The other day I pushed my double running stroller up the hill near our house and it spoke to me. The stroller, that is, not the hill. Although with the steep inclines in Seattle, they’ve spoken to me in other ways. I was taking the empty stroller to the second-hand shop in our neighborhood so this was our last walk together. With my hands on … Continue reading Oh the Stories You’ll Tell
Almost 20 years ago I participated in a climb on Mt. Whitney in the winter. Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the lower 48 of the United States, at 14,505 feet, and it is a pretty straightforward climb in the summer. But when you climb it in the winter and add the snow, the inaccessibility of the roads to the higher parking lots, and … Continue reading The Case for Not Slogging it Out
My one-year-old puppy-in-a-big-dog-body, Cooper, likes to steal stuff. Shoes and socks mostly, but he’s not above nabbing a pair of underwear or a blanket. It’s his invitation to play. He grabs the contraband, backs up a foot or two so he can maintain eye contact but also have enough of a head start and then dares you to pursue him. Of course, I tell my … Continue reading An Invitation to Play
I think I’ve been using the word “hope” wrong. I often use it interchangeably with “wish.” As in, “I hope you have a safe trip.” Researcher and author, Brené Brown, describes hope as a cognitive process: “But hope is not what most of us think it is. It’s not a warm, fuzzy emotion that fills us with a sense of possibility. Hope is a way … Continue reading The Cognitive Process Called Hope
Recently I was in a noisy restaurant with some friends and acquaintances recently when I heard someone behind me say, “Before I became a parent, I never thought I would ever…” It caught my ear so I turned to find it was a friend, the mother of a three-year-old, who had started the sentence. I asked her to repeat herself. “Before I became a parent, … Continue reading In Hindsight
My brother introduced me to a new phrase when were talking a few months ago about Dutch Bros Coffee. Dutch Bros is a West Coast company that he described as “an overnight sensation thirty years in the making.” I asked for clarification. My brother said that Dutch Bros is a darling of Wall Street since this went public at the end of 2021. But they’d … Continue reading Years In The Making
During our everyday routine, it’s easy to underestimate the consequences of our actions. Whether it’s the words we speak, our decisions, or our paths, every action sets off a ripple effect, often reaching farther than we anticipate. Today our world is fast-paced, digital footprints linger and connections run deep. Therefore it’s crucial to pause and consider the profound impact we have on others and the … Continue reading The Ripple Effects: Understanding the Impact of Your Actions
So I just got back from a 2-week trip to Hong Kong. A quick ding dong to say how do you do. I was there to organise several things related to my license that needed sorting. It was the first time I’d gone back since I left my former lover in difficult circumstances over a year ago. It was a very interesting experience indeed. What … Continue reading A Hong Kong Ding-Dong
The Paradox of Tolerance Back in the 1940s, a philosopher named Karl Popper came up with something called “The Paradox of Tolerance.” He said that if everyone tolerates every idea, then intolerant ideas will emerge. Tolerate people, being the soft pushovers they are, will tolerate this intolerance. However, the intolerant will not tolerate tolerant people. So, eventually, the tolerant will get rammed up the backside. … Continue reading Why We Must Tolerate Intolerance
We might have experienced difficulties in the relationship with our partner. Distance, unkindness, distraction, not listening, too busy, and much more. I read this story and I want to share it with you. I think it has a powerful lesson to teach us. Sometimes things are easier than we think but we cannot find a solution because we are too distracted by the complications that … Continue reading How to Make Your Partner Love You Again
I came across something called the Map of Consciousness in a book I’ve been reading recently – Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins. In it he talks about the different emotional levels we operate on. He presents them in a way I’ve never seen before – as a kind of ladder that we can climb. Starting with depression at the bottom … Continue reading The Ladder of Enlightenment
So my kids have started doing this thing. Every evening before bath time – after we take their clothes off before they get into the tub – they run around the apartment like crazed feral wild cats. Screaming and laughing. Pure unadulterated joy. It got me thinking about the clothes we wear, metaphorically speaking. A kid doesn’t question why we walk around with clothes on … Continue reading The Joy of Running Around Naked
The other night my wife and I celebrated our 6-year wedding anniversary. We went to a restaurant called Absurdities. It was, without a doubt, the weirdest dining experience of my life. The restaurant itself was comprised of various rooms or “worlds.” In each world (6 in total), we were served a different course. We had to find multiple hidden doors and crawl through various spaces … Continue reading Absurdities
The art of cultivating human relationships is so important that it is not surprising that the book of Dale Carnegie, How to win friends and influence people, published a long ago (1936) but still very current, has sold the most copies worldwide. Carnagie’s book needs to be interpreted under the current circumstances, where technology has changed dramatically the way we communicate and we relate to one another. … Continue reading How to Relate Successfully – The Art of Cultivating Human Relationships
It is easy to be dismissive of mythology in our modern-day secular culture. With the tools of logic, science and reason at our disposal, we arrive at our ideas of truth through rigorously testing our hypothesis with hard evidence and data. It was around the time when I was completing my undergraduate coursework in philosophy when I started to look at the world through a … Continue reading Diving into the Mythopoetic: A Personal Story
I’ve written before on the downstream effects of small any seemingly insignificant acts of goodness. Through our deeply interconnected world, we can never fully appreciate how our actions will impact others and our broader communities. Recent research being done on the science of awe-inspiring moral behaviour has begun to validate some of these claims. In his latest book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and … Continue reading Encouraging Goodness: How Moral Actions are ‘Awe-Inspiring’
High stake situations require complete and utmost concentration. Any distraction or lapse of judgement can shift your attention away from the present moment, hindering your efforts to achieve a state of effortless flow. This could make all the difference in the final moments of a championship game or dictate whether you are in peak performance mode when giving a big presentation at work. In the … Continue reading Reverse Engineering Bliss: Hacking the Flow State
Good riddance, what a year you have been 2022. You have upended the lives of many amidst the economic uncertainty and the rising anxieties posed by inflation. You have put the world on edge as we witness citizens around the world fighting corruption in autocratic regimes for liberty, justice and equality. You have shown us the fragility and vulnerability of our precious beloved planet. We … Continue reading Leaning into Uncertainty: Embracing the Unknown in 2023
O’ Modern Man, Modern Man, how you stand up tall with your undeserved pride. You hold infinite knowledge in the palm of your hand, Control nature, much more than it can withstand. Is there anything you can not know? No place where you can not go? Why are you so serious modern man? Don’t you see life is a great mystery. Is there still wonder … Continue reading The Ignorance of the Modern Man
In search of meaning in life Continue reading The Horizons of Meaning
