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It’s hard to believe it, but we’ve already made our way to November, which means the holiday season is upon us. The week after next brings with it Thanksgiving, and with it, family gatherings. Unless you're one of our awesome Canadian listeners. In that case, you got your delicious food and family trauma a month ago.

For those of us on the southern side of the 49th parallel who are white knuckling our way to the end of December, this one’s for you.

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday, this is episode #723, “Home for the Holidays?” I’m Darrell Darnell, cranberry sauce is my least favorite Thanksgiving dish, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.

Family trauma is wonderful, isn't it? It's to be expected, really. I'm convinced you can't put a room full of humans together for very long without it. We are an opinionated, headstrong, proud, and emotional bunch. Those ingredients make a dish even less appetizing than the gelatinous goop that plops out of a can like dog food, which we call cranberry sauce.

For many people, gathering for holidays, birthdays, summer cookouts, or any occasion is full of joy, excitement, and fun. For others, it's the opposite. It brings dread, anxiety, stress, anger, or even fear. Some of you love to plan a party, open your home, and be the host. God bless you. I'm glad you exist.

Whichever camp you're in, this episode is for you. Although I'm writing mostly for those who find these occasions difficult, who feel pressure to show up, put on a happy face, and pretend life is perfect. If that's not you, I hope this gives you a perspective outside your own and helps you as you gather this season.

I was seven or eight years old when I first noticed drama in my family. Every Christmas we traveled to Kansas to spend the week with my dad's sister and her family. Aunt Vivian was amazing. She loved to throw a party, thought of every detail, and welcomed us all into her home with open arms.

One year, someone who was normally there was missing. When I asked where he was, I was told another family member had decided to come, so he chose to stay home. The two of them couldn't stand to be in the same room with each other.

As I spent more time with my grandparents, I got a front row seat to my grandma and her sister's love-hate relationship. They talked on the phone nearly every day. Sometimes they were best friends, telling each other how much they cared and enjoying each other's company. Other times they were yelling, calling names, and slamming phones.

Can I pause here for a second? I think our society has lost something important. Back then, when you were angry with someone, you could slam the phone into the receiver. Those things were built like Sherman tanks. It was so satisfying to feel that handset crash into the base and hear the little bell inside chime out in anguish. Tapping End Call on a cell phone just doesn't do it. No matter how hard I press, all I do is hurt my finger.

Okay. Back to family drama.

Several years ago, I called one of my relatives by his first name. I meant it as a playful joke. He did not take it as a joke at all. He called me later to tell me how much I'd offended him and how disrespected he felt. He also threatened to come over to my house, take me out to the front yard, and beat some respect into me.

Once he'd had time to cool down, I invited him to breakfast and we talked it out. I apologized for the disrespect I’d shown and explained what I'd intended. He apologized for his threats. As far as I'm concerned, we're good.

That one was relatively small. Awkward and uncomfortable, sure, but small. I'm telling you about it because it shows how easily things get tangled up. Honestly, it didn't take much and I wonder where we'd be today if we hadn’t talked it out.

But not every situation is small.

When our daughter Addi was eighteen, she stayed a few nights at her grandparents' house. Another family member was also staying there, and at one point he made a threat toward her that was sexual in nature. He told her the rest of the family would believe him, not her. Later that night, he came to her bedroom and they watched TV together. Her on the bed, him on the floor. Then he got up and turned off the lights. When she told him to turn them back on, he had taken his shirt off.

Thankfully, nothing physically happened to her.

And thankfully, she told us.

This was right around this time of year. We were getting ready to host the family, and we had already bought all the food, for Thanksgiving, which meant he would be coming to our house. We politely but firmly asked that he not come. That also meant his family wouldn't come, because they didn't want to come without him. We held firm. If it meant everyone stayed home, fine. He was not welcome in our home, at least not at that time.

So what happened? Another part of the family decided to move Thanksgiving to their house and invite everyone. That didn't solve anything. This was never about whether he was welcome in our home. It was about not asking Addi to be in the same room with someone she didn't feel safe around.

So we stayed home. Everyone else gathered for Thanksgiving.

To us, it felt like the entire family had taken his side and didn’t see his threats or actions as a big deal. It felt like the person who'd been hurt was being hurt all over again.

