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Dear Har-old, 11 was a full-house; I cut it by 7. No one from the old list survives. Here are your new cabinet members, along with their guides. Futuristically yours, Har+new
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall. Who’s The Best Narcissist Of Them All?
Dear Har-old,
Us yesterday:
Har+new: Why are you always looking in the mirror?
Har-old: Because I look crazy talking to you without one.
Har+new: Ha! You do more “listening” than talking.
Har-old: Okay. Don’t you want me to be a better listener? Isn’t that one of the qualities you’re helping me develop?
Har+new: Yes, but no, that’s not what I meant. You “listen” as an excuse to look.
Har-old: Huh?
Har+new: Since when did blowing kisses while another person is talking make one a great listener? You can’t walk pass a mirror without looking in it, can you?
Har-old: Yes I can!
Har+new: Ha! Not with peripheral vision, you can’t. Remember when you worked at Smith & Nephew? That day you were headed to the restroom and saw Lauren waiting in the lobby? Instead of approaching her and telling her how much you were crushing on her, you ran to the restroom to make sure you looked presentable a-k-a making sure your nose was booger-free. By the time you got back she was long gone.
Har-old: Who knows how long she was sitting there when I saw her? They probably finally saw her after making her wait forever.
Har+new: Or you was in the mirror forever. Hmmm? And when did you start to care if people thought you were crazy or not? Hmmm?
Har-old, this is how I knew Now Wife was the one:
I use to date this girl who was beautiful, I mean stunning, gorgeous, sexy, hot, fine as hell, OH MY GOD BROTHER! But I can only give her those physical compliments, you know, because she was dumb as a rock, man. This broad was … this broad was a complete idiot, Har-old. And one day while we were out on a date I saw my friend Rob. He approached us before we got seated. And you know how if a buddy catches you on a hot date with a hot chick he doesn’t try to take up too much time with small talk but the little time he does take and the small talk he does give is staring at her and complimenting her looks. And, I expected that, you know. And, I was okay with it, ya know … until:
Rob: Har-old, she is beautiful. I mean stunning, gorgeous, sexy, hot, fine as hell, OH MY GOD BROTHER. You, lucky dog, you!
Date: Hahahaha!
Rob: Well, I will get out of you kids way, and let y’all enjoy the rest of y’all’s night.
Har+new: Hold on! Wait a minute! “You, lucky dog, you???”
Rob: What’s that?
Har+new: “You, lucky dog, you?”
Rob: Yeah?
Har+new: Rob, you have known me for many, many years. You know how hard I worked. You know how I busted my ass to get to where I’m at. To get to the top. To get to this position. To establish my wealth. To make my ideas reality. The blood, sweat, tears! YOU KNOW THAT!
Rob: Har+new, calm down. Calm down, brother.
Har+new: And you know if I was a chick you would totally bang me. This girl … let go of my arm … this girl is a freaking dummy. She may have the beauty but she doesn’t have the brains to match …
I went on for another 10 minutes like this. Suffice to say I got a glass of water thrown in my face. I was SO angry at this girl’s looks that I wanted the next girl to be the smartest girl I’ve ever met with total disregard for her looks. And I found her! While we were out on a date I saw Rob again. This time his little time and small talk was ALL directed at me.
Rob: Well, I will get out of you kids away, and let y’all enjoy the rest of y’all’s night.
Har+new: Hey man! Where are you going???
Rob: Home?
Har+new: You not gone compliment my date on how she looks?
Rob: Why?
Har+new: What you mean why?
Rob: Brother, look at her.
Har+new: *turns head* DAMN, YOU UGLY! Let go of my arm! No, Rob, no! She is smart as hell. She has 4 degrees, okay, Rob. FOUR! She knows 6 active languages and two more arcane and dead ones. You hear me?! Have a conversation with it, HER!. HER! Have one, Rob!
Rob: *scared look on his face* Please, no. I don’t want to. Please don’t make me have one. Please! I beg of you.
I went on for another 5 minutes like this … trying to get Rob to have a conversation with that thing. Suffice to say I got a glass of water thrown in my face … Rob did too. Again, I was SO angry at having a beauty without brains to match or a brainiac without beauty to match that I wanted the next girl to be the best of both worlds. That’s right. I was done being tacky. And, I found her … Now Wife. When Rob caught us out in public you should’ve seen it. His little time and small talk was evenly distributed between me and her. And by this time the phrase “You, Lucky Dog, You” was an inside joke between Rob and I. We told each other whenever we caught the other out on a date or if we talked too extensively about a girl we would say the phrase. And that’s when IT happened:
Rob: Well, I will get out of you kids way, and let y’all enjoy the rest of y’all’s night.
