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Thank you to everyone who so kindly subscribed to my new Ask Uncle Marty™ newsletter. A copy-and-paste version is below. To view and interact with the newsletter in its entirety, including links to subscribe and view its full issue list, please click here.

For a while now, I’ve had the intention to get a periodic newsletter together. When I shared that intention and a link to subscribe, I was quite surprised and sincerely honored by the volume of responses. Thank you!

This sure ain’t perfect, but it’s a start. Let’s begin…

Gilgamesh and Good-Neighborliness

Gilgamesh. The name just rolls off the tongue in a way that makes you smile, doesn’t it? I’ve heard of Gilgamesh most of my adult life, but other than associating him with ancient mythology, never really dug much deeper into it. Then this morning, I came across a little reference to Gilgamesh in something I was reading. Less than an hour later, while I was in the shower, Gilgamesh made another cameo on a podcast I was listening to. So, I’ve done a little digging…

Possibly a real Sumerian king sometime between 2500 and 2900 BCE, Gilgamesh’s deification and the legends and myths that followed are what the character is mostly known for now—an ancient Mesopotamian hero and the protagonist in epic poems and mythologies that spread throughout Sumerian, Babylonian, Greek, and other cultures.

What struck me today was what the podcaster shared about Gilgamesh’s outlook; she said that he felt the meaning of life was to spend it in happiness and not despair. Now, I’m sure “happiness” for Gilgamesh, as in most ancient (and, I’m afraid, contemporary) stories written by and about men in power, was likely at the expense of others, but isn’t the basic tenet of Gilgamesh’s alleged philosophy a great way to look at things? Spend life in happiness and not despair? It’s so simple. So basic. So important. Yet, so easy to lose sight of. Life gets so un-simple at times and in the confusion and hustle we often forget about the importance of joy.

Joy, often, is a result of peace. And peace, often, is easily lost. We humans love to argue, to feel better-than, to push our thoughts and opinions on others, and to generally neglect respect and kindness—those two basic, simple things that truly make the world much more smooth, palatable, equitable, peaceful, and joyful. In a recent piece about good-neighborliness, I tried to explore this a little bit. Check it out here.

Sick of your private time being interrupted by those late night and early morning texts from people who seem to have no clue about time-of-day decorum?

If you’re like me and neither a morning person nor a night owl, with responsibilities that don’t allow you the luxury of using your devices’ do not disturb modes, it can really get under your skin when someone wakes you up with a text at midnight or 7:00 a.m. just to share something that they should have emailed instead.

To help, my colleagues at AYM High Consultants and I have put together some basics for professional email and text etiquette. Enjoy the article here.

Seriously? At this hour?

From the Archives

In each newsletter, I hope to share a couple new pieces and thoughts, as well as something from a while ago. In a piece called “I Can Because I Will,” written in December of 2019, I shared pre-pandemic optimism and encouraged mindset shifts. It’s been good for me to read over again and be reminded that optimism is timeless, obstacles aren’t forever, and our biggest challenges are often internal. Check out “I Can Because I Will” here,

#WednesdayWisdom

I love quotes. I collect quotes. And for over 12 years, I’ve shared a quote every Wednesday as #WednesdayWisdom on Instagram and also, more recently, on TikTok.

If you have any favorite quotes, please send them my way!

I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined the AYM High Consultants team as its Communication & Vision Coach. Together with other coaches and my dear friends Fahim, Yusuf, Seema, and Steve, we will be helping business owners and managers set goals, stay accountable, and focus unique mission-oriented visions. Check us out at aymhigh.com and, while there, be sure to subscribe to our free, brand new AYM High newsletter that I’m honored to help with (with mostly different content than this newsletter, I promise). The first AYM High newsletter dropped last Tuesday, which you can check out here.