When Teenage Dreams Meet Middle-Aged Reality

Donate to my fundraiser for The Cabin:  https://gofund.me/3f4b435dd

What did you want to be when you were younger? Where did you want to be? Who did you want to be?

I’m not talking about when you were little. I’m not looking at the days when we all wanted to be ninjas or princesses. I am talking about when you became a teenager. Those were the years when things started to crystallize a little better. What was your dream at the time you entered high school?

Flash forward to the present day. Are you that person? Are you where you’d hoped you’d be? Doing what you’d hoped you’d be doing? I hope you are.

For me, my life over the last thirty years has consisted of having one foot in the so-called ‘real world,’ and one foot struggling to keep its footing in those teenage dream years. Maybe you’d say I’ve held on too long to dreams that might never come true. I’d counter with maybe you gave up on your dreams too quickly.

I have always dreamed of working in some sort of creative field. I have had ten books published, have hundreds of blogs, hundreds of videos on YouTube that I have created from scratch, and hundreds of podcasts. Everything has been created by me from beginning to end.

The time between when I graduated high school and the green-lighting of my first book was fifteen years. In those years, I was a stock boy, landscaper, and cook. There were many days that the fire or my creative dreams were reduced to a tiny glowing ember underneath a pile of ash.

I never gave up, though. Even when my life was a mass of turkey clubs and fries, I never stopped dreaming. My hope of someday using my creative brain to make a living kept me from falling down a rabbit hole of despair in my 20s that I probably would never have gotten out of. Sometimes a little hope goes a long way.

Giving up on my teenage dreams has always felt like I’d be slapping my younger self in the face. My dreams of being a writer or a filmmaker in high school carried me through a home life that was chaos on nearly every level.

I had a biological father who couldn’t have cared less about me unless I had money I could give him. I had a stepfather who it felt like had a mission to break my spirit both physically and emotionally. That teenager fought to keep going, so this middle-aged man fights to keep those dreams alive.

You don’t understand how important a little hope is until that’s just about all that you have. Through rejection by my father, I had hope. Through abuse from my stepfather, I had hope. Through depression, breakups, and confusion, I had hope.

What ended up happening is the older I got, I’m talking later 30s, I started to feel that hope turn to something else: purpose. The older I got, being unmarried with no children, the more I started to step back and look at my situation on a macro level. There had to be a reason why I was where I was at that point in my life.

It easily could have morphed into fear and desperation. Oh no, I need a wife, and I need to have kids and settle down before it’s too late. I went the opposite way. I said, the fact that I am almost totally unrestricted must mean something. It gives me freedom to keep pursuing those teenage dreams.

There is an inspirational meme that I have gone back to many times over the last several years. There are two men in tunnels digging with pick axes. Both are slowly digging toward a giant stash of diamonds. One man is mere inches away when he gives up and turns around. The other man, it is theorized, will keep digging and find his fortune. That is my hope.

I am 48 years old. I have been on this road in varying forms for 30 years. Sometimes I stray and get lost in the woods for a bit, but eventually I am back on the road. Heading for what? I don’t know. I have hope.

Later this summer, I am producing my first feature film. It is called The Cabin and is a short story I wrote back in 2008. It is this project that I feel is the full-circle moment. This is where teenage dream and middle-aged reality finally meet.

Back to the digging for diamonds meme I just mentioned. In my life, I crossed a series of imaginary lines that could have been crossroads. I couldn’t play guitar the way I’d hoped. I had no way of making any money writing poetry. I made pennies on each of the ebooks I spent countless hours writing, editing, and self-publishing. I got a book deal and sold a fair amount, but got little in royalties from any of them.

Over the course of fifteen years, I had several exit signs on that road of life. I doubt anyone would have even noticed that I’d silently gotten off the highway to find whatever rundown shack I could and settle in to waste away my remaining decades. But I kept going.

I'd rather explore a rundown shack than live in one.

If music, poetry, my ebooks, or even my traditionally published books didn’t change my life, there had to be something else on the horizon. It is a mix of hope and stubbornness that kept me digging for those diamonds.

The Cabin doesn’t arrive as an opportunity if I leave my dreams behind. Sure, my creative work has only given me modest financial gains, but it has given me something just as important: visibility. All of my work leaves a mighty imprint online. I am easy to find.

