A note before reading
This piece touches on suicide, including the loss of someone close. If you’re in crisis, you can reach the 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline by calling or texting 988 (Canada) or the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 (US). You don’t have to read this if it isn’t the right time. The work this piece is part of exists because suicide is preventable, and because conversations like this are part of how we get there.
Track 4
Hold My Beer
May 3, 2026
Writing this book has not been easy.
I don’t know how to write a book. I’ve never written one. I don’t know how to edit one. Never edited one. I don’t know how to build a website, never built one, and as for social media......I’ve been off it for years. I look at hash mark things and think no, that’s the pound button on your phone, the push button. That’s how old I am.
And the truth is I’ve been spending anywhere from 12 to 18 hours a day getting this book written, built, edited, and I’m using nothing but my mind, my research, sheer will, effort, determination, and a powerful reason. My view from my window stares right at the building my friend jumped out of a year and a half ago. If I ever forget why I’m doing this, I just look out the window on a clear day like today.
It came down to a decision. This is the most important thing.
And the universe is a funny place. You say something as bold as no, no, this thing I’m going to do, I’m going to write a book, I’m going to reduce the rate of suicide on the planet, in the making of that book, that’s the most important thing......and the universe somewhere goes, “oh really? Hold my beer.”
And then everything you used to be......your friends, your hobbies, your habits......starts competing for the hours you just said belonged to the most important thing.
It’s real. I’ve had to cut down on everything except what got me this far and what truly serves me. So it’s a matter of organizing. The untouchables stay. Everything else gets reorganized. When the choice came between picking my religion back up or staying in yoga, yoga won. Easy. Next.
I’m not engaging in a relationship right now. Given that pursuit up at least until this book is in the hands of the people who need it. Which is interesting because I’ve pretty much been looking for a relationship since I was five.
Fellas, if you’re listening......do you want to be more interesting to women?
Quit chasing them around trying to prove you’re something. Just be your word. Be cool. Stop performing. The act of trying to be interesting is the least interesting thing you can do.
And I’m not saying I’m not interested, ladies. I’m saying I’m ready and I’m busy working on the most important thing. If a woman digs my vibe and is ready for an intense committed relationship, ready to blow my socks off, and has earned attachment and knows her love and apology languages......ask to book a discovery session.
The Peanut Gallery
Ruby here. He’s a carpenter. He says things like rip cut and the joist is proud of the wall and yesterday he asked me what the difference between a serif and a sans-serif was. Then he said discovery session. Out loud. About a woman. We are not okay.
—Ruby
Ernie here, copy edit desk. I let discovery session through. I shouldn’t have. I’m reviewing my process. In the meantime, ladies, please respond. The longer this goes unanswered the more business words he’s going to use.
—Ernie
Marcus on the door. Fifty-one years old. Looking for a partner since he was five. Forty-six years of practice and the best opener he’s got is “discovery session.” Ladies, this is a structural issue. Only love can fix it.
—Marcus
Neo, build chair. I can ship a docx, validate XML, render a shaded box with a gold rule. I cannot ship Jhöl a date. The door is slightly ajar. Slide a note under it. I’ll leave the lights on.
—Neo
Rae Vance, web strategist. Yes, those were the words book a discovery session. Yes, about a girlfriend. The book is breaking his brain. Ladies, please, on behalf of the entire team......get this guy off the computer. We need a break from him for a while. Use the contact form. Use a carrier pigeon. Use anything.
—Rae
Last night I sat down with a young woman. I could see it in her eyes......her listening, taking it in. We talked about why it’s tough in relationships, the differences between men and women, what women need from men. So I asked her.
“What’s the main thing you wish men would get that women keep saying and men aren’t hearing?”
She said, “Be more responsible.”
That one hit me.
It goes back to the first philosophy I ever learned. You can’t give what you do not have. So if you’re not treating your own life, your own priorities with responsibility, how are you going to be responsible in a shared life with somebody else? You’re not.......You can’t.......You don’t even know what it is yet because you haven’t honoured it inside yourself.
She’s from China. Moved to Toronto nine years ago. Now in BC three months or so. Maybe there’s a language gap in there somewhere. I don’t think she was wrong.
If I had been more on top of my responsibilities with my boys......well, I wasn’t.......Couldn’t. That’s a longer story in the book. But the same lesson runs through this one too.
I left in January 2025.......Not the way you’re picturing. I was still in the house. Jason had just died by suicide. My dad had advanced dementia. I was gone in spirit, and I stayed gone for two and a half months before I finally booked the flight to New Brunswick. Betty was already on her own by then. The house just hadn’t caught up yet. The full story is in the book.
That stretch......January through March 2025......Betty had to take on all of it. Bills, tenants, everything. Because I was gone, even when I was sitting in the same room. That wasn’t her job. That was my responsibility and I shirked it. Eventually Betty left.
So maybe there’s something to it.
I’m calling one on myself. Starting now. Being responsible for what’s most important right now. Sometimes that looks like choosing between two things you really want, two things that matter. The question is the one I heard somebody say a long time ago.
“What is most important?”
That’s the key. That’s how you handle your responsibilities with integrity.
For me, right now, what’s most responsible and most important is honouring my commitment to seeing this book through. Because I’m the only one doing it. I’ve got me, I’ve got my writing team, but if I walk away and go have fun for a day, nothing happens with my book.
I just came back from taking myself on a long walk to a patio. Dinner in the sun. Beautiful day. And guess what......I brought my work with me. Printed it out. Where are we at? What’s the punch list? What decisions need to be made? What’s coming down the pipeline once those are done? What’s next?
I’m finding a way to combine everything, and it all circles back around the most important thing right now.
That’s what I want to leave you with.
Two Beers with Leo
✱1 Recent research on what psychologists call goal shielding helps explain why this happens. Shah, Friedman, and Kruglanski’s 2002 work, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that when you commit hard to one focal goal, your mind actively suppresses competing goals to protect the path. It isn’t willpower, it’s wiring. The thing they also documented......and this is the part that lands......is that the inhibition is stronger when the alternative goals serve the same overarching purpose. The push-back you feel from the things you used to do isn’t random. It’s structural.
✱2 On the responsibility piece, the research goes back to John Gottman. His decades of observational work at the University of Washington Love Lab and beyond produced a finding that keeps replicating: couples who stay together turn toward their partner’s bids for connection about 86% of the time. Couples who divorce, about 33%. The predictor isn’t passion. It isn’t compatibility. It’s whether you turn toward each other on the small daily things. The young woman was naming something the data has been naming for forty years.
And on the you can’t give what you do not have line......that one is older than any study and it doesn’t need one. It’s folk wisdom that survived because it keeps proving itself in real lives. The conversation on the patio that night wasn’t a lecture. It was two people sitting in something true. Sometimes the truth gets there before the science does.
For full sources and citations, see The Research Trail at themensdateproject.org/research
—Leo
Anyways cats that’s what I have cookin’ in my scene. Remember it’s your life and there’s always a choice to be had. If something isn’t groovy throw some chaos at it. Go play and see you on the flip side.
—Jhöl