A few days ago, I saw a mock high school commencement speech that made me want to grind my teeth. The speaker, a well-known comedian, spent ten minutes or so belittling his audience, telling them, in essence, that most of them are pathetic losers who will never accomplish anything, never amount to anything. He talked […]
It’s easy to get wrapped around our own limits. We’re too busy, too broke, too tired to do more than plug along, one day at a time. We’re too short, too tall, too fat, too thin to do the thing we really want to do. We’re the wrong color, the wrong gender, the wrong faith. […]
I recently got this question, more or less, from a young person: I feel like I’m standing on the sidelines, watching other people live their lives. How do I live my life? The question resonates with me, because I asked it of myself many, many times. By the time I was in my late thirties, […]
The seventh and last of Todd Henry’s Everyday Acts of Bravery: Stay Connected. It’s the simplest and the hardest of the seven everyday acts of bravery. The web today gives us a zillion options to keep in touch with life beyond our four walls: Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Google +. Quora. And those are just the […]
I once had a priest apologize to me and a roomful of others, on behalf of the entire Catholic church, if any of us had been abused by a priest. It was a touching gesture, delivered almost twenty years ago, at a time when all the victims of decades of priestly misconduct seemed to be […]
Truth Lets You Send Anonymous Texts | TechCrunch. Just in case you have something you need to say, but lack the courage to let anybody know you’re the one saying it. Now you can send an anonymous note to someone without having to worry whether they’ll recognize your handwriting. I suppose it was inevitable. We […]
Wherever you go, there you are. I have no idea who first said this, and for once, Google is no help. It’s the title of a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn, first published in 1994, but a friend of mine used to use the phrase in high school in the late ’80s. But where it comes […]
The sixth of Todd Henry’s Everyday Acts of Bravery: Find Your Voice. Like most of these everyday acts, it takes a moment of thought to understand what finding your voice has to do with bravery. Then again, anyone who’s ever stood mute and allowed someone to verbally abuse them understands this concept intuitively. Anyone who’s […]
In two weeks, three courageous men will receive Medals of Honor they earned years ago. On the 15th of September, President Obama will award the Congressional Medal of Honor to three former soldiers: Command Sergeant Major Bennie G. Adkins, Specialist Donald P. Sloat, and First Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing. Of the three, SPC Sloat’s action […]
The Dirty Little Secret Behind Statistics About Men. This man’s name is Scott (and no, he isn’t me). Scott has a secret he’s been carrying for decades. It’s nearly killed him multiple times. Click the link, watch the video. It’s nine minutes long. Watch the whole thing, even though you don’t want to. Watch how […]