The work I did over the years allowed producer Frank Durant to find me. He was looking for someone to write the companion book for his upcoming Lady of the Dunes documentary in 2021. I could have turned it down, but my senses told me it was going to be an important project. It was. In some small way, we helped spur on law enforcement to solve the nearly fifty-year-old cold case of a murdered woman found in the dunes of Provincetown.

That project led to me getting a small role in an indie horror film, Cape Cod Cthulhu, directed by Mark Polonia. That project and meeting gave me an opening. Frank was the one who had initially been interested in The Cabin. We had spoken about it a few times over the course of maybe two years. He mentioned it to Mark as a potential film, and the rest is history.

Again, I believe everything in my life that has happened, or not happened, has led me to this moment. Having a wife and kids, while it would have been a blessing, would have left me unable to just up and go off on an adventure to film this movie later this summer.

If I had looked at my lack of financial gains through my creative endeavors over the years and given up at any point, The Cabin wouldn’t have happened. Hell, I could have given up early and never have even written The Cabin in the first place.

I want to do right by that teenage boy who was dealing with so much shit, but never let it break him. I want to do right by my mother, who always supported me. I want to do right by my family and friends who have proven time and again that they truly believe that I am on the right path, even during the times when I doubt myself.

When I was younger, I had hope. Now I have support. One is you just trying to survive another day. The other is people you care about telling you that you are worth the time. One is solitary. It is teenage angst, telling others I’ll do this on my own, whether you like it or not. The other is a village. It is the cheering crowd during the last mile of a grueling marathon.

At the end of my one marathon I ran.

Of course, hope and support don’t matter if you don’t put the work in. That isn’t a problem. For five years, I have worked a full-time job while also spending 15-20 hours weekly working on various creative projects. Work for your dreams, and they will work for you. I’m all for wishing and manifesting, but I’d rather climb the tree to get an apple rather than stand underneath it hoping one falls.

This summer in 2026 feels like the time when my teenage dream and my midlife reality have hit a perfect intersection. I have built up enough equity through years of hard work with little more than that dream to carry me forward.

Perhaps if I had been offered the chance to produce a feature film when I was fresh out of college, I wouldn’t have appreciated it. I’d have probably been smug and felt like it was all too easy. The fall would have likely been epic after that.

I think I had to go through the grind. I had to go through years of being the proverbial starving artist to fully appreciate a big opportunity when it arose. I won’t lie, there is also a little twinge of desperation. That little belief that I’d better go all out because it might be the only opportunity that I’ve got.

Nothing is for certain. I don’t have any delusions of grandeur. In my mind, The Cabin is a major milestone, but also the beginning of a new road. I foresee a streaming deal, DVD/Blu-ray sales, maybe a small theatrical release on Cape Cod. I don’t see making millions off a low-budget, indie, psychological, suspenseful horror film.

What I do see is that tunnel leading to the diamonds. Maybe The Cabin is the peak of my film career. If I believe that, then it will be no matter what. I have several other stories I’ve written that could easily be made into films. Maybe the screenplay gets me noticed. You’ve got to make the most of every chance you get.

Even if I go no higher than a producer of a small indie horror film, I will still forever be able to say I am a film producer. It’s just like when I ran my only marathon. I can forever say I am a marathon runner.

I want more than that, though. I have hustled way too long to be satisfied with ‘good enough.’ That begs the question. How will I know if I have truly succeeded in chasing that teenage dream? It’s actually very simple.

The day that I wake up and am fully financially supported by my creative endeavors, I will know I made it. I don’t need a 5,000 square foot house on the water. I don’t need a luxury sports car. I don’t need the latest and greatest of everything. I just want to wake up knowing my success has come from my creative mind and does not rely on a person or company that could literally destroy my life in a moment by terminating me.

I don’t need to be rich. I need to feel fulfilled. I don’t need to be better than everyone. I need to feel as good as anyone. Teenage me wouldn’t get it. Middle-aged me does.

Don’t ever give up chasing your dream, whatever it is. That’s the best way I can sum up all of what I have written. I could have thrown my hands up and said 'oh well’ when I failed at 23 with guitar, or failed at 26 with poetry, or failed at 32 with ebooks. By failure, I just mean I didn’t become financially stable.

Maybe I fail at 48 with film producing. Who knows? But I never went into any venture believing I’d fail. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. The Cabin is a culmination, but also a new beginning. It is the moment when a teenage dream meets middle-aged reality. I am ready for the ride, wherever it takes me.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #113: Wicked Insurance, Construction Woes, Avert Your Eyes, etc.

