Today is a day to celebrate love in our lives.

And here at ACLU-MA, we know that justice is a labor of love. Here are some of our favorite moments of love and justice in the last year, to brighten your #ValentinesDay.

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Gather round, Gentle Readers. It is time I tell the story of the worst decision I ever made in an office. Some of you have heard this. Some have not. Whatever you do in your office today, this week, the rest of this year, you can console yourself by recalling this tale.

A long time ago, I was a talent agent. I worked for a woman named Susan Smith, who had her own small boutique agency. She was known for three things:

1. She had fantastic taste in clients. If there is someone you admire, odds are good that at some point, she was their agent,

2. She could negotiate a deal like few who have ever trod the earth. Casting would give her all the money they had budgeted for that part, plus a little more, plus promising to get her dog Barnaby groomed. She was magnificent to watch.

3. She was insane.

I'm sure you're thinking, "Quinn, it's the entertainment industry, they are all insane." Yes, many are. So consider this; if you told someone you worked for Susan, people who worked for insane people would look and you and whisper, "I hear she's insane."

1/ there is this sense when you are young that your accomplishments need to be a list of things that seem impressive to others. A list of several items you did.

This isn't actually right, so here is another suggestion.

2/ I remember being 26 and writing about reading 52 books a year. I wrote blog posts about it. They got copied. It became "a thing." Now it's in Twitter bios. It looks impressive but it's insanely useless and I shouldn't have done it.

3/ what I should have known at that time is that only young idiots like myself, with no accomplishments, find list of tiny achievements impressive. Anyone who has actually done anything of substance doesn't gaf

4/ what is actually difficult, and worthwhile, instead is to do ONE single thing for a very, very long time. It's much harder and much rarer and results in outlier outcomes much more often.

Of course you can find this out too late if you are chasing the dragon of Ted talks etc

5/ if I had only worked on a startup for a year, I would've gotten nowhere, the same way that if you lift for 3 months, it achieves nothing. Everything good in life comes from perseverance, but at the beginning, you're just like "I need to be somebody!!!"

Your Most PRECIOUS Currencies:

-Energy

-Time

-Attention

-Trust

-Love

-Loyalty

-Respect

Only give these currencies to high value people. Never spend these currencies on low value shitheads eg: trolls, weasels, snakes, naysayers etc.

'Wait, I thought money was the most important currency?'

Nah.

Once you adopt abundance mentality, you realize their is no shortage of money.

Making the dollars your most important currency will have you leading an empty life.

Time to flip your perspective.

👇

▪Energy

When you strip yourself to the core, you are an emotional creature.

Emotions are your internal worlds energy.

Harnessing that energy is crucial for leveraging yourself to obtain whatever you want.

You have a finite amount everyday, so spend it wisely.

▪Time

A second that is lost will never be returned.

You start valuing the hell out of this currency the more you mature.

As the years start adding up, you realize time is precious.

You must always have a scarcity mindset towards time.

Once you do so, you will not be lazy.

▪Attention

You can be here, but not present.

Attention is completely mental.

Giving someone your attention means you are clearing up mental bandwidth to make room for them.

Only give your attention to people who help you grow.

For the negative ones?

Ignore their existence

You wanna know the truth? My best friend just dropped me for no discernable reason in December when I was going through an unrelated mental breakdown (started in October) that required new treatment. To this day I have no clue what happened.

This has, without a doubt, been the most traumatic event that has ever happened to me. I had felt that maybe there was distance there, but I was trying to take care of myself. He reassured me he loved me just 1 week prior. Then, he said he was going to quit working with me.

He had been my business partner and literally helped me co-own my business. He requested his name be dropped from the company completely and that he needed to "put my family first" and find a different job. I don't know what that family first comment meant at all...

Then, he stopped communicating with me as frequently. This lasted a few days. He started acting extremely squirrelly and dodging direct questions. Very innocent questions like, "are you doing okay?" Again, this whole time I'm dealing with a genuine mental breakdown.

Last, he sent me a bizarre vague message, telling me that he didn't want to talk to me "in the foreseeable future" and cited some of the - honestly - most paranoid reasons for this. We live literally across the globe from one another. One of the things he accused me of was ...

Dear Jaime,

3 years ago your voice was silenced. I sent you and your brother to school to safely learn. I rushed you out the door that morning never expecting what would happen next. A school shooting!!! You were 14 and only a freshman in High School.

(1,11)

(2,11) Your brother Jesse survived…you did not.

You are on my mind every second of every minute of every day. I constantly relive your last seconds in my mind. Did you suffer? I will never know, but I fear that you did. Did I do enough to protect you?

(3,11) The answer is… No!!! I did not… and for that I will carry guilt for the rest of my life. My voice was not fighting the evil of gun violence before it was my daughter and for that I am sorry.

Today you should be a senior in school. We should be celebrating love.

(4,11) We should be looking at your senior pictures with you, watching you excitedly apply to colleges and helping you decide where to go. We should be excitedly looking forward to prom and I should be thinking about the advice I want to give you at graduation.

(5,11) While I am so happy to see all of your friends have these experiences, it breaks my soul to know that you are not part of that. Mom, Jesse and I won’t be able to watch you experience this with them. Every time I see posts with senior photos and college acceptances,