Blog on the bright side

Blogger turned author Neil Pasricha on
how looking at the good side of life got
him through tough times and led to
The Book of Awesome

by ERIK LEIJON

Sometimes life gets you down to the point where there’s nothing to do but dust yourself off, mutter some outdated ’90s slang and get back on the horse. For Toronto blogger turned author Neil Pasricha, picking himself back up meant working through his own less than awesome life that, at the time, included a failed marriage and suicide of his best friend, and continuing his daily regimen of updating his 1,000 Awesome Things blog.

His perseverance paid off, as his 2009 Webby Award (think Emmys of the Internet)-winning blog led to his musings on the little things in life being published in his first book, the Canadian non-fiction best-seller The Book of Awesome.

“I don’t necessarily think of myself as an optimist,” says Pasricha. “Although I needed positivity at that time in my life, I don’t think of myself as an overly positive person. The Book of Awesome isn’t a book for people with their noses to the sky and their fists in the air. It’s for people who, like me, like smiling at simple things.”

The little joys Pasricha would qualify as awesome are pretty universal and obvious, although much of the charm of each observation comes from how easy it can be to forget those dopey, grin-inducing moments in the midst of the daily grind. For instance, who doesn’t get a kick out of old, dangerous playground equipment or paying for something with exact change?

The 30-year-old, who works in the human resources department at Wal-Mart by day and seems abnormally upbeat about that as well, originally started his blog in June 2008 as a means of satisfying a creative itch and combating the overwhelming cynicism of most blogs. The challenge of coming up with a new awesome moment every weekday was compounded when he divorced his wife and moved into a cramped apartment, and his best friend Chris Kim, whose sense of humour greatly inspired Pasricha’s writing and was one of the blog’s early commentators, took his own life at 32. Pasricha blogged about both incidents (posts no. 567 and 829, respectively).

“When I was 20 years old, I was living like I was 30. I pictured myself with a specific job, wife, house, maybe two kids and I had this vision of what my life would be like. But then it went down the toilet a couple of years ago and now here I am at the real 30 and it’s nothing like I pictured.

”But the funny thing is, I don’t think about it much anymore, I’m more focused on the present than ever before. The Book of Awesome is never going to be preachy or tell you to do something, but if you start noticing little things like the other side of the pillow or new lanes at the grocery check-out, inevitably you’ll start living in the present.” A self-proclaimed cheapskate, Pasricha made sure the awesome moments were either free or inexpensive. He also didn’t want any saccharine moments or anything unnatural, such as hugging a stranger.

It was also in the middle of Pasricha’s world falling apart that he received an unexpected call from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, saying his blog had been selected as People’s Voice Winner in the best cultural blog category at the Webby Awards. “I thought it was a scam,” he says, in a rare show of cynicism. He flew to New York to walk the red carpet and accept the award, and also met cultural maven Martha Stewart, who boosted his site. “When I got home from the awards,” he says, “I had 10 literary agents in my inbox wanting to work with me.” His first Book of Awesome came out this April, and a second is already in the works for 2011.

“I know it sounds cheesy,” Pasricha says, “but mankind has been around for 200,000 years and we’re living in the best part of it. We have the Internet and airplanes and all these little things. If you can’t smile at that, then life will just go by really quickly.”

PASRICHA WILL BE SIGNING COPIES
OF THE BOOK OF AWESOME AT
INDIGO BOOKS (1500 MCGILL
COLLEGE) THIS TUESDAY, AUG. 10, 1 P.M.
THE BOOK OF AWESOME BY NEIL
PASRICHA, PUTNAM AND SONS,
HC, 400 PP., $28.50