“If you want to write for yourself, get a diary. If you want to write for a few friends, get a blog. But if you want to write for a lot of people, think about them a little bit. What do they like? What are their needs? A lot of people in this country go through their days numb. They need to be entertained. They need to feel something.” – James Patterson, in a recent article on NYTimes.com.

Being a poser is one of life’s great temptations. I should know. I’m so well versed in its siren song that I deserve a Grammy.

We want other people to like us and spend a lot of time, money, and effort trying to be what we think others want. Others who don’t really think about us as much as we think they do. Others whose affection is conditional. Others whose true commitment comes with a price tag and expiration date, which is no commitment at all.

The best we can do, the best we should do, is be authentically us. I was reminded of this as I was looking through Brad Meltzer’s website this week. In the Q&A Section, there’s a photo of him sitting for a photo that ended up in Entertainment Weekly. Here’s the caption:

“Entertainment Weekly took one look at me and said, ‘Want to look like yourself, or you want us to make you look cool?’ I said, “Myself.” They gave me the trenchcoat and said to put it on even though it was 102 degrees in Washington.”

Ask yourself: What would my day look like if, for a full 24 hours, I was 100% me? A lesson (and a dare, really) from Brad Meltzer for all of us, folks.

“The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer– they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.” -Ken Kesey

Do not resist chances. Take them like vitamins.

Let go of the brakes. See what happens if you go five more miles.

Foot bridges be damned, find your own way across.

Don’t worry about the bumps and bruises. Your body can take them.

Don’t steer around the bits that scare you. Go over them. Go through them.

Do something the guys in the bowling league would be terrified of.

You will feel your chin rise up from your chest. And you’ll be able to see what’s around you. What’s ahead of you.

And there will be one less thing you cannot do.

-A Nike ad from the early nineties. It has inspired me ever since I saw it in an issue of Outside magazine.

“I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at all of life’s realities.” -Theodor Seuss Geisel

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons”. - Jim Rohn

“I used to think that great art happened without argument, and maybe that’s not the case. Maybe the things that are most important in this life, you have to fight for.”-Jon Foreman