I have this add-on in Chrome...

...called Momentum.

It gives me a quote and peaceful image and polite greeting every day.

"Good afternoon, Becky," it said to me, after work today, followed by:

"On your journey through life, make sure your biography has at least one extraordinary chapter."

When I like a quote, I'll record it my black Playboy journal. This is not to be confused with my pink Playboy journal, which is a very different Playboy journal.

Two different Playboys

The pink Playboy journal I would tote along with me to work in Ireland (I'm sure I've told this story before; skip this paragraph if I'm boring you). At 23, while living in Ireland, I was hired to be a fill-in receptionist at an engineering firm while the regular receptionist was out for six weeks with a broken arm. But after only two weeks, the regular receptionist decided to forego doctor's orders and come back to work. For a month, we both sat at her desk - she answered the phone all day, and I sat beside her "just in case," which meant I didn't do anything at all. Which is why I brought my pink Playboy journal. I spent my workdays writing about crazy/stupid drama, so much of it that I filled up two-thirds of the book. Blank pages in the pink journal dwindling, I went out and bought the black Playboy journal.

The black Playboy journal was meant to be a Volume 2 to the pink Playboy journal's Volume 1, which I always assumed I would continue writing in until the book was full. But I made it back home to the U.S. without having written a single word in the black journal. I wouldn't write in it, in fact, for nearly a year, and when I did, what I wrote were quotes from other people that made me think.

Ten years later, I'm still writing down quotes from other people, the most recent of which is the quote at the start of this blog entry.

I never made it to the end of the pink Playboy journal but the black Playboy journal will be filled to the last page before this year is up. There's the plot twist for you: turns out my personal drama was less compelling to me in the long-term than the wisdom of other people.

But if I were to give some advice of my own, something that, had it not come from me, I would want to jot down, it would be this: Secretly follow the rules that everyone ignores, and secretly ignore the rules that everyone follows.

That is my strategy to extraordinary.