Let’s start with a very simple thought experiment. Visualize something you consider to be good. Now add to it whatever you think would make it even better.

Did this come easy to you? I suspect most of us will be able to do this rather effortlessly. What this shows is we intuitively operative with an additive theory of good.

To put this in terms of simple mathematics: two is greater than one. To use a harder mathematical concept: goodness is combinatorial.

Let’s ditch the math and focus on a (delicious) example instead. A bowl of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Now add to it a handful of chocolate chips, drizzle some rich fudge over it, and you’ve now got a concoction that would even make Remy from Ratatouille blush.

Not so fast. Enter: the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Here’s how the Encyclopedia Brittanica defines this law:

If one input in the production of a commodity is increased while all other inputs are held fixed, a point will eventually be reached at which additions of the input yield progressively smaller, or diminishing, increases in output.

Though it seems intuitive to believe that a bunch of good things, when combined, always result in something even better, in theory, the Law of Diminishing Returns demonstrates the flaw in this thinking. Economics teaches us that an assembly line can be an effective way to maximize output while minimizing investment. However, stick too many workers on the line and your productivity will suffer.

My thesis is that the Golden State Warriors may be on the brink of experiencing the woes of diminishing returns.

Despite what public opinion suggests, it is possible the Warriors have added too many skilled parts to an already high-functioning machine. If it does turn out that Kevin Durant becomes a destabilizing force, as opposed to an enhancement, it will simply be the latest piece of confirmation of the accuracy of the law of diminishing returns.

This has nothing to do with Durant himself. The point isn’t that there are certain deficiencies to his game that will cause the Warriors to struggle. When healthy, Kevin Durant is one of the top three players in the league, surpassed only by LeBron James and Durant’s newest teammate, Steph Curry. Every team in the league would kill to land him.

The point, rather, is that with the addition of Durant, the Warriors may be too good for their own good.

So with less than a month before the NBA season kicks off — THANK YOU, LORD! — let’s allow a little Warriors cynicism into our lives. Let’s let a contrarian contemplation of their roster assist us in setting realistic expectations for this squad from Oakland.
 
Have you heard some variation of the following Hot Take? ”Forget it. Why bother even having this season? Just give them the trophy already.”

Perhaps you too may have fallen victim to this viewpoint. Perhaps as a fan of a different team, haunted by the specter of a potential playoff matchup against a squad of unstoppable supersnipers, you too have come to see them as basically invincible.

As a natural contrarian, I’m inclined to counter these thoughts with the trademarked words of ESPN’s Lee Corso: “Not so fast, my friend.”

I suspect that KD may be one superstar too many for the Warriors, and here are two quick reasons why.

(1) A Hurting Bench

In order to land Durant, the Warriors had to let some players go. Not only were some of these players integral to their past success, but chemistry wise, many of them seamlessly meshed with Head Coach Steve Kerr’s carefully planned lineups and schemes.

This season, the Warriors will be without Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, Festus Ezeli, Leandro Barbosa, and Marreese Speights. None of these players hold a candle to Kevin Durant on an individual level — but basketball often requires good fit and not just aggregation of talent.

(2) There is only one ball

By adding Durant, a player who demands lots of touches and shots, to the Warriors’ starting five, this reduces the share of offensive participation that Steph Curry and Klay Thompson can expect to have this season. It would be easy to assume this is a benefit rather than a drawback, but keep in mind that adjustments on this level are not necessarily easy to make. Steph and Klay have been used to a certain level of offensive participation that may be reduced now that Durant is factored into the mix. There’s a reason why James Harden functioned better as a sixth man than as a starter while on the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Less importantly for team success, though still interesting from a fan’s point of view, the introduction of KD could mean we won’t get to see Curry surpass his NBA-record 402 made three-pointers in a single season. The overall point is that it’s unclear whether the Warriors can accommodate this much offensive firepower. To give a concrete example, Steph and Draymond’s average touches per game according to NBA.com’s Player Tracking, 86 and 81, respectively, will need to be lowered in order to make room for KD’s 65 touches per game.

Am I suggesting the Warriors shouldn’t be considered favorites to win it all? Of course I’m not saying that. They definitely should be seen as the favorites.

I’m just trying to pump the brakes on the Crown Them movement. I think a case can be made for thinking that the Warriors have introduced too much goodness. To be sure, all metrics, reason, and logic point to this squad as being the next NBA champions. But that’s what we all thought last year, too.

