Come celebrate Mike Z's debut as a professional writer.

It seems like every once in a while, I realize I'm too uptight and that, as a result, I need to relax. What I'm now thinking is that, in addition, I need to be more myself.

Now I don't neccessarily mean that in a Holden Caulfield thinks everyone is phony kind of way. Because I happen to think most people are pretty genuine, actually, and I don't think of myself as being any less genuine than anyone else is, but in many situations, I'm just not myself.

Take work for example. To tell you the truth, sometimes when I'm dealing with bosses or clients or coworkers, I'm little less honest than I would be I was just hanging out with you, sipping Coronas on a wooden deck chair on a secluded beach somewhere.

Of course, mostly when you think about work, you don't think of it as something that should be comparable to vacation. We all think work should be hard. But when you look at people who are really successful at what they do, I just kind of get the vibe that those folks enjoy doing it. So why I am playing my career like a game I don't want to win?

Another example would be this blog. Many successful blogs are very plain and upfront about what's going on in their writers' heads; mine is not. But this former style is one at which I was once considered by officiating bodies to be pretty good. So what's up with not playing to my strengths here too? I mean: Am I sabotaging myself? Do I not want my blog to be successful?

I'm kinda thinking the answer there is yes. Which has me feeling that if I want to remove the obsticles in my path to a happy life... well, then, maybe the best way is just to remove them. Maybe the key to a happy life is being yourself 100% of the time. I mean, maybe, right?

Of course, 100% is pretty much an impossible goal when figuring out how to lead your life, but these days I'm thinking that should be the goal.

Anyway, I guess I'm just saying that I'm working on it.

Two more things I've learned about life:

• When you're using a parking meter, it's always a good idea to put in way more time then you think you need. Because, really, you never know when you're going to want to take a little longer, and the ability to do that without worry is definitely worth an extra 25 cents.

• The 2005 Scion tC is equipped with one hell of a rear bumper.

Well, another sports team that I had some kind of emotional connection to has failed to win the big one, bringing the total to, um, all of them.

I think for a long time, I've been operating under the assumption that I would somehow just stumble onto a relationship that would miraculously work out always. I can see now that this is not the right attitude; a big part of making a relationship work is working on yourself, asking yourself the tough questions about why you react the way when you do when certain things pop up, and figuring out on a day-to-day basis how you can apply what you are learning to treating your partner with care and compassion. It's a lot of work, even just thinking about it. But the good news is that there's help out there, if you know where to look for it.