Family Traditions: A Recipe For Realization
Nearing Christmas, we are usually getting ready for family traditions. Perhaps you have a religious ritual you perform or a meal you prepare. These traditions add to the ambiance of the experience. Sometimes, though, they create a sense of sacredness,…
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How Working Too Much Hampers Your Happiness
Your well-being should be your priority, and working too much might hamper your happiness. Our consumerist society often leads us to reverse our priorities in ways that can seriously affect our quality of life and our physical, mental, and emotional…
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A Saint For The Homeless, My Family & Our Music
My family’s new, musical fundraising effort to support the homeless in our city. … More A Saint For The Homeless, My Family & Our Music
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Stalling: Why We Lose Lift
Last week I said the reason we stall in life is because we lose meaning. Of course meaning, lift, purpose (whatever you want to call it) is the reason we do anything. The meaning we give our life is the…
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To The One
In the barren lands of earth, our gestures of gratitude can often seem hollow and trite–an obligatory Thank You note written here; a box of chocolates given there; handshakes, hugs, and gift cards, though well intended, can also prove lacking. The…
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Best of November
We’ve been working hard to mold Wise & Shine into a community for readers and writers. This best of post is intended to provide a peek into the collaborative efforts and other content you may have missed. Please sign up…
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Navigating the Gray Area
When my brother was in his twenties and a couple of years into marriage, he explained to me his theory about the cleanliness threshold. He drew out a chart where he illustrated the state of the household mess and that…
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Speed of Personal Development
Hello there! I hope everyone had a good start to their week! I just finished reading ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma. I had a couple of issues with the narration but what I want to talk…
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Podcast Episode 10: On Step 9, Apologies and Healing
Recently I woke up early one morning knowing that I had to apologize to a friend. In my tiredness the night before, I had conflated my feelings about two different things going on in my life and unnecessarily laid it…
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Old Man Rant Episode #12: Public Behavior
Well America, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but either our parents did a shitty job of raising us, or we forgot the lessons they taught. So please note the following public behavior fouls, and make our parents proud by not committing them ever again. … More Old Man Rant Episode #12: Public Behavior
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Wu Wei, the Art of Non-acting
Wu Wei is a key concept of Taoism that can be translated as “do not act” or “do not intervene”. However, it is not a passive attitude. It’s letting go to allow the action to flow effortlessly and in harmony…
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Only “This”
Language, even with our most precise usage, proves totally inadequate at expressing the Truth of the Absolute; for it soon becomes apparent that expressions about It are forced by their inherent limitations to remain verbal or written representations–not the original,…
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Stalling: The Aerodynamics of Life
The Four Forces of Flight There’s an analogy I want to imprint on your mind today. It’s one I intend to come back to repeatedly as I go about writing my high-flying book. It concerns something known in aviation as…
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Guess Who’s Coming For Dinner?
When I invited my friend Jill to my house for Thanksgiving this year, I said, “I don’t know yet who’s coming but I know that my ex-husband is not so it’ll be better than that one year.” It was a…
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New Podcast Today!
Hi! We’ve just posted a new episode of the Wise & Shine podcast. Have a listen as I talk with the uber-talented and insightful Art Russell. In this podcast, we attempt to answer the question “What’s Really Important?” Thanks for…
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The Fear of Being Happy – Cherophobia
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. Seneca Seneca in a few words summarised that only when a human being understands the…
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The Empty Promises of Consumerism
With Black Friday in recent memory and Christmas shopping right around the corner, what better time to look at the issues of consumerism in our society. Modern advertising is rather peculiar. If you pay close attention, you’ll realize that many…
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The Man At The Fountain Part 2-What About Drugs?
Last week I shared my recent encounter with a homeless man, in which I gave him money. In the discussion that followed via the comment section and in actual conversations I had with friends, the subject of drugs came up several times. It usually went something like this: … More The Man At The Fountain Part 2-What About Drugs?
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That’s Punny!
I’m pretty upset with myself. I grew up in the Austin area (and yet!) I never once heard of El Arroyo restaurant, not until a few days ago. Since the 1980s, besides serving fine Tex-Mex cuisine to countless customers, the…
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Worth Beyond Definition
I recently viewed a YouTube video in which a guest related the account of a friend who had just bought a very expensive house. This wasn’t expressed, but his friend was probably quite proud of his achievement. The guest went…
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“We Know What We Are, But Know Not What We May Be”
Who Am I? Depends Who You Ask Barring a few Zen Masters, all of us spend virtually every waking moment (and every non-waking moment) in our own heads. These accommodations may strike you as lightless prison cells, bright, soft palaces,…
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Life: Risky Business
One of the guides that I climbed mountains with, Phil, taught the skill of weighing objective risks versus subjective risks. Objective risks in the mountains include avalanche danger, weather forecast, rock fall areas, and navigating around crevasses. It is because…
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Define the problem
Hi there! How are you? Sometimes, unexpected news that can change our entire life comes and shocks us. What I noticed in those moments is that they do not always devastates us. In fact, sometimes, I deal with these kinds…
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New Podcast!
It’s Tuesday! That means we’ve posted a new podcast. In this episode, I have a cool conversation with Jack Canfora, one of Wise & Shine’s writers and our resident humorist. We discuss writing, blogging, the writing process, humor, and sundry…
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A Dramatic Drop in Anxiety
That happened maybe about a month ago, and then a week or so ago, I had a close repeat of the same experience. … More A Dramatic Drop in Anxiety
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How to Face Poor Sleep Quality
Too much stress, blue light, and you wake up tired more and more often. This is a sign that your quality of sleep is poor. You know for sure that sleep affects your overall well-being. But do you also know…
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The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: Essay Review
Hallo and guten tag from my new home in Bavaria, Germany. I’ve recently started my master’s program in Philosophy & Economics after a year of planning and preparation. (Preparation as in me just eating at all the restaurants and the…
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The Man At The Fountain: Homelessness
Reflecting on my encounters with the homeless. … More The Man At The Fountain: Homelessness
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David’s “Walking Lunches”
I want to tell you about a fellow named David, a retired educator and part-time tutor of mathematics who works in the Math Learning Center, a place just down the hall from the Writing Assistance Center, the place I manage…
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Forever Now
Alice kept a close eye on time. It was a driving force in her life. She was fascinated by it, at least when it wasn’t driving her around the bend. The thought of ever being late was a stimulus that could set…
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