I want to be careful here. I'm not telling this story to drag my family through the mud. I love these people. There are always two sides to every story, and you're only hearing mine. My goal is not to make anyone the villain. It's to help someone listening who may be sitting in a spot like ours.

So here's what I learned.

First, it is okay to say no.

Many families put a lot of pressure on everyone to show up for special occasions. Some people go further and use guilt to make sure everyone is there. "It won't be the same without you." "After all we've done for you." "What will people think?" You may have heard these. You may have said them.

Guilting someone into attending is not okay. And it is very much okay to skip a family function.

That's true when the situation is as small as mine with that relative, and it's true when it's as serious as what Addi faced. You are not required to put yourself, or your children, in a room where someone doesn't feel safe. Your safety matters more than a seating chart.

A no also doesn't have to come from drama. We have a family member who almost always misses Thanksgiving. They can only take vacation at certain times of year, and Thanksgiving week is one of them. So they take a family vacation. We're totally fine with that. Nobody's keeping score, and nobody's mad. Sometimes a no is just a no, and it can be a healthy one.

But it’s worth remembering that gatherings are special, and they're not guaranteed.

I want to hold this next thought right alongside the first one, because I think both are true.

My grandma turned 100 this year. One hundred! Any one of these gatherings could be her last. She's deaf, she has mobility issues, and she can be a challenge to deal with. But we make it a priority to spend these times with her while we can. I'm not saying that to pile on guilt. I'm saying it because it's worth weighing. Some of us will look back and wish we'd made a different choice about a seat at the table.

Say no when you need to. Just make sure it's a real no, and not a habit, or a grudge, or the easy way out.

Third, forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing.

This is where I lean on my faith. The Bible talks a lot about forgiveness. It also talks about reconciliation. They go hand in hand, but they're not twins.

Forgiveness is something I can do on my own. It means I'm not going to carry the wrong around like a backpack full of bricks, and I'm not going to let bitterness grow roots. It doesn't mean I forget. It doesn't mean I pretend it didn't happen. And it certainly doesn't mean I put myself, or someone I love, back in a place to be hurt again.

Reconciliation, well that takes two people. It requires wrongs to be acknowledged, and it requires trust to be rebuilt over time. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn't, at least not yet. Paul wrote, "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." I like that phrase, as far as it depends on you. It tells me my job is to do my part. I'm not responsible for the other person's part.

My breakfast with that relative is a small example of what that looked like. We named the wrong, we apologized, and we moved forward. Not every story gets resolved over eggs and bacon, but I think the heart is the same. Don't let things fester. Acknowledge what was wrong. Do your part. Keep the door open as far as you can safely.

And DO think of it as a door, not a wall. A wall says "never." A door with a lock says "not right now, and not like this, but I haven't walked away from you forever." Sometimes the door has to stay locked for a while. But a door can be opened someday. A wall can't.

I think about the end of life, when I look back on all of this. I don't want to be holding a lifetime of resentment. I want to be holding restoration. I want to know I did what I could, as far as it depended on me, so that whatever happened, I'm not stuck with regrets about things I could have done or said.

Again, it's okay to say no. Really. If you're dreading a gathering, if you feel unsafe, or if someone is trying to guilt you into walking into something that hurts you, you have my full permission. You don't need mine, but you have it.

But don't stop there. Family health, forgiveness, and honesty matter too. Don't let a no become a wall. Forgive as you're able, and leave the door open to what God might do in the years ahead.

Whatever your table looks like this season, I hope it's a good one. Whether you're packed into a house with forty relatives or sitting quietly at home with a plate of leftovers, I'm wishing you a happy holiday season.

And if someone brings the canned cranberry sauce with the ridges from the can still on it, remember that you're allowed to say no to that, too.

I'm Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.

I want you to be a part of the next Monday Mailbag coming up in three weeks on November 30th! Monday Mailbag is your opportunity to share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can send in questions or responses to my SILY episodes, and I’ll respond to them via Monday Mailbag episodes. You can participate in Monday Mailbags by visiting the Golden Spiral Media listener feedback page at goldenspirlamedia.com/feedback.

In 1955, twelve men took just over an hour to reach a verdict. By every legal standard of that time and place, the matter was settled. Case closed. And yet, more than seventy years later, almost no one believes justice was done. Why not? Nobody handed us a rulebook, and the law itself said the opposite. So where did that conviction come from? Today we're looking at a story you may think you know, and perhaps a feeling you've never had to explain. I think that feeling is trying to tell us something much bigger than the story itself.