So while fans and experts are quickly conceding the Larry O’Brien over to the kids out West, I simply sit back and offer the same challenge David Patrick Kelly does as “Luther” in a 1979 cult classic: “Warriors, come out to plaaaaayyaaayyyy!”

The Ugly Truth About Being an Entrepreneur

I’m here to give it to you straight friends: the gritty truth about being an entrepreneur.

Many individuals would gladly sacrifice the 9–5 grind for a chance at becoming an entrepreneur, with the promise of becoming your own boss, developing a business of your own creation, and watching it grow and thrive.

Starting WordStream and witnessing it develop from a startup into a truly successful company has been a wild and rewarding experience, but there are definitely some aspects about being an entrepreneur that no one warned me about.

Dropping Out Does Not Make You The Next Steve Jobs

Many misguided individuals believe that if they could only throw off the suffocating shackles of higher education they, too, could create the next Apple. Dropping out doesn’t make you a millionaire — ask the guy working at Taco Bell (not that there’s anything wrong with working at Taco Bell. Unless you serve the breakfast menu, in which, best of luck to you soldier).

The truth is that neither Steve Jobs nor Bill Gates dropped out of school to loaf around and play League of Legends all day. Steve Jobs continued to audit classes for over a year after officially dropping out (he cites a calligraphy class as his inspiration for the beloved Mac typefaces and font spacing), and Gates had been planning his future software company for some time before leaving Harvard.

They were rare exceptions — chances are you’ll be much better off finishing school before embarking on your entrepreneurial adventure.

And while we’re at it, Einstein didn’t fail math — he was an excellent student and mastered calculus by age 15. He also married his cousin and never (ever) wore socks, so maybe it’s time to stop using him as the model to base our lives around.

You Have to be Insanely Self-Motivated

To simply say that you need to be self-motived in order to become a successful entrepreneur is an understatement. You need to be the kind of person who does their taxes in January and flosses twice a day.

You’ll also need to be authentically curious about the world, with a thirst for solving problems. When you first launch a startup, you’re on your own. Eventually you may grow your team and bring great folks onboard to help, but for a while you’ll riding solo. This means you (and only you) are the marketer, the finances coordinator, the PR director, the head of customer service, etc. You will be wearing every hat under the sun.

As you can imagine, this is basically setting up shop in Stress City, USA. However, if you’re self-motivated, this can be a fun and exciting learning opportunity. Just know that you’ll be playing every instrument in the jazz ensemble, so prepare to be challenged!

You Won’t Get Rich — At Least Not Right Away

If your business starts to grow and become successful, it can feel fantastic! Suddenly you’re seeing big money roll in, and you might get dollar sign eyes. It’s tempting to go on spending sprees (because buying a Tesla makes you a superhero) and reward yourself for all of your hard work. The reality is you should be feeding and growing your business with the money it brings in — not treating your business like your personal piggy bank.

Good bootstrapping builds a long-term profitable business, so avoid self-indulgence and keep yourself on a low salary. Besides, your worn-out boots look vintage, and you can get all your daily nutrients from Ramen! (Note: you cannot get all your daily nutrients from Ramen — but you can try!)

Procrastination is a Death Sentence

In school, procrastination is a bad habit, and while it can result in some tough all-nighters with a caffeine IV drip, procrastinators still tend to do all right for themselves.

When you become your own boss, there’s no professor or manager breathing down your neck. You set your own hours and you exchange a suit and tie for sweatpants (jeans if you’re feeling classy). Your office space ranges from the Starbucks around the block to your dining room table. All this lack of structure is extremely dangerous for procrastinators, who might find themselves watching just one more Game of Thrones episode before getting back to work. Suddenly it’s 1pm, you’re ordering Chinese food, and you still haven’t brushed your teeth.

It took some solid commitment for me to start treating my business like a realbusiness — that means keeping real work hours, establishing routines, and sticking to them. This is what allowed me expand my staff and get things rolling. No one’s going to join your team to hang around and watch Scrubsreruns. OK, some people might be interested in joining you for that, but you certainly won’t be paying them for it.

Finding Your Dream Team is Tough

Establishing your first startup is immensely exciting, and while you may feel 100% onboard, it can often be difficult to get others to share your enthusiasm. Don’t be too shocked when your friends and colleagues aren’t so keen on joining you on your magical journey into the wondrous world of startups.

