A Man Who Knows Nothing About What It’s Like to be A Woman, But Has Opinions & Advice Anyway

Girls.

You prance around the party showing off pictures of you and your friends and you say “omg these girls are gorgeoussssss.” And you mean it. You’re not saying it to be unkind or ironic or whatever (not usually at least), you really think your girlfriends are beautiful in any way worth measuring and you want your other and you want everyone else to know it. You’re proud of them for who they are, and that makes them beautiful to you.

Then.

Later on in a different interaction you are fixated on a picture of yourself that you are contemplating deleting or having your friend delete due to the obvious litany of physical flaws that stick out to you like an adult male at a Taylor Swift concert. You look at yourself and go “blah i’m ugly and fat and awful what gives.” Your this is too that, your that is too ugh, and your ugh is the most ew that ever ew’d.

But.

The fact of the matter is that when you look at your female friends you are choosing to see beauty in all the ways that they are, truly, beautiful. But when you look at yourself, you are choosing to see ugliness…so much so that sometimes you’ll even invent ugliness where there is none. This is an unfair, unhelpful, and ultimately unhealthy way to look at yourself — at best it’s limiting your own potential, at worst it’s laying the groundwork for some pretty nasty psychological disorders.

Today.

Just today, give yourself the same benefit of the doubt and grace that you extend to those around you. See the picture of the four of you and when you get to you, choose to see the same type of beauty that you create for your friends. The gorgeous qualities they see in you, the unity and freedom that comes from not having to say “make me look skinny” before you ask a friend to take a picture of the group and hoping that people with think you’re just being funny when you say it. Choose to see a better you and a better you will emerge.

We.

All have flaws. No one is saying you have nothing to work on, or that one of life’s great (and most rewarding) challenges is self-betterment (whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise). But make your elimination of flaws a celebration and a focused journey, akin to successfully surmounting Everest, rather than just a struggle to trudge your way out of the swamp and eliminate the deficit between you and the “normal” people. Change what you can (healthily) change, accept what you cannot, and find joy in the moments in between. Use your friends for support, not comparison, and you will find yourself much improved as you face the true difficulties in store. And PLEASE don’t wear crocs. Ugh.

Play on,
Dustin

Post script/disclaimer: This post was mildly directed toward women because they — both from societal and individual standpoints — tend to have to more pressure and focus put on their physical attractiveness than men and (at least in my experience) have echoed (or quoted directly) the statements above. HOWEVER, this obviously applies just as equally to men who might struggle with similar issues and/or any human that has ever had any self-doubts or self-esteem issues based on their own flaws (whether real or perceived) at any point in their lives or in the entirety of human history. So there.

…Want more Mind Bullets? New posts go up every Wednesday at noon PST (or as close to that as I feel like), and you can subscribe if you want them delivered right to your inbox! …Or if you’re too impatient to wait that long you can follow me on twitter, instagram, youtube (new videos every Monday), and my boring personal website. Whew, that’s a lot of self promotion…even I don’t like me enough to keep up with all that.

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Where’s the (Kobe) Beef?

Tonight professional basketball player and semi-professional sexual-assaulter, Kobe Bryant, scored his 30,000th career point against the much maligned New Orleans Hornets/Pelicans, whose shoddy defense is giving up about 30,000 points a game to opposing teams anyway this season, but that’s another story. By reaching 30K+ career points, Kobe joins the ranks of basketball legends Wilt Chamberlin (31.4K), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38.3K), Karl Malone (36.9K), Michael Jordan (32.2K) as the only players in basketball history to accomplish such a feat. And at a practically prepubescent 34 years and 104 days old, Kobe is the youngest member to join the 10,000-Three-Pointers Club (although it took him the most games to get there), and will likely hold that title for a long time…assuming Grinnell’s Jack Taylor doesn’t average 138 points per game if he goes pro.

The Nine Phrases You Need to Stop Using in Your Bio

Spoiler Alert: social media is kind of a big deal.  We live in a fast-paced, media savvy world where we, as individuals, are less often required to simply describe ourselves by a list of hobbies and stats as we are called upon to sell ourselves as a brand or product.  Presenting yourself in a compelling and unique fashion isn’t a luxury for those with the gift of gab, it’s a necessity to showcase what makes you better than the next guy.  Potential employers are skimming your facebook page, potential love interests are scrolling through your twitter profile, and potential stalkers are checking your foursquare account so they can plan “accidental” run-ins with you at Whole Foods (w/ @ocdustino & 9 other people http://4sq.com/89ExVc).

All that translates into a world where — if you want to put your best virtual foot forward — you need to have something better than “LiVe LaUgH lOvE” in your About Me section.  Since I have a weekend’s worth of bad karma to undo (and by “karma” I mean “liver damage”), I’m gonna give you a head start by presenting…

Han Solo Says: Patrón Tastes Even Better When It’s Free

It’s 7:59pm on a Monday night. Do you know where your Boston Celtics are?

