Dear other white dudes:

Last night on the Las Vegas debate stage Donald Trump, for whom statistically speaking most us white dudes are planning to vote for, refused to say whether he would concede the election if it went against him, as it almost certainly will. He says he’s doing that because he believes the election is rigged — it’s really not — but in point of fact the reason he said it is because he’s a petulant man-child who can’t believe his manifest destiny to be president is being thwarted by a woman who he doesn’t even find sexually attractive, which means that to him she’s hardly a woman at all. “Inconceivable!” he cries, like Vizzini in The Princess Bride, while Clinton, in the guise of the Dread Pirate Roberts, comes to take what he’s rightfully stolen (who is Princess Buttercup in this scenario? Why, the US, of course).

Now, as a matter of procedure, it doesn’t matter if Trump decides to concede or not. Unless the vote in any individual state is so close as to trigger a recount (usually within half a percentage point), the individual states will tally up and certify the votes, and then in December the electors for each state — i.e., the people who actually vote for president in our wacky political system — will meet and cast their votes, and that will be that. There’s nothing in the constitution about our election system hinging on the candidates conceding.

Legally speaking, if Trump loses, he can stomp his feet and hold his breath until he turns blue, and Hillary Clinton will still be President of the United States. So this is literally a question about whether Donald Trump wants to be a yutz when he loses. And he might! The track record for Trump being a yutz when he loses anything — primaries, Emmy votes, probably a game of Yahtzee — is pretty significant. And each of those times, his being a yutz didn’t change anything. He still lost. He was still a loser.

That said, the presidential election isn’t the Emmy for Best Variety Show (or whichever category Trump’s show lost in), it’s the actual Presidency of the United States, and the people who are voting for Trump — that’s largely us, white dudes! — are invested in his winning. And if he doesn’t win, and again it’s really unlikely that he will, and he doesn’t concede the election, the question then becomes: What will the white dudes do? Will we break with Trump, decide to honor the two centuries of constitutional transfer of power from one administration to the other, or do we stick with Trump and also stomp our feet and hold our breath until we turn blue because we just didn’t get our way? Because in point of fact, if we decide to do the latter, and certainly Trump appears to be down with that, we could do real damage to concept of peaceful transfer of power here in the United States.

So, as a white dude, let me speak to all y’all other white dudes, particularly the ones of you planning to vote for Trump, and especially the ones of you who might be giddy at the idea of Trump not conceding the election if Hillary Clinton wins.

1.No one candidate is more important than the peaceful transfer of power.If you want to claim to be a real American — and I know you do, it’s kind of a cornerstone of the white dude self-image here in the US — respect for the constitutional process of transferring power from one presidential administration to another is more important than any particular candidate. Dudes, do you think I was happy when Al Gore lost to George W. Bush on a 5-4 Supreme Court vote that in my mind wasfucking specious in terms of its reasoning? No! And yet when the decision came down, that was that — the constitutional process had ground out a decision that handed the election to Bush, and it was time for Gore to go home, which to his eternal credit, he did, publicly conceding the election to Bush. And I was fine with that. Not happy, mind you. But fine.

(Before anyone compares what Trump is saying with what happened with Bush/Gore, unless the actual electoral college vote in 2016 comes down to a single state that has an automatic recount procedure, there’s no actual comparison, and in any event, that’s not what Trump was asked.)

Now, maybe Trump is just being coy about having respect for the constitutional process of selecting a president, but then, he’s a thin-skinned whiner with the manners of an angry toddler, so that’s not surprising. But what about you? Will you also act as unto a screaming pre-schooler told he has to share his toys? Or will you sack up and be more gracious than the man you are statistically likely to vote for? Will you actually be the grown-up adult male that your age heavily implies you are?

For the record, if at this point the absolutely improbable happens and Trump wins the election for President, you know what I will fully expect Hillary Clinton to do? Concede the election! And here’s the thing: She will! Because that’s how it’s done. And because she, at least, is a grown-up.

2.The election isn’t rigged. Now, I know what some of you will say there — but Hillary’s a cheater! The election is rigged! The fix is in! Look at this video I found on the Internet! The media is complicit!