I initially felt pretty discouraged when I couldn’t get friends and coworkers to sign onboard with me and my company of one. Couldn’t they see what an exciting opportunity this was? I didn’t understand why no one was willing to drop everything and join me.

It took me a while to realize that I was asking people to take a huge leap of faith. With families to support and bills to pay, many people weren’t comfortable taking such a big risk. I realized that I had to demonstrate my company’s value to people so that they’d feel more confident that our venture was at least semi-reliable.

I worked on setting and meeting goals, developing my business skills, and putting money back into my business so that I had real results to show potential team members. Once I had numbers to back up my claims, I was able to get the team together that I needed.

Your Pride Could Be Seriously Wounded

The harsh reality is that around 80% of businesses fail, which doesn’t make for great odds. What’s worse is that as an entrepreneur, your roadblocks become public knowledge as family, friends, and acquaintances continue to ask, “so how’s that company of yours going?” You can’t imagine how fun Thanksgiving is.

Accept that you may fail, but instead of wallowing, learn from your missteps. Some entrepreneurs go through several failed startups before finding their golden ticket. It requires a degree of humility to accept education and insight from your mistakes, so check your ego at the door.

Success Never Tasted So Good

Being an entrepreneur can be tough, but the rewards are tremendous. People can tell you how good it feels to see your business win and thrive, but until you see it happen, it’s hard to really comprehend the sheer joy and satisfaction.

Originally posted on Search Engine Journal.

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About The Author

Larry Kim is the Founder of WordStream. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

“We’re Not in Prison. We’re in School.”

The classrooms where Black Lives Matter is more than a hashtag

Drive pass South Los Angeles’s Dorsey High School on any given school day, and you’re likely to notice the four cop cars stationed outside. “We don’t need to be patrolled. We’re not in prison. We’re in school,” says senior Tyonna Hatchett, dressed in an oversized camouflage army jacket and tan Birkenstocks and standing on the steps leading up Dorsey’s auditorium.

Hatchett is a student officer of Students Deserve, a three-year-old advocacy campaign to push for more resources and support for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). “We’re not asking for much, just a fair shot and more electives,” Hatchett explains.

On September 29, in conjunction with Black Lives Matter, the group invited students, parents, activists and teachers from schools throughout the Los Angeles system to a packed event in Dorsey’s auditorium to advocate for smaller class sizes, more nurses, more electives and more college counselors at their schools. Much of the event was spent in a panel discussion with students who shared their experiences feeling incriminated by police on their campuses and in their neighborhoods.

“We’re students. We should have at least one nurse on campus everyday,” says Hillary, a senior at Dorsey where the student body is nearly split between black and Latino students (50 percent and 47 percent, respectively). “Instead we have four police officers and five security guards.”

Hillary and other students in underfunded school districts in cities around the country are using the discourse and energy of the Black Lives Matter movement to draw attention to how the police presence on high school campuses negatively affects the psychological health of black and Latino students. “Students are very aware that the same root cause for violence against people of color is also to blame for increased security and underfunding in our schools,” says Sharonne Hapuarachy, an English teacher at Dorsey High who helped put together the Students Deserve event and who sees “a new type of student activist that realizes they need more college counselors and less police officers at their schools.”

At a time when officer-involved shootings of young black Americans make headlines on a near weekly basis, conversations about police brutality — and the steps the Black Lives Matter movement is taking to stop it — are organically creeping into high school classrooms and occasionally posing challenges to student activists and teachers who want to talk about it. “Last year, we passed out fact sheets,” remembers Hillary. “They showed the disproportionate number of African Americans and Latino men that have been targeted by police, but our principal at the time said we couldn’t make those types of announcements on school property.”

But it’s not only students who feel activated by the Black Lives Matter movement; educators feel a similar responsibility to engage their students in discussions about ways to address police violence toward communities of color — even though it can be sensitive and difficult. Maria Bennett, an English teacher at Crenshaw High in South L.A., admits that she doesn’t always know what to say. “My father always told me to comply with the police. But when you have individuals who comply and still end up dead, what do you say then?”

According to official policy teachers “cannot espouse a particular view — just like they cannot endorse a political candidate,” clarifies Gayle Pollard Terry, deputy chief communications officer for LAUSD. “[T]eachers can discuss these kind of issues within the context of instruction.”