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday, this is episode #722, “Not Guilty, But Still Wrong.” I’m Darrell Darnell, I have never been called to serve for jury duty, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.

Well, technically speaking I did get called once to serve in Oklahoma county, but I was living in Lubbock county Texas at the time, so my summons was dismissed.

I want to tell you a story. While I tell it, I'd like you to pay attention to what's happening inside you. Not what you're thinking. What you're feeling.

In August of 1955, a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till left Chicago to spend part of his summer with relatives in a tiny Mississippi town called Money. He was a city kid, a little cocky maybe, the way 14-year-olds can be. I think about my own kids at that age, how big they thought they were and how little they actually understood about the world. Emmett was just a boy.

One day at a small grocery store, something happened between Emmett and the white woman working the counter. People have argued for decades about exactly what. Whatever it was, it was nothing close to what came next. A few nights later, her husband and his half-brother came to the home where Emmett was staying, took him out of bed in the middle of the night, and drove away with him.

They beat him so badly that his own family could barely recognize him. They killed him. Then they sank his body in a river, weighed down so it would never be found. It was found anyway.

His mother, Mamie, made a decision that helped change the country. She insisted on an open casket. She wanted the world to see what had been done to her boy. Thousands came to look, and a photograph of him ran in Jet magazine.

Then came the trial. The jury was all white and all male, because women and Black citizens were disenfranchised and essentially barred from serving. The jury deliberated for 67 minutes. One of the jurors later said, "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long." The verdict: not guilty. Both men walked free.

About four months later, those two men sold their story to Look magazine for what would be roughly $50,000 today. They described, in their own words, what they had done. And nobody could do a thing about it. Because of double jeopardy, you can't be tried twice for the same crime. They were declared innocent, and then they got paid to explain how guilty they were.

Now stop and check yourself. What are you feeling? If you're like me, there's heat in your chest. Maybe a knot in your stomach. Maybe you're angry at those men who died decades ago, men you never met.

So here's the question I want us to consider today. What, exactly, are you angry about?

The law said not guilty. Twelve citizens said not guilty. By every legal measure, and by the measure of that county in that year, no crime was proven. And yet you and I, and I'd bet nearly everyone listening, know with total certainty that a terrible wrong was done. Nobody had to teach you that. No one had to hand you a verse or a textbook. You just knew.

A while back on my other podcast, Entering the Fifth Dimension, my co-host Robert and I discussed a Twilight Zone episode from 1964 called "I Am the Night—Color Me Black." Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone, wrote that episode. Our guest that night was Rodney Barnes. He is a Peabody award winning television writer and producer. I don’t know Rodney’s personal beliefs, but Robert has stated on multiple occasions that he is agnostic.

That Twilight Zone episode was prompted by the assassination of President Kennedy, but Rod Serling had been wrestling with the Emmett Till case for years. He’d tried working it into other scripts but the network wouldn’t let him. Rod was frustrated by the social issues of his day and you can feel it.

In the story, a town waits for an execution of a man named Jagger, a white man found guilty of killing a racist bigot. The entire town is in a fever pitch to see the man who killed a bigot hanged. Mysteriously, the town sits in darkness, the sun did not rise on this day.

Then a Black minister steps in front of the crowd and tells them, "You hated and you killed. Now there's not one of you who isn't doomed. Do you know why it's dark? It's the hate he felt, the hate you felt, the hate all of us feel, and there's too much of it.”

As we talked about that episode, nobody in the conversation, believer, agnostic, or otherwise, shrugged and said, "Well, that's just how that town saw it." Rodney called the decision to tell a story like that "a gutsy move" and "the right thing to do."

Right. Not "popular." Not "profitable." Right. The truth is, we were all quietly leaning on a standard none of us had written. We agreed that what Rod had done and written was right, but by what standard were we basing that?

That heat in your chest is not a quirk of your personality. It's evidence, and it's pointing at something. Following where it points is what I want to talk about today. This is the moral argument for God. Today we’re not zeroing in on a specific God. We’re not arguing for the God of the Bible. We’re not talking about Jesus. Those are separate questions, separate challenges, and we'll get to them in future episodes. For now, we're asking one foundational question: Is there a standard of right and wrong that sits above us, or isn't there?

