I came across one of the most wonderful things I've ever read in my life on Reddit this morning, penned by Redditor alukima, who shares some insights on finding happiness:

I am not witty or interesting; I wont pretend to have anything profound to say. I am 26, female, divorced and spent most of my life feeling empty and hopeless. This may not help anyone, but these realizations helped me find my happiness. The points are in bold.

They didn't lie to you in elementary school, being different is awesome.

In high school and my early twenties I was teased for wearing video game related t-shirts. Now the the same girls who teased me often complain to me over facebook about being suck in generic relationships and "wish they had found something to love the way I love gaming". Also, I recently made a bet that my $15 TMNT purse would get more compliments at a bar than a $900 coach purse. I won.

That's the beginning, and it just gets better from there. Please, please, please go to Reddit and read the rest. I promise that you'll be glad you did. I only have one addition of my own, which I will add … now:

Don't be a dick.

You tend to attract what you put into the world, and every second you spend being a dick is a second wasted. I'm 37, and while I've looked back on times I was a dick with great regret, I've never thought to myself, "You know, I really wish I'd spent more time being a dick to people."

This is one of those "I wish I'd written it, and I'm really glad I found it" things that I see from time to time, and I hope that lots and lots of people read it, internalize it, and share it with others. Thanks, alukima, for adding something good to the world. I hope this comes back to you a thousand times.

My friend Rich, who writes and draws Diesel Sweeties, occasionally gives me wonderful gifts, like that awesome 8-bit drawing of me in the infamous clown sweater that sits on what would be my blog's masthead, if blogs had mastheads.

When I got home from working on The Big Bang Theory yesterday, this was waiting for me:

Today's my last day on this episode, which seemed to fly by much faster than the last one. I'm so excited for the audience to watch the taping tonight, because I know how awesome the episode is, but I'm also sad, because I'm going to miss seeing and working with these incredible people every day.

I'm recovering HP and mana today by constructing a Vampire/Artifact deck for Magic: The Gathering. While opening boosters earlier, I came across a card in Zendikar called Landbind Ritual. It's a sorcery card that gives you two life for each plains card you control, and it has one of the most beautiful flavor texts I've ever read:

"Honor this place, for our children's children will stand here and speak these same words again." - Ayli, Kamsa cleric.

I would love it if this card was handed out to every person who visited a national park or unspoiled wilderness area. I would love it even more if people would speak these words to their children … and truly mean them.

(Image by me. Click to embiggen. Please link to this post if you reuse it.)

As I walked from the comic shop set down to the bowling alley set today, I passed the set for Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, which is in the center of the stage. I gawked at it the way you do when you're a fan of the show and can't believe you're actually close enough to actually walk through it, and my eyes fell on the coffee table. I saw a lot of things that could have been on my own coffee table, so I decided to grab a picture (those are my Chucks in the lower right corner.)

I took this picture because this is more than just a nifty glimpse behind the scenes. This is an example of the attention to detail that is everywhere on every set of The Big Bang Theory. It would be really easy to just toss a few random magazines and soda cans there, because it's very unlikely that they'll ever be seen in this much detail, but at every level of production, they make a concerted effort to ensure that everything is authentic. I mean, how many of you looked at this and thought, "Hey, that could be my coffee table!" I see a lot of hands going up, and that's why I took this snap.

Bill Prady revealed the title of this episode on Twitter earlier today, so I guess that means I can also reveal it, and perhaps explain why I nearly required medical attention when I opened up the script and saw it.

So it was another awesome day on the set of The Big Bang Theory. We rehearsed the show again this morning, and then we had our first run through for the producers after lunch. This first run through can be really stressful for some actors (including a rookie version of me) because we haven't had a lot of time with the script to get comfortable with the dialog, work out all the comedy beats, and settle on final blocking. I mean, we've only really run it once, and it can feel like putting on an incomplete performance or doing an underprepared audition for people you really want need to make happy.

I've done several run throughs (seven, total, over two episodes) while working on The Big Bang Theory, though, and it hasn't been stressful at all. In fact, it's been a whole lot of fun, and very informative to me as an actor. See, at some point in the last ten years or so, I realized that the writers and producers are working it out just as much as we are, and that they want it to be awesome just as much as we do; this is why we do the run throughs every day until we tape. Knowing this takes a lot of the pressure off for me.

Of course, it helps that the script is very good from the first draft we get. It helps that all the actors are incredibly professional, dedicated, friendly, and easy to get along with. It helps a lot to have a phenomenal director and a crew that seems to be one step ahead of us all day. When the writers and producers arrive, it helps that they know they're making a great show, so they're confident, relaxed, speak with a clear and unified voice, and give specific notes to make our performances better, instead of just giving notes for the sake of giving notes (which has happened to me in the past – not on this show – and was really frustrating, especially when I got five conflicting notes that were just given for the sake of giving them. Yes, I was expected to apply them all, yes, I tried, and yes, we ended up throwing them all out by the time we taped.) 

Anyway, the schedule for the first five days of production is pretty much the same: we work all morning with the director (Mark Cendrowski, in this case, who is awesome), show the writers and producers where we are in the afternoon, get notes, apply notes, and do it all over the following day.

So, like I said, for a lot of actors, the daily run through can be stressful. Indeed it was for me when I was young and less experienced. However, I've come to embrace it as an opportunity to not only make my performance better, but to learn a lot about writing and performing comedy by listening and paying close attention to the notes the writers and producers give all the actors, not just to me.

I wish I'd figured this out when I was a younger actor, because I would have been a better actor if I had: there is XP all over the place when we're on the set, just waiting for us to collect it and level. So, actors, listen to me now: When you're on the set, be on the set. Pay attention to everything that's going on around you, because you will constantly be presented with opportunities to learn about and perfect your craft. If you're lucky like me and get to work with some of the best in the business, you're learning from some of the best in the business!

I know that I – and a lot of other people – would pay a lot of money to listen to Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady and Lee Aronsohn give a seminar on how to write and perform comedy for television. While we were getting notes today, I realized how lucky I am to be on their set, working on their show, learning from them and getting paid to do it.

Seriously. Awesome.