But other times “these kind of issues” come up in a much more personal and painful context. “About five or six weeks ago, one of our own students, Kenny Watson, 17, was shot and killed,” says Bennett. Watson became the 16th person shot by on-duty LAPD officers this year, according to data compiled by the Los Angeles Times. Though there were two handguns recovered at the scene, the LAPD is still investigating what prompted the officer to open fire during a traffic stop. “After Kenny was shot, the conversation about the Black Lives Matter movement became more personal,” remembers Bennett. “With the frequency of the shootings, the framework for having these conversations has intensified. The protests have gotten louder and more common.”

Not just at Crenshaw but at high schools around the country, where student athletes in Seattle, Oakland, Camden, N.J., San Francisco, and elsewhere have followed the example set by pro football player Colin Kaepernick by sitting out the national anthem. “At our last football game, the cheerleaders and football players knelt and put their fists in the air during the national anthem while a group of students taped their mouths closed and weren’t speaking all day,” says Happaruchy.

While liberal, diverse Los Angeles is more welcoming of this message, bringing Black Lives Matter onto high school campuses can still be controversial. “When our principal told the bosses at the district level that Students Deserve and Black Livers matter were going to co-host the event inside Dorsey’s auditorium, they asked if she was crazy,” says Happaruchy. “They said ‘You’re going to let Black Lives Matter on your campus?’ The UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles) had to get involved and they helped to make it happen.”

Ellen Morgan, a communications officer of LAUSD, says she understands the importance of facilitating discussions about police-involved killings and the message of Black Lives Matter, but thinks it’s vital that those conversations “be student-lead, not teacher-lead, to collaborate to ensure that our schools are safe and affirming, and that any conversation helps promote healing.”

Bennett, who has been a teacher for 17 years, sees it slightly differently. Though she prefers that students engage in these conversations on their own, she also understands her responsibility as an educator to expose the untruths in a community that does its young people a disservice by purporting a false hope.

“Crenshaw has a reputation as an athletic school but that’s a false sense of reality. Our students aren’t going to the next level. They’re not being recruited for their athletic abilities because of their academics.” Part of the problem she says is that, Crenshaw’s school motto, ‘Every Cougar is college bound,’ is deceptive to the community and its students. Since the school only offers one AP course and one honors class, it’s nearly impossible for students at Crenshaw to attend one of country’s more elite universities. “How is a student-athlete from Crenshaw supposed to compete with a student-athlete from Mater Dei,” a private high school in Orange County?

Hatchett who plans to attend Washington State University to pursue her dream of becoming doctor agrees. “I don’t feel like I got a proper education. But we’re the future. Invest in us.”

Justin Timberlake Is America’s Most Inoffensive Sex Symbol

In his new concert film for Netflix, JT’s persona is best described as Magic Mike meets Michael Bublé

Out on Netflix today, Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids may not be the best thing Justin Timberlake has ever done, but it’s certainly the purest expression of the 35-year-old singer’s particular greatness. A concert film chronicling the final two shows of his lavish, two-year 20/20 Experience World Tour, Tennessee Kids captures Timberlake performing to sold-out crowds at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. He’s charming, captivating, and endlessly entertaining. But most importantly, a consummately inoffensive sex symbol.

The tour promoted the release of his twin 2013 20/20 Experience albums, his first records since 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, which is an eternity in the lifespan of pop stars who risk falling into irrelevancy if they’re out of the public eye too long. During the time off, Timberlake focused on acting — getting good reviews for The Social Network and being part of hits like Bad Teacher. But his return to music was no sure thing — while he was away, artists such as Chris Brown, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift had become the new big things. And yet, when he returned, he made it look effortless: The 20/20 Experience was 2013’s best-selling album, combining with the follow-up, The 20/20 Experience — 2 of 2, to move almost four million copies.

Consequently, its accompanying tour wasn’t just a comeback but a coronation of a musical career that’s evolved consistently — to the surprise of many — since the first NSYNC album in 1997. Tennessee Kids (much like Timberlake himself) has no time for the boy-band days, but the movie demonstrates that the affable kid who was arguably the group’s funniest, most photogenic talent hasn’t disappeared. If anything, he’s morphed into a suave, sexually confident version of his former teenage-heartthrob self. In a pop landscape dominated by young singers, he’s already something of a revered elder statesman. This fact doesn’t scare him — in the film, he assumes that mantle with pride.

