What would you consider the most valuable resource in the universe?
I have a theory. It dawned on me during one of the darkest moments of my life; a night I made a promise to a dying man. The promise was one I couldn’t keep, but the lesson is one I can’t shake.
Flashback to that night.
I am leaned back in a recliner that smells like of someone else’s urine. The chair has held me for a little over 40 days now.
About double arm length away, the old man lays in bed staring at a wall mounted TV. A weather report broadcast.
“Thursday night showers. Lows in the upper 30s. North winds 10 to 15 miles per hour. Chance of rain 100%. And Friday, cloudy with a chance of rain and snow showers in the morning. Then partly cloudy in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 20s.“
The report lasted about as long as it takes to microwave bag of popcorn, then looped back to the beginning over and over again.
The old man (aka Dad) crunched lemon drop candies as loud as possible as he stared intently in the direction where the TV hung.
At this point, we’d probably listened to the report 7 or 8 times.
I’m pretty sure he didn’t notice.
Each word landed like it was the first time hearing it.
Chemo does some pretty weird shit to the brain. It doesn’t just attack cancer cells. It attacks every cell in the body. Some people recover. Dad wasn’t going to be one of them.
“CRUNCH”…His teethe mashed together and made a God-awful screeching sound that triggered rage from the depths of my being. Which, for the old man, brought an extra sense of satisfaction. His favorite past time was fucking with people.
The report looped for the 15th time.
“Chance of rain 100%. And Friday, cloudy with….”
A notebook sat heavy on my lap as I reclined heart broken, pen in hand hoping for some sort of insight to transcribe.
“Thursday night showers. Lows in the….”
… (26th loop is when it hit me.)
Note to Self: Pay Attention
“Don’t waste your life worrying about stuff that doesn’t matter, especially when in the presence of people that do.
We get limited time together, make it count.”
Pay attention to Stuff that Actually Matters
The world is a noisy place.
Some people don’t seem to notice.
I’m not one of them.
My brain is in a hyperarousal state. Regulating emotions has always been a challenge. I am ultra aware of my shortcomings. Maybe too aware. It’s a terrible combination.
For me, happiness is elusive, success feels unattainable, and when I get obsessed with trying to figure something out, I lose sight of things that actually matter. Being obsessed with trying to figure something out is how I broke the promise to a dying man.
When I broke that promise, something in me broke too.
It’s like I lost my center. My identity shattered. All confidence, and what little self esteem I’d developed to that point went out the window. We’ll unpack that a little later.
Luckily for me, I’d spent the time between that Thursday night in 2018 and the days before the promise was officially broken collecting ideas, thoughts, insights and processes to help me navigate life a little more skillfully.
So much has happened since the broken promise. And recently a neighbor inspired me to revisit these concepts, and find my center again. So here we are.
Before I get to the part where I made the ill fated promise, I’d love to share a powerful speech by David Foster Wallace Shift How You Think and Make the Narrator of Your Life Tell Better Stories, and it inspired some deep work.
Please take a moment to listen.
“How’s the Water?”
Wallace admitted in the video, “I am not the wise old fish” and neither am I.
Look, part of me also believes I am the center of the universe. My brain has this ongoing narrative that is very unkind and unforgiving of how my past choices have added up to my current circumstances. It’s convinced that I am worthless, incapable, and unlovable; a reverse form of narcissism.
Writing has been a way for me to sort through the inner noise, find a semblance of understanding, and get free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self centered.
In the past, my delusions of grandeur and inflated ego helped me write and publish two books, countless blog articles, and more Facebook rants than I’d like to admit. The drive to be a famous author, speaker, coach pushed me to study more than I needed, and oddly enough practice little of what I preached.
This isn’t that.
I am in a process of deep reflection, doing my best to rewire some deeply ingrained default settings, so that maybe I can look back from 2030 and be grateful I took the time to examine and edit my own inner narrator.
Hopefully, if you’re reading this, it helps you as well.
Anyhow…
Back to that night.
60th time hearing the weather report.