1. In an interesting turn of events, I briefly had two different auto insurance policies out for my car. I had my original one, which was through AAA. But AAA was switching to a different carrier. They sent me an email, probably a month ago, explaining the change on their end and what I had to do to keep current with the new policy. Around the same time, my original insurance company, the one AAA was leaving behind, emailed me separately to tell me how to keep up with their policy. I was busy at work that day and mistakenly thought they had been sent by AAA and that it was all one and the same. Nope. I got a call saying my AAA policy was going to be canceled because I was reupping with the original company. Now I was more confused. Luckily, I contacted AAA and was told that if I made a payment on their insurance policy, it would stay current. To further solve things, they called the other insurance company and got my first payment through them refunded. That means there was a period where my car was double-insured. I mean, I love my car, but it doesn’t need two insurance policies. All of this was more confusing than some football plays you see scribbled out on a chalkboard, if they still do that.


2. I can only speak for myself, but I feel like once the blizzard hit southern New England on February 22nd, it basically turned my winter blues up to 1,000. It only got worse when we had temperatures hit 60 and then dive back down to around freezing. I had enjoyed the weeks of cool ice content I got on Cape Cod, but once that had run its course, I was all in on winter ending. Instead, it was a piledriver of snow and then just enough warmth to remember how spring felt, and then wham right back to cold. Once I got the taste of spring weather, I put my heavy winter coat away for good. Even if it’s below freezing in the morning, I’m heading outside in my spring hoodie. Looking ahead, the first week of spring includes highs in the mid 30s a few times and at least one possible chance of snow. My energy level has been in the trash for the last several weeks. Hopefully, once spring really begins, I can shake off the winter blues that are beating the hell out of me currently.


3. I’ve wanted to be a writer, or do something in a creative field, since I was 8. If I told my younger self that someday he’d have published 10 books, done speaking events, radio interviews, been on television, hosted a podcast, acted in a film, co-produced a short film, and was getting set to produce a feature-length film based on something he’d written, he’d probably ask me how big my mansion was. This isn’t humble bragging because then reality sets in. Despite having on paper a pretty impressive portfolio, I still have to work a full-time day job just to pay my bills. Success can sometimes be subjective. I am lucky and blessed to have a roof over my head, a job that pays my bills, and the freedom and physical health to be able to still chase my dreams at this stage in my life. I’m sure that along the road of life, I missed exit signs that could have gotten me to what I would consider success sooner. You can’t live life looking backward, though. You have to keep moving forward. You have to keep sharing your gifts, sharing your creativity, and put together such a massive portfolio of content that your success becomes inevitable and undeniable. So yes, I have accomplished a lot in terms of creative endeavors, but I also have quite a ways to go to become successful. It keeps me focused.


4. A recent viral craze on social media is ‘X, what were you like in the 90s?’ People my age and older share photos and videos of themselves from back then. Loads of celebrities from the 90s are doing it as well as ordinary, everyday people. Of course, having a creative mind, I couldn’t just post a few photos. It needed to be unique. What I did was dress in an old flannel and a fedora and act like an old man while a narrator off-screen (also played by me) asked me what I was like in the 90s. It segues into a montage of photos with Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit playing. When the video comes back to me, the narrator makes sure to remind me that the 90s ended 27 years ago. This causes old man me to cry that he’s wrinkled like an old piece of fruit (a nod to Grampa Simpson) before collapsing on the ground. The best part was that I did this in an empty parking lot across from a museum. I had to wait to begin filming because a large group was getting ready to go into the museum, and I didn’t want to act all foolish for their amusement. Also, I lost the remote shutter for my tripod briefly, which was what I used to capture myself driving my car into the scene. I actually accidentally filmed myself frantically searching my car for it for a minute. It had fallen behind the front seat. Nice.




5. My first acting gig, Cape Cod Cthulhu, is now available to stream for free. It’s actually a pretty good turnaround. I shot my scenes basically one year ago to the day. It’s a feature-length film, roughly 75 minutes. The fact that it was shot, edited, released for sale on Blu-ray, and then put up for streaming, all within a calendar year, is impressive. Considering that I’ll be working with a lot of the same crew, it gives me hope that my feature-length film, The Cabin, which we’ll be shooting this August, will be released in plenty of time before my 50th birthday in November 2027. Of course, that project will be a lot more work for me since I’ll be producing and acting in it. In Cape Cod Cthulhu, a campy low-budget horror movie, I only had 3 scenes, so it was pretty simple. Obviously, I wouldn’t mention that you could stream the film and not put a link to it. Check it out, it’s a breezy, fun watch.

