Epic Quest progress report: Today is day 23. Total word count: 9471 words. We say it so often it’s become a self-help cliche: Live today as if it’s your last day. Sometimes, we phrase it a little differently: If you knew today was your last day, would you spend it the same way you always […]
Epic Quest progress report: Today is day 21. Total word count: 8285 words. It’s hard not to think about who’s to blame. Especially right now, when so many of our lives have been thrown into such uncertainty, when the American death toll after two months is half again the toll of our ten years in […]
Epic Quest progress report: Today is day 16. Total word count: 6075 words. We build habits to show ourselves who we are. We tell ourselves we do it for all kinds of reasons: to make ourselves better, to get healthy, to model right behaviors for our family. Maybe to show those bastards who they’re really […]
Epic Quest progress report: Today is day 14. Total word count: 4929 words. My first brigade commander in the Army was then-Colonel David McKiernan. I was in the same space with him maybe two or three times, but he taught me one of the few lessons I have carried with me word-for-word from those days: […]
Epic Quest progress report: Today is day 9. Total word count: 3115 words. Wherever you go … There you are. It sounds like the silliest of ’80s pop philosophy, a truism so ridiculously obvious it must be mocking something, or somebody. But it’s also a truth. A truth that goes far beyond its literal meaning. […]
Epic Quest progress report: Today is day 7. Total word count: 2,567. May you live in interesting times. I’ve always heard this described as an ancient Chinese curse. The facts that it probably didn’t come from China and it probably isn’t ancient don’t take away from the truth of the message. And right now, it […]
Last August, I embarked on a grand quest. I was fifty or more pounds overweight and almost completely sedentary, and I needed a big change to get myself moving. So I set a goal: for 101 days, I would walk at least ten thousand steps every day. Today was day 252. Ten thousand steps. Every […]
There are a lot of people out there. And most of them are doing something wrong, right this minute. Spend five minutes online and you’ll catch one of them doing something that makes you shake your head in despair, or disbelief, or both. It’s true no matter what group you’re part of: liberal or conservative, […]
Uganda’s New Anti-Gay Law: Part of a Broader Trend in Africa. We are so afraid of those who are different from ourselves that we feel the need to outlaw their behavior. A useful stance if we’re protecting children from molestation, or keeping intoxicants out of the hands of people who might hurt others under their […]
This Research Proves Your Brain Just Wasn’t Built for Junk Food, Porn, or the Internet. It’s a long article. Bring popcorn. But it’s worth a read. Greg Ciotti doesn’t argue that we shouldn’t engage in any of these things–just that we should be aware of how they affect our brains, so we can make choices […]