Surrounded by his band — which includes a horn section, backup singers and dancers — Timberlake is dressed in suit and black tie. It’s partially a nod to his hit song “Suit & Tie,” partially a nod to the grownup sophistication he’s trying to cultivate. With his well-coiffed hair (a close-cut version of his former full-curls look) and finely manicured stubble, he gives off the air of a retro Vegas entertainer — our supremely professional master of ceremonies for the evening. But if you tilt your head slightly, he also resembles a too-pretty stripper who’s about to rip off his outfit and start grinding — which is also pretty Vegas. Both impressions are key to his appeal: By mixing the two, he’s a cocky, refined loverman in the most unthreatening way imaginable. He’s Magic Mike meets Michael Bublé.

The film was directed by Jonathan Demme, who made the greatest concert film of all time with 1984’s Stop Making Sense, which caught the influential New Wave band the Talking Heads at the height of their powers and popularity. Timberlake is no Talking Heads, but Tennessee Kids does an equally remarkable job of admiring its performer, putting him in the best possible light. Gone is the self-regarding cheeseball whose frequent Saturday Night Live appearances were consistently undone by how funny he thinks he is. Gone is the so-so actor of Friends With Benefits and Trouble With the Curve who didn’t seem to have the dramatic heft to be taken seriously. Timberlake’s no groundbreaking artist — as his derivative, mindless summer smash “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” proves, he can flirt with hackdom in the quest for a hit. But in Tennessee Kids, he’s a hell of song-and-dance showman.

Stop Making Sense was pioneering in part because, rather than worrying about gimmicky cutaways to the audience, Demme left his cameras on the Talking Heads, a technique that revealed a sense of onstage intimacy among the band members. Demme takes the opposite tact in Tennessee Kids: Although the filmmaker includes plenty of moments of Timberlake’s band members playing off each other, he heavily incorporates the crowd into the movie, which is appropriate when taking in the full spectacle of a top-flight modern pop concert. Here, the intimacy is between the singer and his adoring throngs, and Tennessee Kids is a nonstop tribute to superstar charisma as Timberlake manages to maintain a tight connection with his fans in this massive auditorium.

In the spirit of Vegas glitz, Tennessee Kids amplifies the singer’s biggest hits by introducing new, flashy arrangements that blend elements of rock and big band. The shimmering R&B ballad “My Love” gets turned into a piano-bar torch song before segueing into the track’s distinctive keyboard hook. “FutureSex/LoveSound” sheds its electro/hip-hop sheen for a ’70s rock-and-soul treatment. But just as he once fixated on Talking Heads frontman David Byrne’s mesmerizing, spastic stage movements, Demme is entranced by Timberlake and his dancers’ choreographed steps, which alternate between playful and steely, graceful and robotic.

From NSYNC to the present, Timberlake has always been the king of uncomplicated all-around entertainment. (No surprise he’s good buddies with anodyne Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon.) In Timberlake’s solo career, it’s true he’s always aimed at crafting cutting-edge dance-pop, a sonic inventiveness that has worked in lockstep with his desire to push his sexual persona far from that of his teenage self — moving from the friendly flirtation of 2002’s Justified to FutureSex’s frank talk about whips and chains. But, cleverly and perhaps calculatedly, that adventurousness has often been mitigated by Timberlake’s self-effacing dorkiness, always tempering his cocksure demeanor with a just-kidding chaser. Likewise, Tennessee Kids finds him strutting and grinning in a come-hither way, although there are also plenty of moments when he engages in dopey, “Are you all having a good time?” patter with the crowd. It’s corny but adorable, because it feels just as genuine as his promises to bring sexy back.

Hokey Timberlake may be, but Tennessee Kids is massively enjoyable, a salute to old-fashioned, skin-deep crowd-pleasers who deliver their polished product perfectly. Timberlake is hardly a visionary, but that hasn’t stopped him from aspiring to be more. Frankly, it’s how he’s gotten this far: After all, how many boy-band stars ever amounted to anything? Tennessee Kids celebrates his refusal to give up on himself. He believes music ought to be sexy and fun. It’s not all that art can achieve. But at this film’s best, this very agreeable lightweight makes you forget that fact in the face of his enthralling showbiz razzle-dazzle.

Tim Grierson is one-half of The New Republic’s film column Grierson and Leitch. He is also a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone and Vulture as well as the author of six books, including a biography of Public Enemy.