Har+new: Rob, you forgetting something.
Rob: Oh yeah!
Rob gets between us, disconnecting our hand holding, grabs her left arm, lifts her hand up and kisses it and turns to me and says:
Rob: Har+new, I’ve known you for many, many years. She is by far the most attractive woman you’ve ever been with. You, lucky dog, you! Hahahaha!
Har+new: Hahahaha!
Now Wife: Shut the hell up! Both of you! *looks at Rob* Let go of my arm! I’m Not Just A Pretty Face. I appreciate the compliment, I do. But *grabs her face* I’m just renting this for a while. But *points index finger at her head* this is mines to own.
She went on for another 22 minutes like this. Wow! Suffice to say a glass of water was thrown in my face … by myself. I thought I was dreaming.
Maybe you should cover the mirror with post it notes if you can’t stop looking in it. LOOK ON IT! Those are the words that aren’t backwards. Accept my suggestion. You’ll thank *holds right palm up* you’ll blow a kiss at me later.
FY,
Har+new
P.S. Har-old, let’s have a good Friday and make history this weekend strong-end.
Dear Har-old,
In How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling, Frank Bettger wrote:
I seldom meet anyone who never heard of Franklin’s thirteen-week plan, but I never met anyone who has told me he tried it!
In The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin wrote:
I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example, and reap the benefit.
Har-old, I will update the first-ever letter I wrote you, OMG!, and I will choose the 13 subjects which I feel are necessary or desirable for you to acquire and try to master, and I want you to give a week’s strict attention to each subject successively. In this way, you will be able to go through your entire list in thirteen weeks, and repeat the process four times in a year. Also, each subject will be followed by a brief summary. For instance, Franklin’s second subject was Silence, and his summary was, “Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
I concluded that OMG! letter with a tagline from 43things.com, “Changing your life is hard. Doing it by yourself is harder.”
Here’s the screwed lightbulb (great idea) I had:
FY’s community will also join in on Franklin’s Thirteen-week Plan. They will list and share their thirteen subjects and summaries with you and six others of their choice. Y’all are to agree to the best way to communicate with each other. I prefer exchanging numbers because it’s more instant and direct than Twitter, Facebook or email.
This is how it will work:
Once they’ve shared their list, which will be in the order in which they plan to use it, they will assign seven people who represent the seven days of the week, to text or voicemail their subjects and summaries. This is for the subconscious. Five should be text; two should be voice mails. Har-old, you are not to or the others are not to get out-of-order meaning texting or voicing a person’s third subject during the first week, which is their first subject. Furthermore, you are only to be read or heard from once a week. No more!
At the end of every week you are to update everyone on your progress. This can either be done via a blog post, a text, an email, tweet or even phone conversation. Obviously, you can’t spread yourself to all seven people with a method like the last one-phone conversation-so again, agree on some end of the week method of updating everyone.
Har-old, writing this made me think of Dean Martin‘s Send Me The Pillow You Dream On. Listening to it now. I’m making this the theme song for this letter and the Thirteen-week Plan. Ha!
Futuristically yours,
Har+new
P.S. OMG! is now updated.
P.P.S. Let me know in the comments or through the contact form if you would like to participate.
I sent her some flowers yesterday with a note attached saying:
*Yelling through the microphone* to *bring you back*.
*Be like a gnat* and swarm around me again.
A bear name Harry is somewhere in that *cluttered room*.
He needs a hug.
Futuristically yours,
Har+new
Har+new??? Didn’t you mean Har-old? Oh, because of the play on words?
No, no, no, no, no.
More like OUT with the *OLD*, IN with the *NEW*.
Now “play” with those words.
FY,
Har+new
P.S. I’m still disappointed in you but couldn’t let that get in the way of helping you out. What you do now (present) does affect the later (future).
Announcement to authors.
Futuristically Yours.
2 words but 19 letters.
14 of which, belongs to Futuristically – an adverb you probably never wrote or said (6 syllables) outside here.
So, instead of writing out Futuristically Yours (all the time) at the end of your letters, initial it with FY.
FY,
Har+new
P.S. Yeah … you do still have to put a comma after the Y. Ouch! I know, I know.