C.S. Lewis opens Mere Christianity with this very observation. He points to the way people quarrel. He writes that quarrelling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong, and that there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are.

It’s common to hear people say things like, "That's just your opinion," or "Who are you to judge?" But notice when those statements typically show up. People typically say them when they're the ones being corrected. Let that same person get cheated on a deal, or lied about, or cut off in traffic, and the language changes in a hurry. Suddenly it's, "That's not fair." "You promised." "You had no right." Even "Don't judge me" is a judgment about judging. Everyone is appealing to a rule they assume the other person knows too.

C.S. Lewis calls this the Law of Human Nature. He also takes on the objection that it's just instinct. Our instincts, he says, are like the notes on a piano. The moral law is not one of the notes. It's the sheet music that tells us which notes to play and which to leave alone. Sometimes the right thing is the quieter instinct, and sometimes we have to choose against the louder one. Something has to be doing the judging, and that something isn't one of the things being judged.

So let's test where this standard could come from. Maybe it comes from the law. But in Mississippi in 1955, the law protected those men and said no wrong had been committed. Maybe it comes from the majority. But the majority in that courtroom gave its verdict in just over an hour. If right and wrong are decided by law or by vote, then what those men did to Emmett Till was not wrong. And you know that's false.

Maybe the problem was the time and place, and we've evolved. But think about what that means. If society defines morality, then society can't be wrong, and so nothing was ever really wrong. It was only unpopular later.

Perhaps the clearest test of this came about ten years before Emmett Till, at the Nuremberg Trials. The defendants argued, in part, that they had followed the laws of their own country and the orders of their own government. Their leader had even boasted that the Nazis stood on the ground of legality.

The prosecutors answered that some acts are crimes no matter what a nation's laws say. In his opening statement, Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson said the Nazi leaders treated international law, natural law, German law, any law at all, as a propaganda device to be used when it helped and ignored when it didn't. The prosecution appealed to a standard above Germany. C.S. Lewis made the same point. Without a real standard behind human rules, he argued, you have no reason to say one morality is better than another, whether it's civilised versus savage, or Christian versus Nazi.

Here's what I learned.

So here's where this takes us. I see only two honest options.

Option one: there is a moral standard above all of us, one that no person or government can rewrite. This option means Emmett Till's killers were guilty, whatever the jury said, and the wrong was real.

Option two: there is no such standard. This option means morality is just opinion. Your opinion, mine, a jury's, a dictator's. We each decide what's right in our own eyes, and there's no way to say anyone else is wrong. Think of a ball game where there's no rulebook and no referee, and every team keeps its own scoreboard. Nobody could ever win, because everybody wins. Nobody could ever cheat, because there's nothing to cheat. There would be no such thing as foul play, and honestly, that sounds like the foulest idea of all.

To be clear, I’m not claiming that atheists, agnostics, or anyone else can't be moral. Many of the kindest, most honest people I know don't share my faith. The question is not whether people can know right from wrong or live it well. The question is what grounds it. What makes right actually binding on me, whether I feel like it or not?

I know a young man, a friend of my son's, who has thought about this more honestly than most. He told us flatly that there is no God, and therefore no moral standard. Whatever anyone thinks is right is just as good as what anyone else thinks. Hearing him say that pains me, because I care about him. But I respect him deeply, because he followed his reasoning all the way to the end instead of stopping halfway. I think that's the honest position for someone who doesn't believe in God. It's also a position hardly anyone can live in. Say or do something truly unjust to that friend, and I'd bet you'd hear him object. And so would I.

Naturally, this leads to many trying to find a middle path. One of those middle paths says morality is real, like math, but needs no God. That argument names the fact without explaining why it holds authority over me or why anyone owes anything to anyone. The second path says morality is a survival instinct that helped our ancestors. That may explain why we feel outrage, but it doesn't make the outrage correct. A feeling that evolved can't tell you whether the thing you feel is true. And a third path people sometimes take is whether something is good because God says so, or God says so because it's good. The classic answer is that God's own character is the standard, so it's neither.