6. Where I live on Cape Cod, I am pretty much surrounded on all sides by seemingly never-ending construction projects. I have to choose my driving routes very carefully to avoid stops and detours. While those are annoying, the real issue comes from the terrible conditions of all of those same roads, plus many more. It’s nonstop pot holes, some a few feet wide and probably up to a foot deep. I bet the roads in most major cities are better than ours are currently. I have to bob and weave while driving just to avoid the parade of hazards on the roadways. I am actually begging for the day that a cop sees me weaving to avoid these holes and pulls me over. Then, when I ace their breathalyzer, I can inform them that I’m not going to ruin my car thanks to these crappy roads. Because if I blow tires or destroy my suspension, I guarantee that the town won’t be helping me pay the bill. So why the hell shouldn’t I try to avoid doing that at all costs? By the time the construction that’s going on is done, there will be fifty other projects starting in other areas nearby.


7. I didn’t start my Saturday thinking I’d end up with over 21,000 steps. I played basketball for the first time since the fall and then had a pair of long walks. Those things made up most of it. The steps didn’t take into account walking on sand, over rocks, and up and down hills. It was a marathon day that left me exhausted. Not too exhausted to go walk the flats and get some great sunset photos. A neat thing I found out is that my Fitbit buzzes not just at 10K steps, but every 10K steps. So when I hit 20K, it went off again. The last time I hit more than 20K steps was January 2024, so it’s been a while. I’d like to say it’s a sign of things to come, but we have to wait to see how my knees feel.


8. I tried to get away with something, and craziness ensued. At the supermarket, there were these great Oikos Flip yogurts, the ones with mix-ins, that had $1 off two of them coupons taped to each container. I grabbed two. When self-checking out, I used the coupon, and when trying to shove it in the coupon slot, I saw that the tape on it had gotten it stuck to the side. Figuring why not, I tried to use a 2nd coupon for the other yogurt. The register ended up alerting an employee. I quickly folded the coupon and tried putting it in the slot like I was destroying evidence. The employee came over, and I showed him the stuck coupon. He then said, ‘avert your eyes.’ I turned my head but noticed him whip out a box cutter to slice the coupon free. Just foolishness all around. Oh, but the register did accept the coupon in the end, so I ended up paying about $1 for both of the yogurts.


9. There truly are very few places on Cape Cod that I have not been to. When I find a place I haven’t been, or a different way to see a spot I am familiar with, I jump on them. One such place came up this week. There is a tiny dirt parking area in Orleans called Priscilla Beach. According to Google Maps, I should be able to walk along the shore from there and come out far north of the Nauset Beach parking lot. It was about ½ mile walk, sometimes over rocky and unstable ground. Once I walked out onto the beach, I was close to a mile north of the main parking lot. I had never been to the part of Nauset Beach, and then it got better. I crossed back over the dunes after walking about another ½ mile north. It was calm and quiet as I faced the Nauset Inlet. I had never been there either. I took a very slow walk back to my car, savoring every moment in a new place. What was meant to be a quick stop took 1 ½ hours, and I had to skip a few other places I was meaning to see, but it was all worth it.


10. One sight on my walk out to Nauset Beach was a hawk hovering above. It was in an updraft, floating and looking for something to eat in the shallow waters. Armed with my phone and selfie stick, I was able to get a high-quality video of the hawk using 4K 60fps quality. As I spun around, trying to keep the hawk in frame, I ended up staring right into the sun briefly. Luckily, I didn't fall over or anything. I did, however, spin around and come face to face with some guy wandering toward me from the beach. Maybe I had seen him but hadn’t paid any attention, but it was definitely creepy how he just appeared. He was interested in the hawk as well, although he thought it was a vulture. I wished him a good day and kept moving, making sure to put distance between us pretty quickly. Even though there were houses up on the bluff, they were 40-50 feet up and likely were unoccupied at this time of year. So if the guy decided he wanted to turn me into a skin suit, I’d have been in trouble.



