Life after door kicking.

Author: lifeafterdoorkicking

  • A Change of Pace

    Every Tuesday for more than a year, a post has gone live here. Sometimes personal, sometimes philosophical, and sometimes political. Sometimes I was writing weeks ahead of schedule; other times I was racing the clock at 11 p.m. to make a 12:05 release. Lately, I’ve been thinking about what this blog has been—and what it…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • A Tale Of Two Solutions.

    How many of our political disagreements persist because we’re arguing past each other? We criticize the other side’s conclusions because they don’t solve the problem as we understand it, without first asking whether they’re trying to solve a different problem altogether. When the left argues for a living wage, many on the right respond that…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Trying to Be the Man of the House

    Most people who know me know the military stories. They know about Afghanistan and Iraq. They know about deployments, firefights, and the years I spent in the Army. What they usually don’t know is much about the life that came before the uniform. They don’t know the kid from Las Vegas. The teenager who spent…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Things run so smooth we forget they’re not guaranteed to

    I heard recently that we’ve moved to a post-scarcity society—and that it wasn’t even up for debate.Stopping at the gas station in the morning shatters that illusion.If we were actually post-scarcity, there’d be no shortages. Prices wouldn’t exist. Geography wouldn’t matter. Conflicts on the other side of the world wouldn’t touch anything here because you…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • What We Call Progress—And What It Cost

    ,

    People like to ask what happened to the days when a single job—something like retail—could support a family.The usual answers get thrown around: greed, policy, bad luck.But that misses the bigger picture.Some of the things we call progress came with unintended consequences.And whether we want to admit it or not, we’re living in them now.…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Joe Blow to Double 00 : the Power of a smile in your toolkit

    ,

    For most of my life, I was a sourpuss. Angry, unapproachable, someone people didn’t dare waste a smile on. I was just Joe Blow—grumpy, defensive, easy to avoid. Somewhere along the way, though, I started adding tools to my kit, and the most surprising one was a smile. Learning to wield it deliberately—strategically—felt almost like…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • “Before Stoicism: Musings Toward a Philosophy”

    , ,

    Most people think they’re shepherds.In reality, most of us are sheep—and we spend a surprising amount of time arguing over who the wolves are.That realization was part of one of my earliest attempts at building a philosophy.Long before I ever read Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, I was trying to make sense of how people behave…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Why I Chose Stoicism Over Epicureanism

    , ,

    Philosophy isn’t some wasted elective from high school, or a lot of debt from a college with no method of recompense — it’s a tool for life. When understood and applied, it can help you lead a good life, but first you have to define what a “good life” actually means. I’ve dabbled in philosophy.…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Security First, Freedom Later — The Ancient Shell Game

    , ,

    Everyone claims to value freedom. Ask a hundred people whether they would rather live free or not, and all hundred will say yes. But history and human behavior tell a more complicated story. When faced with uncertainty, instability, or danger, people consistently choose security over liberty.This choice is not foolish — it is practical. Human…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • What Do You Call Someone Who’s Been a Lot of People?

    When I was a kid, almost nobody called me by my first name.It wasn’t personal—it was practical. Common name. Too many of us in every class. So the name always came with a qualifier. Mike G. Blonde Mike. White Mike. The name alone wasn’t enough to point to a person.As a teenager, the names changed.…

    Written by

    lifeafterdoorkicking