Voddie Baucham, who passed away in 2025, made this challenge in a sharp but simple way. As I understand his argument, those who deny God still use words like honor, honesty, justice, good, and truth. But if no objective standard exists, they can't account for those words. The question he put to people was not "Are you moral?" It was, "What is the standard for those words grounded upon?"

So, back to Emmett. His killers were acquitted, paid, and never answered for their actions on this earth. But the verdict didn't erase the wrong. Something higher than a courtroom still judged them. Something created a sense of justice in each of us, and we yearn deeply for it in times like the Emmett Till case.

I'm not asking you to believe everything about God today. I'm asking you to take your own sense of justice seriously, as evidence rather than an accident. Notice when you say "that's not fair" this week, at work, in traffic, in the news. Ask yourself, "By what standard?" Then ask whether a standard like that could exist if nothing and no one stood behind it. And if you've never read Mere Christianity, start with part one of the book. It's short, it's clear, and it asks these questions better than I can.

Every time you cry out for justice, you are appealing to a Judge you have never met, and the fact that you keep appealing may be the best evidence that He is there.

I’m Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.

I want you to be a part of the next Monday Mailbag coming up in four weeks on November 30th! Monday Mailbag is your opportunity to share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can send in questions or responses to my SILY episodes, and I’ll respond to them via Monday Mailbag episodes. You can participate in Monday Mailbags by visiting the Golden Spiral Media listener feedback page at goldenspirlamedia.com/feedback.

Confession time. When I was nine years old, I quit Halloween.

Nobody talked me into it and it had nothing to do with religious reasons. I walked away from one of the best nights of the year as a kid because of shaving cream. I've thought about that night more than I probably should have, but it taught me something about getting hit and how to respond when you get blindsided that is still helping me to this day.

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday, this is episode #721, “Quitting Halloween.” I’m Darrell Darnell, anything Reese’s is my favorite Halloween candy, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living.

Let’s jump back in the Delorean and head to October of 1985. Commando starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alissa Milano was the top movie. Take On Me by a-ha was the top song. The most popular Halloween costumes were Hulk Hogan and Freddy Krueger.

My parents had divorced earlier that year, and the summer of 1985 meant a move to a new town. My dad rented a house, and after school we'd usually end up at his girlfriend's house, hanging out with her kids. She would eventually become my stepmom, so that's what I'll call her here. I was in fourth grade. My brother was in sixth. My soon to be stepbrother was in fifth, and my soon to be stepsister was a senior. New town, new house, new people. Everything about my life that fall was new.

The town was Wellston, Oklahoma. Fewer than 1,000 people. Picture Hawkins, Indiana in Stranger Things. Hawkins is 10-15 times bigger than where I lived.

Downtown was one block. No stoplight. On one side of the street you had a video rental store, a grocery store, a pool hall, and the post office. The other side had a deli, an insurance office, and two vacant buildings. There were probably a few other spots that were either small businesses or empty storefronts, but I honestly can't remember. That's about it. If you wanted to see the whole thing, you didn't need a map. You needed about ninety seconds.

Like most kids, I was excited about Halloween for one reason: candy.

I have no idea what I dressed up as that year. I've tried to remember. I'm sure it was great. Maybe that was the year I tied some bandannas around my body and went as a member of the Rock N’ Roll Express. What I do remember is that I was going trick or treating alone. That may seem shocking or dangerous to some of you but it was a very small town, and it was a different time. I was given instructions on where to go, and I was given one rule. Don't go downtown.

Downtown was where the older kids hung out on Halloween. I'd been told they used it for a giant shaving cream and egg fight, and I was supposed to stay far away from it. That was fine with me. I was nine. I had zero interest in getting egged or covered in shaving cream. So I had a plan. Stay in my zone, hit my houses, fill my bag, go home.

Remember that word. Plan. I guess I’ve always been a guy that appreciates making plans.

I left my stepmom's house and started working my way door to door. I did what you're supposed to do. I rang the bell, said the words, got the candy, and said thank you. Things were going great.

Then I came to a large two story house about two blocks from downtown. Two blocks. I remember thinking that was a safe distance. After all, my new best friend lived right across the street. I rang the doorbell, got my goodies, and turned to head back to the sidewalk.

And then out of nowhere, something hit me in the face.

It was shaving cream. One of the kids who lived there had been hiding on the balcony, waiting, and he ambushed me as I walked away. I never saw him. I never heard him. I'd followed the rules. I stayed away from the big kids downtown, and I still got hit. It came from above, from a house where somebody had just handed me candy.