Guys, no. The election isn’t rigged — see the link above, which explains why it’s almost impossible to actually rig a presidential election. Your willingness to argue that the election is riggable is a good indicator of how susceptible you are to privileging your own sense of entitlement over actual and verifiable fact, something Trump, that glorious tangerine-hued ignoramus, knows all about. Be better than Trump in this regard. He doesn’t want you to be, because he doesn’t want to admit he’s losing fair and square. But you don’t have to indulge him.

As for the media, if you come at me with the latter-day rationalization that what “rigged” really means is that the media is in the tank for Hillary, I’m going to laugh at you for two reasons. One, during the primaries, Trump got so much press and used it to his advantage so well that he spent eight times less on ads than Jeb Bush, and five times less than Marco Rubio, and won the candidacy. Trump still dominates the press, because he’s a walking garbage fire of a candidate, and — here’s a news flash! — political garbage fires are good for media company bottom lines. Mind you, the press didn’t make Trump a garbage fire; he was a garbage fire all on his own. The press is merely pointing to Trump and saying: Hey, look at that garbage fire! If Trump wants better press (I mean, aside from the sycophantic bunghole tonguing he receives from Breitbart), maybe he should consider not being a garbage fire.

Two, if you want to argue that Clinton got a free ride from the press, I’ll be happy to match you up with a liberal who will be delighted to argue with you for years about how the press went after the alleged email scandal far longer than the story warranted, not to mention all the various Wikileaks and so on. You two will have fun yelling at each other!

What is true, I’d argue, and especially in recent days, is that every time something potentially damaging to Clinton comes out, Trump has to go out and do or say something stupid, like, oh, I don’t know, say he won’t fucking concede the election if he loses it. Why does that get more play than something in Clinton’s email? Because Clinton’s email is small beer, and fucking not conceding the election is actually a pretty big deal. If you think the two are equivalent, pull your head out of your asshole, please, wipe yourself off, and get a grip.

3. Donald Trump isn’t worth fucking up the US of A for. No one is, to be clear, but especially Donald Trump, who is an honest-to-God piece of shit human being who  that no one should ever have supported. He’s a bad businessman whose business model actively includes cheating little people out of what he owes them, him, which makes his support from small business people just plain mind-boggling, since they are the very people he screws out of their money for his gold-encrusted sink faucets; he’s ignorant as shit; he’d grope your wife, sister or daughter if he thought he could, and you left the room; he’d lie to your face and call you an asshole when you pointed out he was lying; he’s easily provoked into doing stupid things; and if he were a character in Red Dawn (the classic version, not the inessential remake), he’d be the one sucking up to the Russkies. He’s every boss who makes you work overtime and doesn’t want to pay you for it; every landlord who won’t snake the toilet or fix the radiator but raises your rent like clockwork; every schmuck who cuts in line in front of you and dares you to make something of it.

He’s a fucking asshole,in other words, and you’d maybe want to go to the constitutional mat for him? Why? Because he’s rich? Dudes, he’s not that rich, and the way he got rich was by fucking over other people, and if that’s all right with you, it’s time for an examination of your own sense of morality. Because he “tells it like it is?” He doesn’t tell it like it is, he tells it like he wants you to believe it is, and bullies any one who says otherwise. Because he’s not “politically correct”? Well, that’s because he’s a goddamn bigot, my friend, and it’s a bad look on him and on you. Because he’s an outsider? Aw, bullshit. He’s been a grasping social climber for years. There’s nowhere he’d rather be than inside.

Because he’s fighting for you? Oh, son. Just, no. Donald Trump never “fought” for anyone other than himself — look at his decades-long track record for confirmation of that. And when it comes down to you or him, he’ll go him every time. Just ask the GOP, who is currently living in regret. You might be signing up to be the willing tool of a dude who would kick you to the curb the moment you weren’t useful to him, and who would call you a loser when he did.  It’s It not if he’ll do it. It’s when.

Why the fuck would you toss everything you possibly claim to believe in as an American for this absolute cocknugget of a human being?

Well, there’s an answer, but you’re not going to like it.

4. If you’re okay with Trump not conceding, you’re signaling you’re possibly a racist, sexist piece of shit who would rather tear everything down than not to let a white dude have his way. Now, you can rationalize this any way you like, but at the end of the day, this is what it looks like, because to a very large extent, this is what it is. There will be no legitimate reason to contest this election if Clinton wins it; the way we’ve set up our elections assures she will win it fair and square. There is no legitimate reason for Trump not to concede should he lose — it really is the absolute minimum he can do, and if he doesn’t then he proves without a single shadow of doubt that he didn’t deserve the office he contested for, because he fundamentally did not understand what it was about.