11. The Red Maple Swamp trail in Eastham is worth checking out. The White Cedar Swamp trail in neighboring Wellfleet is much more well-known, but the Red Maple deserves some love. It’s a little under a mile and is a boardwalk over the swamp. At this time, though, a month out from the major blizzard we had on Cape Cod, there are still a good number of fallen trees. I had been walking for several minutes and remarked how there weren't any downed trees. Then it was like a switch flipped. There were a bunch of trees down, a few right across the path. I bumped into a younger couple at an intersection. There was a gigantic tree down. They offered to let me go first, but looking at the tree and not knowing how much effort it would take me to climb over it, I let them go first. I figured if I went first and flipped over onto my head, I’d go viral for the wrong reason. I did end up getting over the fallen tree; it did take a bit of effort, though, so I was glad I let the couple go ahead.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #103: Snow Picnic, Exciting Laundromat, Job Applicant, etc.

1. We’ve had a snowier winter this year than in the last few so far. Granted, we haven’t had any huge storms, just a bunch of smaller ones. Going back to work after the holiday break, I had thought that the parking lot would have been plowed, boy was I wrong. According to the owners of our building, they had plow guys scheduled, but they never showed. Nice. So the employee and customer lots were a mess. It was fine for us in the back, but not for the customer lot. We have lots of people who come in who are in their 70s and 80s. Many of them are also getting their backs and hips adjusted, so the last thing they need is to be walking to or from their cars across a skating rink. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. The irony is that once the plow people finally showed the temperatures had risen and everything was melting, so they weren’t even needed.


2. Even though the warmer temperatures helped with the treacherous conditions in the customer parking lot, it didn’t make the employee one much better. Because it wasn’t plowed, the snow turned to a slushy mess. I was lucky enough to have to take out our trash. Not only was there a few inches of slush around the dumpster, which instantly soaked my shoes, but it was only the beginning. Apparently, the snow had been heavy and wet enough that it knocked a tree down onto the back of the dumpster. This meant that I could actually get the top opened, but only so far, since a damn tree was lying on the back. I had to slosh my way to the dumpster, put the gross trash can on my shoulder, pray nothing spilled out onto me, and then, with my other arm, lift the top about two feet and pour the garbage in. There were a few F bombs on my way back inside for sure.


3. It’s not every day that you get a copy of the film that was your first acting role. I ordered a Blu-Ray DVD copy of Cape Cod Cthulhu, my first acting role, this week. In high school back in the 90s, I spent all of my savings on a camcorder in the hopes of becoming an actor or director. Maybe I’ll never be a breakout Hollywood star, but I got to act in a film that got distributed & will soon be available to stream. Later this year, I will try my hand at producing a feature-length film. It shows you can’t ever stop chasing dreams; they don’t have expiration dates. You can order a copy of the film here: Cape Cod Cthulhu


4. In 2018, I had to take a detour from personal training and head back into cooking. It was necessary due to the financial situation. I worked at a retirement home called Mayflower Place. There, I met many people who made my return to cooking not only bearable but fun. One such person was named Alan. He was around my age, so we chatted about sports, music, and trash-talked about a few people we didn’t enjoy working with. He battled his demons in the form of alcohol. At one point, he was so bad that his skin was yellowing from advanced liver damage. He got clean and made a full recovery. It was an inspiring journey. Alan passed away suddenly and way too young this week. I have no idea what the cause was, and it really doesn’t matter at this point. He left behind a son still in high school. It definitely reminds you that your number can be called at any time. There is a GoFundMe set up to help his family with expenses. I am linking to it here if you wish to donate or share. RIP Alan. 




5. The washing machine is out of commission where I live currently, so I had to take a trip out to the laundromat. Major first-world problems that I had to driving to wash my clothes. It gave me the opportunity for one of my favorite spectator sports, people watching. It was a slow time at the laundromat, so there were slim pickings for people. There was nobody weird, which was sad. The highlight for me was a little girl who had to be 4 years old. She was so happy to be there that she was singing and squeaking in these high tones. It wasn’t an isolated incident either. I was in there probably a total of 20 minutes, and she squeaked and squealed and sang the entire time. It was pretty funny and very cute. Considering she was in a laundromat, I wonder how excited she gets going to McDonald’s or a toy store, or something like that?