I wiped away what I could, but it was on my face, my hands, and my costume. And I did what I'm not proud of, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Like Ralphie in A Christmas Story when he broke his glasses, I started crying. Then I ran. I ran the whole way back to my stepmom's house.

Once I got cleaned up, I didn't want to go back out. I was too scared I'd get hit again. My night ended with candy from only a few houses. No full bag. No friends. No best night of the year. I let that shaving cream ruin my night.

I wish I could do it over. When I think about it now, I feel silly. Shaving cream doesn't leave a bruise. It didn’t actually hurt me. I wasn't knocked down. I was surprised, embarrassed, and a little scared, and that was enough.

A few years later I watched a man take a real punch and do something very different.

When I was a kid, Mike Tyson was unstoppable, and I’m not exaggerating. He was the heavyweight champion of the world, and he had legs like tree trunks. His uppercut looked like it could separate a head from a body. He didn't seem like a normal person. He seemed otherworldly. Every time he fought, you didn't wonder if he'd win. You wondered how quickly he would end the fight by knocking the other guy out cold.

Tyson is credited with a line you've probably heard: "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." It's one of the most quoted lines in sports, and when you think about those guys who were brave (or foolish) enough to step in the ring with Mike, it makes sense. People had good plans. Then they met his fist.

By the time I was in eighth grade, Tyson was 37 and 0. On February 11, 1990 he traveled to Tokyo to take on a challenger named Buster Douglas. Nobody gave Buster a chance. At least one sportsbook had him at 42 to 1 underdog. We all viewed it as a formality rather than a fight.

But Buster Douglas had a plan too. He used his jab and his height. He had about a twelve inch reach advantage, and he kept hitting Tyson with that jab again and again. He lasted a lot longer than anyone expected and made Tyson look human.

Then came the eighth round.

Tyson landed an uppercut, and Buster Douglas went down. This was exactly what everyone expected. This was the part of the story where the underdog's plan met Mike Tyson and the plan fell apart. A man who'd been written off was on the canvas, and the referee was counting. The formality was in full effect.

The only thing is, Buster Douglas got up. He got to his feet at the count of nine. Right at the last second. A controversial, slowly counted last second, but still, he got up before the count of 10.

Think about that. He'd just taken the best punch the most feared man in boxing could throw. He could have stayed down. Nobody would have blamed him. It was Mike Tyson and he was getting paid either way. Instead, he got up, and he kept fighting.

Two rounds later, in the tenth, Douglas used that jab again to set up an uppercut of his own. It snapped Tyson's head back. Then came four more punches, and Mike Tyson, who had never been knocked down in his entire career, hit the canvas.

I remember the part everyone remembers. Tyson fumbled around for his mouthpiece. He got it halfway in, and it wasn't enough. The referee counted him out at 1 minute and 23 seconds of the tenth round. The unstoppable champion was stopped. Buster Douglas shocked the world.

The man who got knocked down first, won. The difference between the winner and loser wasn’t the size of the fist, it was the size of the heart. It was replacing fear with fortitude.

Now, to be clear, I'm not comparing a can of shaving cream to a Mike Tyson uppercut. A nine year old on a sidewalk and a heavyweight challenger in a boxing ring are not in the same boat. But the question is exactly the same. When the unexpected hit lands, what do you do in that moment?

Here's what I learned.

First, the punch that gets you is rarely the one you planned for. I planned for downtown. I had a whole strategy for avoiding the big kids, the egg fight and the shaving cream. And I got hit by one kid on a balcony, two blocks away, at a house where I thought I was safe. Life works like that. You prepare for the big, obvious threat, and the thing that catches you off guard is smaller and closer.

Second, being hit doesn't mean you lost. It means the fight started. I used to think that getting hit meant I'd done something wrong, that my plan had failed and now the night was over. But Buster Douglas got hit harder than I ever will, and his night wasn't over. It was round eight. The fight still had four rounds left and he only needed two of them to become a legend. Getting hit just told him what the fight was really going to be.

Third, you're allowed to take a count. I'm not saying get up instantly like nothing happened. Buster didn't. He used every bit of that count of nine. Wipe off what you can. Catch your breath. Cry if you need to. A setback can sting, and you don't have to pretend it doesn't, but there's a difference between taking a count and taking the night off. One is a pause. The other is a decision to quit.

