.
Before long, every carefully drawn district could contain a casting director, three screenwriters, two sound engineers and somebody ordering an oat-milk latte at the Fill-Your-Buggy.
Conservative states may believe they are taking Hollywood away from California.
It doesn’t always feel that way, of course. Monday has developed a reputation for being the day nobody particularly wants to see coming. The alarm seems louder, the bed feels more comfortable, and that first cup of coffee often carries considerably more responsibility than coffee should ever be expected to handle.
But perhaps Monday deserves another look.
Monday is another beginning.
Whatever went wrong last week has already happened. Whatever we didn’t finish is waiting for another attempt. The words we wish we had said differently cannot be pulled back, but the next words out of our mouths can be kinder.
Life gives us remarkably few opportunities to change yesterday.
It gives us countless opportunities to change today.
That is worth remembering as we sit with our coffee this morning.
Maybe you have been carrying something around that has become heavier than it needs to be. A disagreement. A disappointment. An unfinished task. Something you have been putting off because beginning it seems harder than continuing to avoid it.
Monday may be as good a day as any to set it down, straighten it out, or simply begin again.
You don’t have to repair your entire life before lunch.
Sometimes progress is nothing more dramatic than making the phone call, answering the message, washing the dishes, opening the curtains, or finally taking the first step toward something you have been thinking about for weeks.
Small beginnings still count.
We tend to celebrate the grand accomplishments because they are easy to see. But nearly every great accomplishment started somewhere very ordinary—with someone deciding, on an otherwise unremarkable morning, that today they would try.
Perhaps that is Monday’s real gift.
It arrives whether we are ready for it or not and quietly places another blank page in front of us.
So pour the coffee.
Take your time with the first few sips.
Then decide what deserves another chance today.
It might be a project.
It might be a relationship.
It might simply be you.
Whatever it is, remember this: starting over does not mean you failed.
Sometimes it simply means you learned enough from yesterday to approach today differently.
And that sounds like a pretty good reason to raise the coffee cup.
Have a wonderful Monday, and make something good out of the day in front of you.
Sometimes we become so focused on the road we are traveling that we forget there may be another way. A different choice, a fresh perspective, or simply the courage to ask,
Pour yourself a cup of coffee and consider something we sometimes forget when life becomes difficult:
There is usually another way.
We have a habit of looking at life as though someone has handed us a map with only one road marked on it. We convince ourselves that we must continue in the direction we are traveling because turning around would mean failure, changing course would mean weakness, or choosing something different would mean admitting we were wrong.
But life doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes the smartest thing we can do is stop long enough to notice the little road running off to the side.
Maybe there is another job.
Another friendship.
Another town.
Another dream.
Another way of spending your time.
Another way of looking at something that has bothered you for years.
Sometimes the alternative isn’t even something outside of us. Sometimes the new direction begins simply by changing the way we see what is already there.
A closed door doesn’t always mean the journey is over. It may simply mean we have been standing at the wrong door.
There are moments when we become so determined to make one particular thing work that we overlook every other possibility around us. We push harder. We worry more. We replay conversations. We imagine everything that could go wrong.
Meanwhile, another possibility may be sitting quietly beside us saying, You could try this instead.
That doesn’t mean we should abandon everything whenever life becomes difficult. Some things are worth fighting for. Some relationships are worth repairing. Some dreams deserve another attempt.
But perseverance and stubbornness are not always the same thing.
Wisdom sometimes means knowing when to keep pushing.
And sometimes wisdom means recognizing that you are allowed to choose another road.
There is tremendous freedom in those words:
You have options.
You have options.
You can reconsider.
You can begin again.
You can change your mind.
You can learn something today that causes you to see yesterday differently.
You can decide that what once mattered greatly to you doesn’t matter nearly as much anymore.
And you do not need permission to grow beyond the person you used to be.
Perhaps that is where we begin this morning.
Not by asking, How do I make everything stay the same?
But by asking:
What else is possible?
Look around.
There may be another road you haven’t noticed yet.
And it just might lead somewhere wonderful.
Have a great day from benandsteve.com — and remember, sometimes a fresh perspective begins with nothing more complicated than realizing there are other options.
Before the phone rings, the messages arrive, and the day begins asking things of us, there is a little quiet time to simply be. Sometimes the most ordinary parts of morning—the coffee, the familiar sounds of home, and a few peaceful minutes—are the moments worth noticing most.
Before the list of things we meant to do yesterday quietly becomes today’s list.
There is coffee.
And sometimes, that is enough.