Remaining Friends With Your Ex Is Easier Done Than Said

The secret to a successful friendship with an ex is watching what you say

When a relationship ends, people tend to do one of two things. The first is to purge — to scorch the ground upon which your roots had grown. This part of your life is now over, and nothing can be gained from looking back on it.

The second is more akin to the Japanese pottery technique Kintsugi, which is essentially the repairing of broken pots using gold to fix the cracks; rather than being discarded, the breakage is used to turn it into something new. Back in relationship terms, this means there’s an acceptance that something has been broken and can’t be put back together in the same way, but also a desire to salvage something, to go out with more than what you came in with.

The latter option is laden with pitfalls and very hard to navigate. You could backslide, which gets messy. You could realize that maybe when you’re not in love with someone, you actually don’t like them very much. You could fall in love with someone else, who may not be so hot on you staying friends with someone who’s previously seen you perform a hilarious-yet-erotic dance to Michael Jackson’s “Ben.”

Possibly the trickiest change you’ll need to make if you’re going to try to stay friends after a breakup, however, is in your language.

Relationships are built upon a shared language specific to the parties involved. Look at pet names: They’re a universal, cross-cultural fixture of relationships with a multitude of semantic and etymological roots. Some transcend language and international boundaries—e.g., “honeys,” “babys,” “sweethearts” and “sugars”—while others are culturally specific. The Dutch, for instance, call their significant others “licorice.” Germans prefer “little bear.” And one Chinese pet name refers to an old proverb about a woman so beautiful she made fish sink and wild geese fall.

But as Elizabeth Landau suggests in a blog post on Scientific American, pet names also can be used to reinforce a hierarchy within a relationship, with male pet names often taking the form of something aggrandizing and female pet names representing something more childish. Or you get words like “babe,” arguably gender-neutral now but which seems to have become the preserve of the patronizing put-down.

If your pet-name usage did take on this uneven power structure, even subconsciously, it’s all the more reason to avoid it post-relationship. You’re already likely to be in the roles of the dumper and the dumped. So if you start pushing that power structure again, you’re just going to feel shitty, or make someone else feel shitty.

Relationship expert and professional matchmaker Sarah Ryan is clear about why she thinks people fall back on this language post-break-up: “Pulling on cues and codes as a means of communication is a foot in the wrong direction to heal both hearts — and one party, if not both, will only be doing this to find a way to tie themselves back to the relationship and what you had. If you find yourself doing this or are in a situation where your ex is doing this, you must ask yourself if a line has really been drawn.”

That said, it’s a natural impulse to go back to the language you used while you were in a relationship. The problem is that those words no longer mean the same thing; they’re imbued with too great of an emotional significance for you to keep using them. At best, it’s awkward; at worst, it can be badly triggering.

But there’s also an issue of going too far the other way and trying to construct a new kind of language for your new platonic friendship. When you’re in a relationship so reliant on pet names, using someone’s real name could be code for anger, frustration or annoyance. Now, it might be all you have left. The alternative is to crowbar in a gender-neutral term of endearment — “dude,” “buddy,” “pal.” But again, there’s a power dynamic here. It reinforces your new roles, and it’s jarring.

Edrina Rush, a board-certified hypnotherapist who specializes in relationship coaching, sees the passage of time as the only way to solve this language problem:

“It’s important to have some space after a breakup and do things you enjoy for yourself. A breakup happens for a reason … and one of them is to discover yourself again. Let the other person live his/her life until you both are ready to be friends again without the emotional charge. Ideally, keep the interactions friendly as if how you would get to know a friend initially, quite like starting from scratch.”

The thing is: Breakups are trash. The ugly, plate-smashing, volcanic-eruption breakups and the evaporating, silent, mutual breakups alike. After those words have been said and the decision has been made, you’re now and forevermore looking into the eyes of someone who has broken your heart, or whose heart you have broken. (It’s sad to be the dumper, but it’s still objectively worse to get dumped .) If you think you can both do the friendship thing, that’s great, but you’ve got to accept that there’s a huge vocabulary that’s not available to you anymore.

If that doesn’t sit right with you, then it’s probably not going to work out.

Harry Harris is a songwriter, journalist and headless Thompson gunner. He tweets @CmonHarris, sings @WildSoundRecs and laughs @ own jokes.

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