Here’s what, 2012 is about to rock your face off. “Yep. Yep.” is a mix I put together for you and your steady progression toward victory. Leave us your 2012 song recs in comments. Cheers to a new year, my friends.

(I mostly live on Spotify now, so here’s the Yep. Yep. Mix over there, if you like it like that. The one below is from Rdio, which lets me embed the player with song previews.)

Read this in The Week, and taped it to my mirror:

“You are what you learn. If all you know is how to be a gang member, that’s what you’ll be, at least until you learn something else. If you go to law school, you’ll see the world as a competition. If you study engineering, you’ll start to see the world as a complicated machine that needs tweaking. A person changes at a fundamental level as he or she merges with a particular field of knowledge. If you don’t like who you are, you have the option of learning until you become someone else. There’s almost nothing you can’t learn your way out of. Life is like a jail with an unlocked, heavy door. You’re free the minute you realize the door will open if you simply lean into it.” -Scott Adams

(Addendum: Ah, man. The wisdom in this quote notwithstanding, it would seem Scott Adams has a history of “interesting” opinions on gender issues:

Boo on that. Boo, I say.
)

Glad sponsored this post as part of a campaign about producing less waste. If you’re up for talking trash, you can visit Glad.com for more information.

They bike instead of driving, use cloth diapers, eat organic from the farmer’s market, and their house doesn’t even smell like patchouli. Your friends are living a thoughtful life, here are a few ways you can be thoughtful in kind.

Tiffin Box, $37 from ModCloth
Tiffin boxes compartmentalize food so you can transport it without wrapping each item. They also out-cute a plain paper bag by a country mile.

Glass Water Bottles, $27 from Indigo
Eschewing bottled water is the new “going vegan.” It just makes you better than other people.

Reusable Sandwich Bag, Raindrops, $7.50 from The High Fiber Co.
Every sandwich is a gift. Might as well wrap it like one.

Flip-Top Snack Cup, $8 from Babybot
Each cup represents approximately 8,428 snack bags. Give or take.

Manners Cloth Napkins, $54 from Betsy Grace
When the napkin is cloth, you get a pass on tucking it into your collar.

Say, you should know this post is sponsored by the American Cancer Society as part of their More Birthdays campaign. This is their logo, which you may choose to click on if you hate Cancer:

I happen to be a big fan of birthdays and the people I love having as many of them as they can get their hands on. Also, paper hats.

This is me and and Evany with our phasers set to stun.

I make my goals for the year on my birthday, and this year I thought a lot about my friends while I was planning. I’m a big fan of a tidy list, but Evany not so much. The first time I suggested she write a Life List, she made a face like there was something alive in her mouth and it was trying to struggle free.

Evany’s instinct isn’t to plan, she just surrounds herself with interesting people and tries to say yes. In fact, you may recall that time I talked her into leaping to her death while she was still having adrenal flashbacks from the 40-hour labor she’d endured a few weeks earlier. She’s a trooper.

I thought of Evany when I said yes to Geri-Ayn’s last-minute suggestion that we spend my birthday in St. Lucia. I thought of her when I was making yet another birthday list, and I realized that lately the world has cooler ideas for me than I have for myself.

Remember when we talked about guiding principles, questions you ask yourself when you have a tough decision? You guys had some useful ones:

-“Is this worth the energy I am going to put into it?”
-”What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
-“If not now when?”
-“One year from now, will this matter?”

At Camp Mighty, Evany suggested a great one too. She gave a talk about how we all have friends who choose partners or make decisions that only cement their worst qualities. For all of us, there are forks in the road where we decide to “lean into the worst side of ourselves or stay gold.” Evany suggested you ask yourself, “Which decision makes you the better version of you?”

And I thought back to myself with a notepad in a hammock on my birthday, asking myself whether this or that activity would make me feel more chilled out. You know, just planning peaceful times, writing peaceful stuff on my tidy list so I could check each thing off peacefully, maybe while I meditated or something.

But now my planning is starting to get in the way of interesting projects that are materializing on their own. And the best version of me really loves other people’s adventures.

So this year, leaving room for serendipity tops my list of birthday goals. In that spirit, I’m wondering what you guys have crossed off your lists that you’d recommend. What have you done that’s worth doing, and next time can I come too?

In the meantime, I’ll just be following Evany around in my space suit.

We’re about to ship out our 24 Days Advent Grab Bags so they arrive in time for the Christmas countdown. Fifty percent of the proceeds go to support Charity Water! If you still want one, you’ll need to order now, by 7 p.m. PST please.

Order Now
Ages 4 and up
$35, plus shipping
50% of profits support Charity Water

A big fat thanks to those of you who have already ordered. You should have your package by the end of the week.