If Trump doesn’t concede, there is no legitimate reason for you or anyone else to fight for Trump’s shitty little tantrum except because you’re having a shitty little tantrum right next to him. Because you don’t want to share, basically. Because a woman, who was voted into office by basically everyone who wasn’t a white male, beat out a white dude and as a white dude, you just can’t take it.

And I get that! We’ve been here before, you know — like, oh, the last eight fucking years, when the GOP dined out on the latent and no-so-latent racism of white dudes like us to illegitimize the current president of the United States as much as it possibly could. Every Everything flower of GOP obstinacy, from birth certificates to the Senate declining to do its actual job and take a vote on a Supreme Court justice because it has a theory that a president’s term is actually only kind of around three years long has a long, hard root in the pool of racism that white dudes in particular swim around in. There are other roots — it’s not like the GOP didn’t go after Bill Clinton, after all, so it’s not all racism and sexism — but let’s not kid ourselves. That’s a lot of what it was.

And now here we are in 2016 and when it comes to conceding this election, there’s no real principle at stake here other than fuck all those people, weshould have won.

Who’s we? Well, who is voting for Trump? It’s not a lot of minorities here in the US, that’s for sure. It’s not women, in general or even the white women — even Republican women don’t support Trump in the numbers they generally support GOP candidates with. The core of Trump’s support is white dudes. And as they say, #NotAllWhiteDudes, since in fact many support Clinton or other candidates (hello!). But that’s his core of support. It’s us, white dudes.

We’re the people Trump wants want to “watch” the polls — the way he suggests that’s done, incidentally, sounds like a lot like voter intimidation — and the ones he expects to raise a ruckus about rigged elections if he doesn’t get what he wants. He’s relying on white dudes to be racist and sexist on his behalf before and after the election, and let’s make no mistake that if he should win the election, the white dudes who are actively and unapologetically racist and sexist intend to capitalize on that win.

If you go along with his plan, you’re down with all of this. Again, rationalize it all you want. You won’t fool anyone.

Here’s the thing: It’s not going to work. It has the possibility of making a mess in the short term, but Clinton doesn’t need Trump’s concession, and all the people who voted for Hillary Clinton (or at least, against Trump) are not going away. They’ll be back election after election, and demographics are on their side. They’re not going to forget if Trump loses and refuses to concede and calls on his supporters to make a mess. They’re not going to forget who it was who rallied to Trump’s side to say everyone else’s vote didn’t count, or didn’t count as much as the votes of white dudes and their preferred candidate. They’ll remember what that actually means.

So: Trump, or the United States. White dudes, if Trump loses the election and doesn’t concede, you’re going to have to decide which is more important to you. All us white dudes are going to have to decide. Everyone else will be watching.

Choose wisely.

by Megan Burbank

If you aren't a nerd who streams CSPAN, you may have missed yesterday's great filibuster in the Senate, a nearly-15-hour-long effort led by Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut to push Republicans to quit snoozing on sensible gun control policies that would help make this Onion article stop being relevant practically every goddamn day. Well, it worked: By the end of the filibuster, Murphy announced that party leaders had agreed to vote on two gun measures—one that would keep people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns, and another that would enforce background checks for gun purchases at gun shows and online. This was after an incredibly emotional, long-ranging discussion of why progress on gun control has been so slow in the wake of so many horrific shootings like the one that happened in Orlando over the weekend. It was powerful testimony, and what democracy looks like at its best.

Your senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, were both in attendance. (So were Washington State's Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell—this was a PNW-strong filibuster.) And although the most media-hyped moments of the whole powerful thing belong to Senator Murphy and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Wyden and Merkley both got in some strong, necessary words.

In his remarks, Merkley brought up shooting incidents close to home, including the 2015 shooting at Umpqua Community College, and was firm in advocating both for tighter restrictions on guns and for doing the work to undo discrimination that leads to violence against marginalized groups. "When you have a legal structure that embraces discrimination, that creates a culture that embraces discrimination," he said.

