I’ve been thinking a lot about anger recently. In fact, I’ve been looking at the topic long enough to be ready to put my thoughts on paper. For a person interested in studying anger and the angry response, this is a kind of perfect moment. There’s so much anger out there, being expressed in all sorts of contexts by all kinds of people, that there’s … Continue reading Repost: On Anger
A year ago, I made the decision to leave Hong Kong not knowing how it would all pan out. It threw me into an existential midlife crisis. The idea that I didn’t know who I was was at the heart of the issue. I still don’t know if I made the right decision. Ask me again in 10 years. We shall see! I realise it’s … Continue reading Why It’s Better To Not Know Who You Are
On Friday, October 11th, I attended a professional development workshop at the college where I’m employed. The title of the session was “Communication Skills for Collaboration.” Looking back, I don’t think the title gave an apt preview of what the talk would cover. Plus, the title was boring; whereas, the actually workshop was quite interesting. During the early moments of the presentation, the presenter began … Continue reading Repost: A Meditation on Something I Heard the Other Day
I’m getting older. We all are. Of course, as we age, we lose things. For example, because I’m older and injured my knee playing competitive sports when I was a young guy, I can no longer jog without having significant pain afterwards. That sucks, but I’m fine with that limitation and loss. It’s not all bad news though. I’m gaining things too. For example, I … Continue reading Repost: On Dealing with Emotional Extremes
Ego & self-consciousness make being creative a lot harder. Continue reading Why Did I Say That?
I’ve been thinking a lot about defiance lately. Actually, because I’m very much a contrarian at heart, I’m always thinking about ways to defy. That’s what contrarians do; they defy conventional wisdom (among other things). (By the way, it seems pretty clear that we need a lot more contrarians in the world.) I guess you could also say that I’m part of the resistance against … Continue reading Repost: Napping as an Act of Defiance
I have a serious beef with some of our tried and true inspirational sayings. It’s bad advice! In fact, I’ve discarded it for most of my life and that seems to have worked out pretty well so far. But, I’m tired of seeing others suffer needlessly as they cling to this nonsense, believing they’re doing the right thing. Continue reading Bad Life Advice I’m Tired Of Hearing
I’ve been forgetful lately. I’m talking like, I’ll be in one part of my house, decide that I need something from another room, head to that locale, and as soon as I arrive there, I can no longer recall what I wanted to get. I know this is a near universal human experience because I’ve had numerous friends, once I’ve told them about this tendency … Continue reading Repost: Does Anyone Know Where I Left My Car Keys?
He picked up the scissors again, took a deep breath and tried to relax. With the material stretched firmly between his fingers and his eyes carefully focused on the mark, the tailor squeezed on scissor handles. And just as the blades sunk into the fabric…
If you haven’t already done so, you might want to have a look at part one. That one was mostly about work. This second piece will be more focused on money; although, work and money really go hand in hand because without the former, the latter is hard to come by. In part one, I mentioned (and linked to) “The Shame that Keeps Us in Our … Continue reading Repost: On Work and Money: Part Two
Earlier this week I read “The Shame that Keeps Us in Our Jobs,” an article by Paul Millerd, one of my LinkedIn contacts. Millerd’s piece, about work, work culture, and money, got me thinking about a whole bunch of topics. This blog is the result of that rumination. I want to begin with something I’ve wondered about throughout my career as a college and university … Continue reading Repost: On Work and Money: Part One
It can be difficult to say goodbye to our pets, but can we be guilty of avoiding the necessary? Continue reading When Its Time To Say Goodbye To Our Furbabies
I don’t think this is going to be anything like any of my other blogs. Actually, I’m not for sure what this is going to look like or how it might turn out. That’s why I’m calling it an “experiment.” I will conduct my experiment by asking a series of personal, self-discovery questions and then answering them. Each response will be used to generate another … Continue reading Repost: Experimenting with Self-Discovery in Real Time
Note: A version of this post was published earlier. As America gears up for the 2024 presidential campaign, a variety of Republican contenders, chief among them Ron DeSantis, are doing their absolute best to dethrone the Grand Poohbah, otherwise known as “The Donald,” the man who gives lie to the statement “It can’t happen here.” To achieve this difficult task, these campaigners are going … Continue reading Let’s Talk and Think about Skin Color
Before I get into the body of this piece, I’d like to say that the conflict in Ukraine is especially interesting and tragic because I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Poland during the mid-nineties, not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was sent to Rzeczpospolita Polska—I still remember quite a lot of Polish—to … Continue reading Repost: What Vladimir Putin’s War Has Taught Me
Knowing oneself is, to me, the key to the path of spirituality or on the ladder of awareness. Continue reading The art of knowing oneself
Exactly one week ago, on Saturday morning, my wife and I got into the backseat of my father and stepmother’s car, in Georgetown, Texas, pulled out of their garage, and headed eastward, to make the hour-long trip to the small town of Rockdale, Texas, population 5,323. Our goal was to attend a memorial service to commemorate the life of my uncle, a man I’d always … Continue reading A Sad Day, a Happy Day
I had a friend who claimed she was clairvoyant. Let’s just say for the sake of this post that she was, because I’m on my way to making a point and you don’t have to have an ability to see the future to know that. And I’d say from my experience that my friend had a gift of extraordinary perception. She saw things differently than … Continue reading The Cat Conundrum
Life is like a great meandering stroll through a vast wilderness of ever-changing scenery. Such a long tramp is bound to change us, so it’s highly likely we’ll undergo one transformation after another as we travel. I was an only child during the earliest stages of my “journey.” I spent the first few years of my life living in a quiet, rural setting where neighbors … Continue reading Repost: Others
What On Earth Are You Thinking? What is External Self-Awareness? Most people think about self-awareness the same way they do sex. They believe they’re great at it when, in reality, no-one knows where on God’s green earth the G spot is (or that there even is one). One of the major components for building self-awareness is understanding what other people honestly think about us (including our ability … Continue reading The Three Areas of Self-Awareness: What On Earth Are You Thinking?