The whole situation stopped being annoying; the teethe screeching, weather report, the pee soaked recliner, none of it annoyed me.
“We get limited time together. Make it count.” mocked me from the notebook. I realized, that in a few days, there would never be the sound of those teeth grinding together, or the flash of his dimpled cheek as he pretended it wasn’t intentional.
When you stop needing people to be anything other than alive, life seems magical.
Did I mention that Chemo/Radiation scrambles brain circuits?
It does, and it’s crazy to see.
You sit a room with a body of a person you knew. Sometimes they’re coherent. Most of the time they’re an empty shell. It’s surreal. Very off putting.
Dad had been offline for quite some time; maybe a few days. Without warning, he rebooted and started dropping truth bombs.
It went a little something like this.
“Boy, don’t say nothin’. Keep your damn mouth shut. Don’t know how long I’ll be here. My brain ain’t working right. Can’t find words.”
It’s not often I keep my mouth shut. But, I kept my mouth shut.
“You got a damn good woman there.”
It’s true. If you met her you’d know right away. She’s so kind and sweet. Patient.
“And you turned yourself into a damn good man. Don’t be a McAuley and screw it all up like I did when my dad died.”
BOOM!
“Don’t let the anger control you.”
BOOM!!!!
“And promise me something.”
My mouth fell open but no sound or air escaped.
“Boy, you changed my life. Taught to me see things different. Wish I knew that shit when I was twenty, could a been better for you, a good man like you are. Maybe I wouldn’t have messed it up so bad.
Don’t mess it up.
Get back to doing what you’re ‘posed to do. Write.
If anyone is crazy enough to change the damn world, it’s you.”
Then, he plopped a Lemon Drop in his mouth, crunched it with a smile, and that’s pretty much the last lucid conversation he had.
A few days later we transferred to the county home.
Shortly after that the hospice lady came with Morphine.
To witness Mikey’s last day was brutal.
Uncle Chuck and I sat next to his morphine soaked body. Each breath he took, he let out with a moan. Hours went by with this sound, and little more.
At some point, nurses came in to roll dad over. He let out a sound that could have only escaped from the pits of hell, bringing me and Uncle Chuck to our feet. We both needed a little break after that.
Before I left, I leaned down and whispered in his ear.
“Dad. I love you, and promised I wouldn’t let you live in a nursing home alone. But, it’s time to let go. I’ll do my best to move on without you and help Melissa and the kids. But, I can’t handle much more of this. This hurts too much now. I gotta get back to my wife. She moved us to Frisco, Texas, and I need to get to work.”
On the way out of the nursing home, Uncle Chuck told me it was the worst thing he’d ever seen, including the stuff he saw in ‘Nam. I believed him. Just writing this brings waves of horror and heartache even today.
Uncle Chuck went home to shower and change.
I drove back to the trailer to clean out dad’s stuff and ordered a pizza. About half way through the second slice, the nurse called and said he’s getting close. He took his last breath while I was on my way back to the home. Five years later the promise was broken.
The wife and I sat down for a talk.
She listed several moments of frustration and disappointment spanned our 10 years together, all of which were results of my inability to pay attention the stuff that actually matters; my default settings and self centeredness drove me in one direction and it wasn’t the direction she agreed to go.
I can’t describe the pain of knowing that I become the main source of ongoing disappointment and frustration to a person I love so deeply.
As she spoke, I realized her quality of life will improve without me as her daily companion.
We got divorced soon after.
And I moved into an apartment near my workplace.
The past few years I dug myself into and out of a deep depression. It got pretty bad. Days before the first Christmas alone, I came dangerously close to killing myself. The thought of how my mom would find out prevented me going through with it, but for several days after, all I could was think about it.
I realized my self centeredness was in control, and I couldn’t think my way out of it. I needed something outside of myself to think about and care for. So, I made the best decision I’d made in several years, and got a dog.
My thinking was that I’d be forced to get out of bed 3-4 times a day to walk him, I’d need to work and train him, and take care of him. I thought that having someone to take care of would snap me out of it, and eventually it did.