Wyden, for his part, emphasized the reach of the trauma caused by violence, and frustration that while shootings have been happening with a regularity "like clockwork," "like clockwork, this Congress does nothing about it."

During the filibuster, the Brady campaign made it extremely easy for constituents to call their senators to voice support for the filibuster and urge a vote. And you did. By the time I called Wyden's office at 8 pm, the senator's voicemail was full.

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Golf ball hitting steel at 150mph, recorded at 70 000fps

physics is so fucked up

jesus fucking christ

There’s a difference between knowing something and living as if it were true. At the end of 2013, these truths are all lingering on that awkward threshold, for me anyway.

1) The sooner you do something, the more of your life you get to spend with that thing done — even though it takes less effort (or at least no more) than it will later. It’s the ultimate sure-thing investment and I pass it up all the time.

2) I never regret working out. I can’t count the number of times I’ve negotiated with myself to work out the next day instead of today because I’m worried it will be a “bad workout.” I seldom have a bad day on a day that I work out.

3) Whenever I’m playing with my phone I am only shortening my life. A smartphone is useful if you have a specific thing you want to do, but ninety per cent of the time the thing I want to do is avoid doing something harder than surfing Reddit. During those minutes or hours, all I’m doing is dying.

4) Nothing makes me more productive and in-the-moment than a clean house. There is mind-clearing magic in cleanliness. Waking up in a house where everything is put away is a glorious feeling. There seem to be more possibilities in the air, and all my things seem more useful.

5) Minute-for-minute, nothing I do is more rewarding than meditation. Even after just a very short session, it reliably makes me better at everything, especially making decisions. It lets me do my best. Yet I still do it only intermittently.

6) Creative work is something that can be done at any time. It’s no different than any other kind of work. Inspiration is nice but completely optional. I’ve almost completely come around on this one in 2013. But sometimes the Four Horsemen still trick me.

7) Acting the way you want to feel usually works. When I feel crappy just before I have to go do something, if I decide to act as if I am happy for a while (even though I’m not) I usually end up feeling happy after not too long, or at least much less crappy. This is straight out of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and it’s an extremely powerful thing to experiment with. [More on this in an upcoming post.]

8) Ninety-five per cent of my happiness comes from having a home, a functioning body and something to eat. I live in utter luxury, by any sensible standard of what “luxury” is. If I am unhappy it’s because I’ve lost perspective about the other five per cent. 

9) Our minds are geared to manage much less than we typically end up managing. Modern people have so many options they conflict with each other in almost every area. The fewer things I have, the more I enjoy my things. The fewer goals I have, the better I do them. The smaller the portion size, the better food tastes.

10) The quickest and most reliable path to personal improvement is to do the things on my list that I resist most. Internal resistance should be taken as a big red sign guaranteeing rapid growth and new capabilities. Given my experience with the ecstasy that comes with overcoming resistance, logically I should be attracted to it by now.

11) All you need to do to finish things is keep starting them until they’re done. The idea of doing something in its entirety always seems hard. But it’s easy to commit to simply starting on something, and then you’re past most of the resistance. Continuing is just as easy. (Thanks to Leo Babauta for this one.)

12) Whenever I think I’m mad at a person, I’m really just mad at a situation. I’m mad because suddenly life requires something new of me, and it’s easy to implicate a person who contributed to that situation. I want the situation to be responsible for fixing itself, so I attribute it to someone else’s moral failing, and then I don’t have to feel responsible for this new problem of mine.

13) Ultimately, to get something done you have to forget about everything else while you do it. The mind is always telling you that 85 things are on fire and you need to do everything now. However you respond emotionally to it, to move things along you have to pick one to deal with, and let the rest continue burning while you do.

14) The most consistently joyful activities for me are visiting with other people and reading books. Aside from earning a living and a bit of travel there isn’t much else I need in my life. Somehow these two things are still not clear priorities. What are yours?

15) If I find myself in an argument, I’ve made a mistake. It doesn’t matter whose position makes more sense, because by the time it’s an argument any real communication has ended. Marshall Rosenberg’s brilliant method of Nonviolent Communication is a far more useful default response than argument, but I often forget it completely.