6. I finished the first season of The Paper, the spin-off of The Office, and I enjoyed it. I say ‘first season’ because the show was renewed before even debuting in September 2025, and there should be new episodes probably by the end of this year. If you watch the show, try not to compare it to The Office. It’s not that, and it’s such tough expectations to live up to. I found it to be a fun watch, with some likable characters. It’s about the documentary crew from The Office working on their next project, which is a struggling Ohio newspaper. There are some connections to The Office, but it mostly stands on its own. I’m trying not to give spoilers if you want to binge all 10 episodes on your own. It’s weird how in this streaming world, a ‘season’ of television is usually 10 episodes or fewer. My hope is that The Paper gets several seasons to really flesh out characters and stories. I mean, The Office had 201 episodes, hopefully The Paper can get close to half of that.

7. At my job, we are passively looking for a new person to come aboard. They would be a part-time trainer and chiropractic assistant. This would allow us to open up some more time in the schedule for patients and clients. I say passively because there’s no push for it currently, but if someone comes along, we definitely give them a look. Several months ago, a stereotypical trainer applied. He was incredibly rude and condescending not only to our office manager but to my boss as well, referring to him by his name and not ‘doctor.’ I mean, if you’re applying for a job and you call the boss Joe and not Dr. Joe when he’s a doctor, it’s a sign that you’re a jackass and we don’t want you working with us. Flash forward to this week, and we get an application. This guy is looking for some part-time PT work and even name-drops me, saying I went to his gym. I had no idea who he was. Our office manager started feeling like it was deja vu, so she searched his email address in our archives. Sure enough, it was the same guy from before. He basically acted as though he had never applied before. Sorry pal, we’re way smarter than you think. I had to laugh at his nerve and also his complete stupidity. Hard pass.


8. Like many people, I have begun the new year with an eye on getting in better physical shape. It is a lot of eating better, tracking calories, and obviously hitting the gym. It is a struggle between a slow and steady pace and trying to reach the goal as fast as possible. I am straddling that line. I figure the more I do at the gym, the more it loosens the reins as far as the amount of calories I can have. I use a Fitbit to track my activity. I’m actually wearing it as I type this, not burning many calories now, though. Anyway, it will adjust my settings according to how hard I am training. I realized this week that I must be working hard. That is because my Fitbit said that I had exercised 6 out of the last 5 days. Yes, that’s not a typo. I guess I have been going so hard since 2026 began that my workload was the equivalent of working out an extra day’s worth. Needless to say, to avoid falling off hard, I’ve had to scale down my training. I’d rather need an extra month to hit my goal weight than fall off totally and have to start over, or worse, start from a worse position somewhere later this year.


9. This year has begun with me working on the first draft of the script I am writing for my hopeful first feature-length film project set to happen later this summer. As of this writing, I am on Page 32 of what I think will be 70. It’s a step out of my comfort zone, but I feel like I am improving with each day I work on it. This script work is having an unintended benefit. If I can get good at drafting scripts, who's to say I can’t start creating them for other projects? One such idea is a potential television show based on my experiences working in the restaurant business. It would be set in the 1990s and would be a wacky comedy with heart. Sort of like The Office, where you’d have crazy things happen, but it’s also character and relationship-driven. In maybe half an hour, I came up with more than 60 potential story beats for the show. Some of them could be expanded upon, some are crazy enough as is. I feel like these stories, the characters and relationships, along with the nostalgic setting of the 90s, would make it a fun show to watch. I am messing around with the idea now, but I am a little more serious about seeing if I could do this. Of course, the first question is: How do you pitch a television show pilot? One step at a time.

The setting of a future TV show?

10. I have worked as a personal trainer in my daily life for 10 years. I have several other certifications to my credit and have trained hundreds of people toward living better lives. Despite thinking I might have some knowledge in the area of fitness, I have to laugh at the fact that those closest to me either never ask me for health and fitness advice, or they do, but don’t actually do anything I recommend. I don’t make these huge sweeping life-changing suggestions. I advise on small, incremental changes that are sustainable. Still, no follow-through from family and friends. I wonder if it is like this for people in other fields. Do doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others have their closest friends and family ask them advice and then just not follow it? I feel that with me, it’s like if I can’t guarantee the maximum impact for the least amount of effort, nobody is interested. Taking creatine is great. Oh wait, what? I have to actually exercise with it to get the most benefits? It’s like taking a diet pill and gorging on fast food. You only get out what you put in.