Happiness didn’t come overnight, nor did it come easy for me. But, eventually it started to sprout, and I nurtured it little by little. And a few days ago (today is November 2026), someone inspired me to reexamine the ideas I’ve collected here and rewrite this.
This writing experiment is my attempt to continue cultivating happiness, and further short circuit my default self-centeredness.
Who knows, maybe I can break some deeply held beliefs and patterns and write myself into a new chapter in life where I finally get my shit together and pay attention to things that actually matter.
So, where do we start?
I guess back to where this all started.
What do you think the most valuable resource in the universe actually is?? I think I know…. My theory is that….
the most valuable resource
in the universe is Attention
Attention is everything.
Unfortunately for some of us, attention is easily taken and directed by other people’s agendas. We get lost in the noise and pay attention to all the wrong things.
I like to imagine this can be remedied.
That’s what this is about.
This website isn’t an attempt to offer some magical, one-size-fits-all approach to life. I’m not trying to convince you of anything.
This website is a personal conversation to my own self centeredness in an attempt to take back control of my most precious and valuable resource, and see where that takes me over the next few years.
I believe that despite the doom and gloom, recent elections, and AI taking over, that right now is the best time to be alive.
Technology is transforming society in very unique ways.
Opportunity is open to more people than ever before. And despite the chatter on social media, it’s one of the safest times in recorded history.
But, Anything can happen. So our best bet of survival is for more of us to take control of our own attention, and make damn sure it’s being directed by our own agenda, and not someone else’s.
An idea I’ve been attracted to for several years now is that we can use Moore’s Law as a metaphor for upgrading our ability to harness attention, and in doing so we could exponentially develop our Self and upgrade our life.
Let’s be clear.
I failed miserably at this: lost my marriage, created a mountain of debt, ruined my credit, and nearly took my own life in December of 2024.
A few days ago, I filed Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, and am taking this “clean slate” very seriously. I am examining my own beliefs and habits in the key areas of my life, and developing myself into a more disciplined and skillful human.
Don’t take anything here as advice.
I’m not anyone’s guru.
I’ve got very little to show for my 50 years here other than some funny stories.
Moving on.
If you want to understand the changes we’re experiencing in technology, Peter Diamandis has a few books. Take a look.
2030 is just a few years away.
A shift Is happening whether we like it or not.
You have a choice.
Do you prefer; confrontational or co-creative relationship with reality?
The choice is yours.
A War is fought for your attention.
The war for your attention is fought at every level; corporations, Nation-States, family, foes, and friends. Me. Everyone. A constant battle for attention is underway every day.
It’s your job to direct your attention to the right ideas, people, and actions.
What if you could mine our attention for gold?
If attention is everything, then it would make sense to develop an awareness of where your attention is directed and learn how to take control.
The following pages is a collection of stories, ideas, and advice from some amazing people. And me.
Our journey will explore attention and awareness from where it is currently to its source.
Along the way we will collect and revisit useful tools, disciplines, and practices of a “soul surfer.”
I’m not trying to sell anything, although, there are links that could possibly pay me if you by a book on amazon or something. If that happens, cool.
You don’t have to use those links.
This website is a way for me to access a less self-centered version of me and to coach myself to pay attention to stuff that really matters.
If this helps you too, I’m stoked and happy to share this part of the journey.
Love your face!
Tim
PS.
Reminder: Throughout these pages you’ll see things to click that open up nuances in the conversation; deepens it.
You don’t have to click, it’s a choose your own adventure; just like life.
Some of those links lead to some cool articles, videos and whatnot.
Please understand. Some links go to Amazon. They’re affiliate links and I get a few pennies if you buy the books I recommend.
Those books changed my thinking, and helped me on some level my experience of life. They helped me find a new perspective; one that my dad told me changed how he lived his final days.
Anyhow… if you want to read more
PPS. This one’s for you Mikey. I miss you every day. Sorry I lost a good one.