The inquisitive one noticed someone cute on the dating site. They went on not one, but two dates!

On the first date, they met at a Greek restaurant. They had so much fun talking at the restaurant that they decided to go out for coffee afterward. A while later, they hugged good night and made jokes as they waved goodbye!

On the second date, they met at an art museum. They had so much fun looking at paintings that they decided to get dinner at a quaint little restaurant. They had so much fun talking at the restaurant that they decided to browse through a bookstore. They had so much fun looking at books that they decided to get tea and pastries at a café. A while later, they kissed good night, waved goodbye, and texted each other jokes!

Two days later, the inquisitive one sent two cheerful texts to the date!

A few hours after that, the date touched the icon of the texting app to send a message. But suddenly, just at that moment, the date’s soul flew out of the date’s body!

The date’s soul could no longer manipulate the date’s body!

The date was now, completely irrevocably, a phantom!

And for many months afterward, the date’s poor soul flitted about ancient buildings and graveyards, ruminating in agony over what had happened so suddenly and inexplicably.

This is the terrifying modern epidemic known as ghosting. I hope it never happens to you!

The urge to help others is very much a part of being human. There are so many ways to serve others. Maybe you help people as part of your job, in your family or social groups, or by volunteering time or donating money. Maybe you have reached out to someone who seemed down and out.

All of those acts are wonderful and beautiful and important. But, sadly, as Anne Lamott knows, there’s a real limit to how much help you can give. Here’s another piece of wisdom from her recent book Almost Everything:

“Not one single person in history has gotten an alcoholic sober. (Maybe you’ll be the first. But—and I say this with love—I doubt it.) If it is someone else’s problem, you probably don’t have the solution.”

This idea is certainly very close to her heart, as she comes back to it later in the book, delving into it with more specificity—heartrending specificity. As it turns out, Lamott did know alcoholics whom she tried to help. She reached out, she cared, she kept trying, she didn’t lose hope. But she could only do so much. It did not matter how close she was to the person, by blood or spiritual kinship. It did not matter how much she cared. In the end, all love and friendship and suggestions and urgent recommendations cannot move a mountain, unless the mountain moves itself.

This does not mean we should stop trying to help others. But Lamott turns the idea upside down by noting that her need to help others is actually a personal issue that she struggles with. Helping others can make one feel important. It’s a form of perfectionism. It’s a way of proving your worth, to yourself and others. In that respect, it can be counterproductive; no one wants “help” from someone who’s self-righteous, pushy, or otherwise overbearing.

It’s difficult to know when to try to help someone and when to back off. It’s difficult to know which acts are truly helpful, and which just get in the way. But let’s not give up. Let’s keep trying to figure these things out. And remember: sometimes the smallest acts help the most.

Is there someone in your life who seems to need help?

If you are a writer, you are probably familiar with Anne Lamott, as she is a hero among writers.

If you are not familiar with Anne Lamott, let me introduce her to you. She has a gift for homing in on the nuances of spirituality, anxiety, love, and other topics of great pertinence to our interior selves.

Among writers, she is renowned for authoring a beautiful nonfictional book called Bird by Bird. I read Bird by Bird years and years ago, and it helped me greatly as a young writer. In large part, the book is about seeing more clearly the inaccurate things we writers tell ourselves when we are feeling frustrated and vulnerable. It’s about the writing process, and how to think and go about the writing process in such a way that one does not destroy oneself or abandon the attempt. It’s about how to be gentle with oneself when one is trying to do something very, very hard.

But Lamott doesn’t just write about writing; if you’re not a writer, she has books to offer you, as well. She is a good author to read during hard times. She lifts the reader up; she understands what you’re going through. She doesn’t say too much. She seems to listen. She says just enough. She gives you space to think.

I know two wonderful mothers of very young children. Babies are great . . . but mothering babies is exhausting work. This past December, having noticed a new Lamott book on the bookstore shelf, I knew this was the right gift for each of them.

And then, having given away those two copies, and crossed over from December into January, I realized that it was the right gift for me, too. To me, from me. I checked it out from the library and devoured it: cozy beside her imaginary fire.

