One of the things you have to pay attention to, in this brief span from sperm to egg to taxes and eggs over easy is your mind. What is running through your mind? Other than plans to win the lottery and kick it in a beach house for the rest of your natural-born days?

Are you thinking guilt-free thoughts? Thoughts about how nice you are as a human being? Thoughts about others and how you can make their life better? Thoughts about how damn lucky you are to wake up and have a full set of teeth to floss?

Yes, getting high and heavy on the hobbyhorse of love and peace and what is this life for after taxes and flossing teeth? What IS it for?

I wake up and my mind immediately jumps the rails and starts bitching and whining about last night’s dinner. Shouldn’t have eaten this, should’ve had more water, shouldn’t have watched so much tv, blah blah blah.

It’s a never-ending cycle of blame and shame and doubt and fear and oh hell I hope I haven’t lost you all with this ramble.

But it’s damn true.

When you wake up, what is the first thing you think? Is it “Damn! Here we go again! Another ride on the Ferris wheel! Another spin at the roulette wheel of life on earth! Another song to sing! Another play to run on the pinball machine of life! Another quarter in the slot!”

I’ve become very complacent in my middle age (shit, only 58 and here he goes making grand statements about middle age—but I guess it’s true…I am now officially middle aged.)

I still whine about what career I should be in and not making enough money and being bald (only sometimes) and should’ve could’ve would’ve…

Whining in general is out of the question starting NOW.

Gratitude is the order of the day. And I’m grateful, damn grateful to have been given two eyes, a beautiful blue couch, dinner and an awesomely beautiful wife to sit and watch 36 (yes, count’m) episodes of the Vincente Fernandez documentary, docudrama, soap opera, novella…whatever…on Netflix.

Every damn night. Sitting on the couch. Eating dinner with my wife, and watching at least 2, sometimes 4 episodes of this damn series.

And I’m semi-complaining, for all the books about success and making money and focus and hustle all mention binge-watching tv and how it gets in the way of your success and crushing your goals.

What if my ultimate goal is to have a beautiful wife and health (plenty of wealth, of course) and time to sit and watch an entire 36 episode series on Netflix. Every damn night. With food and drink and knees that have no pain?

What if this is IT? This is the goal. What other goals should I have?

I pose these questions for you at 4:25 a.m. after finishing the Vincente Fernandez series the other night. Free. Free at last. Thank god. Now I can find another damn series (Succession? The Crown?) to sink my mental teeth into like some great cinnamon bun HDTV sweet movie thing and taste the sweetness of cinema, right in my own home.

No lines at the movie theatre. No finding my seat. No nasty buttered popcorn for 11.25 a bucket.

Just me and my missus, my wife, sitting and enjoying this life as it speeds by to who knows where…

And yes, the Vincente Fernandez series was quite good. The cinematography was worth every one of those 36 damn episodes.

Damn Netflix…