Dear Har-old,
American athlete Mia Hamm said, “I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”
Progress report.
Remember when I told you after I get a good lead in letters I would bring in other future-selves. Well, I have done a poor job. I have been busy but hey I’m not using that as an excuse. My job was to have other future-selves write letters and yours was to have their young-present-self read them. Unlike me, you have done a great job. It’s only been two months and Futuristically Yours has 60 subscribers. Meanwhile, I’ve only been able to find 6 other authors.
You won’t only have my letters to look forward to. I would like to introduce FY’s newest authors Aezora, Jennifer and Kristen. They already have letters posted. Also, look for Shae‘s resurgence.
And I know you’re calling FOUL on my Freshly Pressed Fifty Dollar Bill move. I’ll admit you got me playing catch up so I’m trying to cheat. Haha!
Now Har-old, what I’m about to say will make you think you did all that work for nothing but here it goes …
Subscribers do NOT make Futuristically Yours. Our authors do.
Now you can say I’m cheating more when I say this, but I need you to stop spending so much time getting subscribers to help me grow our authors.
Current and prospective.
I want you the first one reading and commenting on other author’s letters.
You are wasting too much time on other blogs whose author isn’t showing FY the same love back. You know who they are. No more of this!
Let’s make our authors priority.
I will still post consistently as I have been but I will start to do it strategically so our other authors will shine. For instance, if Shae post on a Tuesday and I have a letter ready to go too, I will schedule it for Wednesday instead.
Remember: Those 48 subscribers do NOT make us. The 6 authors do.
Futuristically yours,
Har+new
P.S. It’s the T. Hahaha!
Dear Har-old,
American author Napoleon Hill wrote, “… I followed the habit of reshaping my own character, by trying to imitate the nine men whose lives and life-works had been most impressive to me.”
Here are your cabinet members:
Now your method of addressing the members of your cabinet will vary, according to the traits of character you are, for the moment, most interested in acquiring. The purpose in this is to rebuild your own character so it would represent a composite of the characters of your imaginary counselors.
Futuristically yours,
Har+new
Extra butter
Dear Har-old,
“I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive.”
And if I could add to Zuckerberg’s quote: ” . . . and while I’m only 26 years young!”
Dead or old.
Did not believe. But you did entertain thoughts of the world ending on the 21st. You did, Har-old.
Your beef was: “I’m too young to die.” “I haven’t lived yet.” “What about my future?”
And that got me thinking . . .
About how I can make you and every other young’n UNCOMFORTABLE with a biographical movie.
So, what’s on the menu?
Popcorn!
Burnt popcorn!
This new section will be movie trailers of y’all young lives UP TO THIS POINT.
Made by those that know you best.
That means they are in control of who plays you, the name of the movie, the trailer’s music, what genre it is: a comedy, a romance, an action-packed film.
But … I’m hoping it’s a DRAMA!
A HORROR!
Then everybody will vote on which trailer they would like to see turned into an actual film, consequently going to the movies to see.
And one more thing …
Life doesn’t get a sequel.
Futuristically yours,
Har+new
Dear Har-old,
I know, I know, I know.
You’re a “private” person.
And journals, diaries are meant for your eyes only.
“Don’t write what you don’t want others to read,” they say.
But I’m not trying to get people interested in YOUR life.
I am trying to get people interested in THEIR life, THEIR future.
Do not be so vain!
This is about the blog’s concept; not about you, Har-old.
Sure, these letters take on a personal nature, but are broad enough to make you relatable to OTHERS.
And that is the whole point.
Remember: I started this blog based on a need of YOURS. A need to be around other like-minds.
You still want that Master Mind Alliance, right?
Thought so.
Ironically, to make FuturisticallyYours.com successful WE both have to work.
Like I said before, I will find other future versions of young people’s present selves.
Your job is to market to those young-present-selves and get them to “respect their elders.”
And by that I mean having the young present WRITE WITHOUT READING.
Tell them if they’re worried about misspelled words, grammar mistakes, punctuation errors, blah blah blah, that’s what the proofreader is for.
Okay?
Care less.
I will edit anyways.
Write with a flow!
Tell them to read what they wrote a week or two from the date. Or hey, even a month.
Because that’s when the, “Damn I wrote this!” is followed by a “Did I say that out-loud?”
WRITE WITHOUT READING!!!
Futuristically yours,
Har+new