Wherever they are, they certainly weren’t on the court tonight. Because the top seeded, over-60-win Celtics were just beat for the second time in a row by the eighth seed Atlanta “We Hope to Break .500 Someday” Hawks. Mind you these Celtics are the same team that some have hailed as “the greatest team in the league…and possibly NBA history,” (quote courtesy of ESPN writer and Boston-ophile Bill Simmons). I don’t care one way or the other about Boston-area pro sports teams (although I’ll root for Tom Brady any day), but it certainly doesn’t do much to refute talks about how Eastern Conference NBA teams are less-talented than their western counterparts when the supposedly best team in basketball history drops two in a row to the 2,749th-best team in basketball history (right between the ABA’s ‘74 Virginia Squires and some guys from a pickup game in North Dakota in the summer of 1991). However, I can’t be truly unhappy after the Cavs snagged another win from the Washington “Bark > Bite” Wizards on Sunday, and are prepped to close out the series with another one back in Cleveland on Wednesday.

But enough banter, you’re here for the same reason I am: because you love me and you love hearing about me. So with that in mind, here is what you need to know to be in the now. As in, “now go get me some coffee.”

-I’m Not in it for You, Princess. I Expect to Be Well Paid-
I went in for my first day of training the other day, and so far the new job looks like it’s gonna rock. For those of you who didn’t tune in last week, I recently secured a job working for Harrison Ford’s son, Ben Ford at an upscale restaurant in Culver City called Ford’s Filling Station. The people are awesome, the atmosphere is just right, and I really feel a connection with this place. And they bought me a $35 steak for dinner last week. Very cool. I’ll keep you updated as I settle in more and learn the nuances and intricacies of saying complicated phrases like “welcome to Ford’s, how many?” It’s going to be rough.

-Great Kid, Now Don’t Get Cocky-
Had a very busy week, capped off with an equally busy weekend. And it’s looking like this week is going to follow suit. I’m overlapping my last week at UCLA Medical with some training shifts at Ford’s, so that is going to make for one very tired Dustin starting Thursday night. But oh yeah, I just remembered, I’m a baller and I don’t need sleep because I kick ass, so it’s not gonna be a challenge. Whew, good thing I thought of that ahead of time.

-Traveling Through Hyperspace Ain’t Like Dusting Crops, Boy-
I finally got a haircut from a stylist named Rhonda over the weekend (who is as talented at haircutting as she is portly. Which is very, if you didn’t know). I asked her to give me a shorter, more summery haircut than the one I had, and she kind of took that to mean that I wanted something that if I got drafted into the Army tomorrow, I’d fit right in. My hair is short, is what I’m saying. But in her defense, it did feel light and summery when I was on the beach, and I probably won’t need to get it cut again before I visit home and have Irene do it properly.

-So What Do You Think? A Princess Like You and a Guy Like Me-
I saw that movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall with a few people last night, and I must say, it was decent. Which was better than I was expecting. By far the best character in the movie was the self-centered, oblivious British rockstar character. He was more of a second-tier character, but the movie would not have been the same without him. The second best part of the movie was costar Mila Kunis. Longtime fans of That 70’s Show (not I) will probably already know this, but Mila Kunis is really really hot. I don’t know if I never noticed because she’s the voice of the very un-hot Meg on Family Guy, or if I overlooked her because I thought That 70’s Show was an abomination, but the fact of the matter is: she is really really hot. There was a bit too much male nudity for me to give the movie an A+, but that British dude’s performance coupled with the fact that Mila Kunis is really really hot pretty much make the movie worth the price of admission right there. Also, Mila Kunis is really really hot, you guys. Seriously.

-She May Not Look Like Much, But She’s Got it Where it Counts, Kid-
Ok, so this isn’t interesting, but too bad, I’m telling you anyway. On nice, sunny California days, sometimes I like to fire up the ceiling fan in my room to help circulate some air. But for some unknown reason, my ceiling fan doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, it turns on, it spins the blades, it even makes all the appropriate ceiling-fan-related noises. But it just doesn’t generate any wind or breeze or cooling sensation at all. I’ve tried reversing the rotation on the fan, in case it was set wrong, I’ve tried it at all the different speed settings, but nothing helps. All my ceiling fan is really good for is taking the all the dust that’s been collecting on it since the 60’s and evenly distributing said dust around the room.

Ok, I’m off to catch a show at The UCB Theater (using acronyms gives me a false sense of superiority), so I’m outie for now. And remember, don’t drink expensive tequila unless someone else is paying for it. Conversely, if you’re a random stranger and you offer to buy me and my friends a round of fancy tequila at the bar to prove what a badass you are, really all you’re doing is spending $85 to have us mock you all night.

Cheers,
Dustin

We already have a lime tree, now all we need is a tequila tree to go along with it…