This recently published gem is called Almost Everything: Notes on Hope. In the following passage, Lamott references the title, illuminating its significance:

“Some days there seems to be little reason for hope, in our families, cities, and world. Well, except for almost everything. The seasons change, a bone mends, Santa Rosa rebuilds after the fire.”

Hope is the thing we need upon reading the headlines.

Hope is the thing we need in January.

Where do you seek and find hope?

If, on the other hand, you felt more inclined to travel by motorcycle four days ago—this post is for you.

Bruce Springsteen’s song “Born to Run” definitely isn’t about strapping on your running shoes—the thought makes me bust out laughing!

No—it’s about “suicide machines,” and the narrator is “a scared and lonely rider,” who’s thinking, “we gotta get out while we’re young,” and who’s telling his crush Wendy, “we can live with the sadness / I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul.”

Like his narrator, Springsteen is an avid biker. And he also suffers from a certain madness of the soul, as all true artists do.

In his autobiography Born to Run, Springsteen writes eloquently about, well, everything he mentions in the 500-page masterpiece—including his lifelong need for escape.

He became world famous doing what he loved; but fame and money do not cure madness-of-the-soul-type issues. And so he remarks that, after he married Patti Scialfa, one of her virtues was that “she gave me my motorcycle-canyon-running Sundays when I needed them.”

Earlier in the book, he writes fabulously—the man is a writer! and his prose is as good as his lyrics!—about madness of the soul and the things we do in our attempts to feel better:

“We all need a little of our madness. Man cannot live by sobriety alone. We all need help somewhere along the way to relieve us of our daily burdens. It’s why intoxicants have been pursued since the beginning of time. Today I’d simply advise you to choose your methods and materials carefully or not at all, depending upon one’s tolerance, and watch the body parts!”

What great advice. Choose your poison, and “watch the body parts.” I love that. Ministering to the soul’s needs can be physically dangerous, so “watch the body parts.”

And speaking of watching the body parts: when you’re on the road, folks, please watch for motorcyclists when you’re not a bike! And practice motorcycle safety when you are!

And so (as I mentioned a few days ago), while the title of Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck seems to imply that we should coolly brush off the entire world and all its sh*t and not care about a single thing—in actuality, Manson’s thesis is that we should carefully choose what to care about and struggle for.

According to Manson, there are good values and bad values. We should give serious f*cks about good values, but not about bad ones. He says there are three differences between good and bad values:

“Good values are 1) reality-based, 2) socially constructive, and 3) immediate and controllable. Bad values are 1) superstitious, 2) socially destructive, and 3) not immediate or controllable.”

One personal story he tells—in a different section of the book—stands out particularly in my mind, in relation to these points. A woman (and this is a true story, he says) fell in love with him after a brief encounter. Convinced that they were meant to be together, she stalked and harassed him for the next seven years. No matter whether he ignored her, politely asked her to stop, or angrily asked her to stop, she persisted.

This is an example of someone whose values are bad in all three ways: (1) The woman’s superstitious beliefs led her to think that the match was destined. (2) Her behavior was socially destructive because she negatively affected the lives of Manson and people close to him. (3) Her beliefs about Manson were not immediate because she thought she would experience happiness with him in the indeterminate future, even though he was showing her no affection now; and her beliefs were not controllable because it’s impossible to force someone to love you.

To transform her values into good ones, she could have done the following: (1) Identify the facts and separate them from the fantasies, for example by focusing on Manson’s responses to her overtures, instead of on mystical interpretations of signs from the universe. (2) Work on behaving in ways that produce positive outcomes and responses from others; no tangible good was coming of her contacting Manson, and his responses to her were not positive. (3) Think about what she has control over right now, and work on those things; for example, she could work on learning a new skill or cultivating a new attitude.

I confess, I have a number of superstitions. In fact, in counting them up to write this post . . . well, I have more than I had realized. That’s something I’m going to have to work on. Do you, like me, have any bad values that could, with a little personal effort, be discarded in favor of good ones?