I have come to appreciate those first few moments of the morning. The house is still finding its footing. The outside world hasn’t completely awakened yet, and for a little while, nobody expects anything from you.
You can simply sit.
Think.
Remember.
Or, if you are lucky, think about absolutely nothing at all.
That may be harder than it sounds.
We spend so much of our lives preparing for what comes next that we sometimes miss what is sitting directly in front of us.
We carry more into each morning than the coffee in our cup. Memories, worries, laughter, and yesterday’s unfinished thoughts often come along with us. But a new morning gives us another chance to decide what is worth carrying forward—and what might finally be time to leave behind.
But sometimes what we bring with us to the table gives it a little more weight.
Not the cup, of course. The cup weighs exactly what it did yesterday.
We carry yesterday into the morning.
A conversation we wish had gone differently. A worry we never quite put down before going to bed. A name we have been thinking about. A memory that wandered in without knocking and decided to stay awhile.
Then there are the things we carry that feel a little lighter.
A laugh from yesterday.
Someone checking in just because they were thinking about us.
A dog stretched out nearby, perfectly content with life as long as breakfast eventually appears.
A familiar chair.
A quiet house.
And that first dependable cup of coffee.
Maybe mornings aren’t really about starting over. Life doesn’t erase itself while we sleep. The bills are still there. The problems haven’t packed their bags and moved out during the night. That stubborn thing we were worrying about yesterday may still be sitting right where we left it.
But morning does give us another chance to decide how much of it we are going to carry.
Some things need our attention.
Some things need our patience.
And some things probably need to be left sitting beside the road somewhere behind us.
We are not required to drag every disappointment we have ever known into every new day.
That may be one of life’s quieter lessons.
We can remember without remaining stuck.
We can care without carrying everything.
We can miss someone and still smile.
We can have difficult days and still believe there are good ones ahead.
So this morning, while the coffee is still warm, take inventory of what you brought to the table.
Keep the memories that make you smile.
Hold close the people who matter.
Take care of the things that truly need tending.
And perhaps leave a little room in your hands for something new.
Because you never know what this day may be waiting to give you.
Sometimes all we need is enough room to receive it.
Have a great day from benandsteve.com — and may your coffee be warm, your burdens a little lighter, and your day give you something worth carrying into tomorrow.
The ordinary moments of life often leave the deepest impressions. A familiar phrase, an old memory, or a simple act of kindness can become something we carry with us for years—and eventually pass along to someone else.
There is something comforting about the first cup of coffee in the morning.
Before the phone starts ringing, before the television begins telling us what happened while we slept, and before the responsibilities of the day start lining up at the door, there are those few quiet minutes when the world seems willing to wait.
This morning, as I sat with my coffee, I found myself thinking about how much of our lives we carry forward without even realizing it.
~~~
A phrase our father used to say.
A recipe our mother never bothered writing down because she simply knew how much of everything belonged in the bowl.
The way a grandparent waved from the porch.
The sound of an old screen door closing behind us.
The advice of a friend that didn’t seem particularly important when it was given, but somehow became wisdom twenty years later.
~~~
We spend so much of our lives believing we are moving forward and leaving yesterday behind.
But I don’t think that’s really how life works.
We carry yesterday with us.
Not all of it, thankfully. Time has a merciful way of softening some things and allowing others to fade. But the pieces that shaped us remain tucked away in places we don’t always recognize.
They appear when we catch ourselves saying something exactly the way one of our parents said it.
They show themselves when we perform some small kindness because once, long ago, someone did the same thing for us.
Sometimes they appear in the strangest places—a song on the radio, the smell of rain, an old photograph, or the sound of coffee being poured into a familiar cup.
And suddenly, someone or someplace we haven’t thought about in years is sitting right there beside us again.
Maybe that is one of life’s quieter gifts.
The people we have loved never completely leave the road we are traveling. They simply stop walking beside us in the way they once did.
Instead, they travel within us.
Their lessons become part of our decisions.
Their laughter becomes part of our memories.
Their kindness becomes something we pass along to somebody who may never know where it originally came from.
And eventually, pieces of us will travel the same way.
Someone will remember something we said.
Someone will tell one of our stories.
Someone might pour a cup of coffee one morning and smile because something reminded them of us.
That is why the ordinary moments matter so much.
We are always leaving something behind.
A word.
A kindness.
A story.
A memory.
So while you enjoy your coffee this morning, remember that the smallest things you do today may become something another person carries with them for years.
Make them worth carrying.
Have a wonderful morning, and may your coffee be warm, your memories gentle, and your day filled with something worth remembering.
