Author: Steve Ainslie

If you thought for one second that the latest government shutdown actually had anything to do with helping the poor and the middle class with affordability of housing, medical insurance, food, utilities or childcare, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. I knew from the moment the shutdown began back in September that…

“What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?” is a trope often asked rhetorically by authors, business people, success “coaches”, podcasters, behavioral economists, psychologists and motivational speakers are talking about money, financial success, careers, meaning and purpose. Its overuse has become worse than referencing the marshmallow experiment. I think that people…

On the GenX subreddit yesterday, a woman asked “Do men our age still pursue women?” The context is that she’s a recently divorced GenX woman (mid 50s) who has returned to dating after being married for several decades. Apparently, she hasn’t had much success so far. The feedback, from other GenXers was interesting. The men…

After the election of Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of NYC I listened to a podcast that had a reporter covering the post-election campaign celebration. It sounded like a party – as in drinking, dancing, laughing, socializing and celebrating. People were having fun. I remember thinking the same thing after watching coverage of a Trump rally…

I was reading through some of my earlier posts from when I started this blog back in 2017. What stood out for me was how lighthearted these early posts were. I used self-deprecating humor and personal anecdotes with subtle humor in most of my posts. I remembered laughing when I wrote them. My world was…

I heard a podcaster say, “Show me a pie chart with the top five categories of how you spend your time and I’ll tell you what’s important to you.” She then did a back of the napkin analysis of her cohost’s pie chart. It was a simple, highly effective exercise. Although he had professed for…

Except for food (from Harris Teeter) and building supplies (from Home Depot), I do 95% of my shopping on Amazon. The other 5% of my shopping is directly from manufacturer’s websites for closeout sales, specialty products or items not available on Amazon. Amazon excels at the logistics for online shopping: I make 100s of Amazon…

After listening to a number of podcasts hosted by pundits or rich people, I think most of them are too online (just like media people). It struck me how pervasive this is regardless of the person’s expertise, political leanings, podcast content, upbringing, etc. I listened to Joe Rogan, Scott Galloway, the guests on Left Right…

This week I heard Scott Galloway (net worth $100M+) say he spends about 2 hours each night on social media. I was curious what could capture his attention so much time so I checked out his “Threads” feed. Mostly what I saw was him commenting or reposting memes, videos and tweets that I had already…

I am overwhelmed. Despite my attempts to minimize my interactions with internet trolls, avoid most news and modulate my exposure to Trump and his cohorts, whenever I’m online or listening to podcasts, I am barraged with bad news, doom predictions, and dystopian forecasts. I’d blame Trump & team for at least 75% of it. The…