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What does it mean, “Your divorce was amicable.”? When someone tells me that, I think: liar. How does that happen? And don’t think I don’t ask.

I ask.

“Was it just, you guys woke up and looked at each other and said, ‘ok, that’s it’ “and then it was all good after that? You just moved out and started having sex with other people?”

“Well, no, but…”

And I never get an answer. You never hear about the car tearing into the street, the spouse screaming and running after it, the lights going on in the houses up and down the street, the kids nervous in their beds, the police, the aftermath, the sun, the dawn, the burn, the hole in the wall, the door, the mothership landing, the blaze of lights, the feeling, ‘am I ever going to see my kids again’, the feeling: ‘are their lives ruined now because of this?’ “

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“It was amicable.” What is amicable? Friendly? Your stuff here, my stuff there. You can have that scented candle. I’m going to take this book about baseball. You can have that painting with the sunrise. I’ll take this painting of the rain.

It’s like breakups. When are breakups amicable? If you’ve gone on a date or two, sure. I’ve had that. Where you go on a date or two, everyone is kissing, and then someone calls and nobody answers. And then someone calls 20 times in a half hour period and nobody answers (that would be me…calling) and then some more calls and finally, “was that you calling?” Yeah, I’ve had those “breakups” but they don’t count.

I ask.

“No man, we were just too young.”

Doesn’t that make it bloodier? Like, you’re less mature so you actually start beating on each other.

And it doesn’t just apply to marriages. It applies to business breakups. Like, “we were partners but we didn’t really see eye to eye so we went our own ways.”

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No you didn’t!

It’s not like one of you was on a ladder and the other on the floor so you didn’t see “eye to eye” and now one of you had to leave and the other stuck around to build a business. What happened?

People lie to me all the time. They lie, lie, lie.

Well, you can say, it’s none of your business.

But it is!

I’m human. I want to know. There’s only so many experiences I can have that can teach me about life. I want to know how you guys broke up and ended things. I want to know how that business didn’t work out. I want to know about when you cried because you thought the world was going to come crashing down on you.

We’re so used to thinking about the past and the future but never the present. But what if suddenly the past and the future are stripped from you. The past because it’s too painful. The future because all of the dreams and expectations you had no longer exist. You’re no longer going to grow older with that person, you’re no longer going to tuck your kid into bed after she wakes up with a scary nightmare, you’re no longer going to build that business even though it was your idea, you’re no longer going to count that money

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I count future money when I’m in the shower. Other people masturbate. Other people sing. But counting money I make in the future is a beautiful thing. What if that money is no longer there?

In your worst moments you have to forget about the past and the future. You have to suddenly take a survey of what you have RIGHT NOW.

People always write me, “but how do you take that first step when you are lying on the floor.” They don’t add: in the fetal position, crying, drunk, poor, and so on. It’s assumed.

Here’s what you do. Requires: Pen and waiter pad on the floor with you. Can you get that? I’ll wait.

The Best of James Altucher

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