16) Few things matter long-term other than relationships, health, personal finance and personal growth. Crises in almost every other area turn over so quickly there’s not much reason to get upset at them. Interestingly, those four are the areas that probably contribute most to happiness in the short term too.

 

If this list is different at the end of 2014 then it will have been a good year. What’s in the same category for you?

Goodbye 2013, you were great.

***

Photo by David Cain

With the new year's right around the corner, many of us start to ambitiously muster up a new list of goals. One study of people trying to quit smoking showed that over 50% were confident they would succeed, but only 12% did. While a broader study showed that a rather uplifting 39% of people in their twenties actually achieved their resolutions. Although a low total of only 8%. If you're in your twenties, don't get ahead of yourself just yet, and if you're not; it's just statistics. Don't let it slow you down!

Don't Talk Big Before Doing Anything

This study actually shows that announcing your goals before you actually do something can do more harm than good. One theory is that it gives you the illusion of progress, of having done something, and makes you feel better about yourself. That way it's easier to decide that you don't really need to change your ways after all when the time comes to do the actual heavy lifting. But no matter the reason,

Write Your Goals Down

A recent study by Dr. Gail Matthews that writing goals down increases your chances of success. So do just that. Write your goals down.

Tell A Supportive Friend

The same study indicates a much higher rate of success among the group of students who wrote down their commitments and sent them to a supportive friend.

Track And Share Weekly Progress With A Friend

Finally, the study(I know, helpful study right?) showed the highest rate of success among people who not only told a supportive friend, but actively updated them on the progress. In the study it was a weekly commitment, so why shy away from a winning formula!

Get Specific

A different study revealed that getting specific can mean the difference between failure and success. So when you're writing down your goals, don't leave them in the abstract. In fact, I am in the middle of a "superhuman productivity week", and I managed to meet all my specific goals, but not less specific "read 100 pages of a useful book per day" that I have yet to meet. So don't be afraid to get specific. And then a little more, and then a little more. Until there's no mistaking what you're supposed to do.

Focus On The Progress

According to this lifehacker article, a study found that receiving positive feedback actually increased the chances of success. So do yourself a favor, focus on the progress and allow yourself the drive to continue until you reach your goal.

Don't Reward Yourself In A Counterproductive Way

Alarmingly, another study found that reminding dieters of their progress, made them more likely to reward themselves in an unhealthy manner. It actually made them make less progress! So while focusing on the positives is more likely to keep you going, it is also more likely to make you want to reward yourself. So, while it can be tempting to reward yourself with an unhealthy snack when you've made significant progress, don't take it overboard. If you notice that the first reward starts an unhealthy trend, find a better, less counterproductive way to reward yourself. Like going out to watch a movie, or catch a comedy show. The same goes if you're trying to bulk up, or just trying to get in better shape. Don't start slacking off because you've done well.

Give Yourself A Money Incentive

A recent study by Mayo Clinic demonstrated a significant increase in weight loss in people who were given a money incentive. There are many ways to do this, but here are two ideas. Make a bet with your closest friends, as they will likely be happy to participate knowing that it actually increases your chances. Another option is a website called stickk, where you will commit money to achieving a goal, if you fail it gets donated to a charity you disagree with, and if you succeed you get your money back. Plus these two ways have something in common, the incentive has an aspect of losing money. And given that most of us have a tendency to feel stronger about potential loss than potential gains(see loss aversion), that's just an added bonus.

Bonus: Don't Go Overboard

While you're now statistically more likely to achieve the goals you set, if you go crazy and try to achieve all your dreams in one fell swoop, it is likely that you're going to get overwhelmed and quit. Although I couldn't find the statistics to back it up, I have been a victim of this particular brand of hubris before, and it didn't end well for me at all. So in addition to all the things mentioned above, use common sense. Happy holidays, happy new year, and I hope this post contributed to some great success stories still in the making! Ragnar is a freelance writer with a passion for personal development. He's currently working towards achieving location independence, and will hopefully be embarking on his first adventure in the spring of 2014. Read his blog for the occasional insight, inspiration or just a sense of camaraderie in reading about him trying and failing. If you've decided to take life into your hands and force yourself to enjoy it, check out Ragnar's blog Tangible Freedom. Where he shares his struggles and what he learns along the way.

The post 7 Proven Tips To Help You Achieve Your Biggest Goals In 2014 appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.