And that's what I did. I didn't get knocked out of Halloween. I walked out of it.

I'd love to tell you that was the last time I let a small hit send me reeling, but I'd be lying. I've had plenty of shaving cream moments since then. A door that closed. A conversation that went sideways. A day of parenting where I lost it and wanted to hide in my room for the rest of the evening. And each time, I get the same choice that nine year old kid had. I can head for the house, or I can wipe my face and ring the next doorbell.

I think about the candy I missed that night. Not because of the candy, but because of what I didn't get to do. I didn't get to laugh with friends. I didn't get the full experience. The shaving cream only lasted a few minutes. What I lost by quitting lasted the whole night. Quitting is the thing from that Halloween that still haunts me to this day.

So here's what I'd say to you, and to nine year old me. Something is going to hit you in the face. Probably soon. It might come from the proverbial balcony of a house you thought was safe. Don't be shocked when it happens, and don't believe the voice that says you're done. Take your count. Wipe off what you can. Then get back up, and go ring the next doorbell.

You don't get to choose when the punch lands, but you do get to choose whether it's round eight or the end of the night.

I'm Darrell Darnell, and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.

I want you to be a part of the next Monday Mailbag on November 30th! Monday Mailbag is your opportunity to share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can send in questions or responses to my SILY episodes, and I’ll respond to them via Monday Mailbag episodes. You can participate in Monday Mailbags by visiting the Golden Spiral Media listener feedback page at goldenspirlamedia.com/feedback.

What if the ghost haunting Hawkins was never a ghost at all? Join hosts Darrell and Addi as we break down "The Lich," the episode where the H.I.C. finally learns what they're up against. After a wild chase with Dustin and Charlie, the gang realizes the Wraith Hound can't survive without the glowing flowers.

The post TSTP 101- The Lich appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

For a little while, I was a god, and I'm only exaggerating a little. I would argue that’s by design, the way it’s supposed to be. It’s also something that’s supposed to collapse from under you, to bring that false reality into proper perspective. Today’s inspiration comes from Adam Savage himself, and while he may be the mythbusting king, even he will tell you his proper place is not on a throne.

The post SILY 720- Dethroned by Design appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

What's scarier than a ghost dog you can't see, can't outrun, and can't hurt? Join hosts Darrell and Addi as we break down "Split the Party," the episode where the H.I.C. gets scattered into smaller groups, each running for their lives from the creature they've nicknamed the Wraith Hound.

The post TSTP 100- Split the Party appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

Is it possible that one of the biggest threats to your family's health isn't in the pantry or the medicine cabinet, but in the way dinner gets served? During my lifetime, a shift has been happening in millions of kitchens, one that researchers have been tracking for decades, and the numbers are more dramatic than I thought.

The post SILY 719- Pull Up a Chair appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

What happens when you try to be polite to an angry ghost? Join hosts Darrell and Addi as we break down "The Séance," the Valentine's Day episode where the H.I.C. decides the best way to celebrate the holiday of love is to summon Bloodaxe Bill's vengeful spirit.

The post TSTP 99- The Séance appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

There's a tiny hidden house tucked at the base of a tree in Disneyland, built for a leprechaun who was never real. There's an empty enemy camp outside a starving city, packed with food nobody touched until four outcasts broke their silence. Today I'm talking about the danger of keeping good news to yourself, and why the best thing you can do with something good, is give it away.

The post SILY 718- Disneyland Jesus appeared first on Golden Spiral Media- Entertainment Podcasts, Technology Podcasts & More.

A ghostly figure, a skeleton buried in the mine, and a century-old legend of a silver-mad monster collide as the H.I.C. digs into Hawkins' darkest piece of town history. Join hosts Darrell and Addi as we break down the third episode of the season, "The Curse of Bloodaxe Bill." We talk through the gang's visit to Arthur, a descendant of the Dandridge family, who reveals a shocking twist: Bloodaxe Bill wasn't the villain history remembers him as. He was murdered, and "history is written by the victors." We dig into what this means for Charlie and break down that terrifying moment when the ghost makes its first appearance to El, Max, and Nikki, sending Max and El running for their lives.

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