I can’t ignore Veterans Day, or Armistice Day or Remembrance Day as it’s known in other countries. Today is one of a very few days set aside explicitly to honor courage. The day’s original purpose was to commemorate the end of the First World War, or the Great War as it was called before World […]
This article on the Smithsonian web site makes me think about courage. According to a new book by Richard A. Serrano, at least some of the men who claimed in the 1950s to be veterans of the Civil War…weren’t. Some of them were children, too young to go to war, when the shooting stopped. Others […]
ZEN PENCILS – 120. TERENCE McKENNA: Nature loves courage. There’s a great deal of truth to this. I’m no great believer in the Law of Attraction; simply wanting something, even believing in it to your toenails, isn’t sufficient to make it reality. You have to make the effort, work your ever-lovin’ tail off, prioritize what […]
Life sucks sometimes, and that’s that. Oh, there are all sorts of coaches and cheerleaders and counselors and bloggers out there telling us that our attitude is a choice, that we can rise above our circumstances if we can just convince ourselves to be happy–or barring that, pretending to be happy until we start feeling […]
In late 2011, I decided to run a marathon. I researched shoes, planned routes, and found a training plan I liked. I talked to a friend who was into competitive triathlon about ways to train safely and got some excellent pointers. I picked a race to give myself a deadline. And I started running. And […]
November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. It’s a month of challenge for writers; those who choose to participate make it their goal to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. That’s 1667 words per day for 30 days. 1667 words is a lot of writing for a day, especially if […]
Loving someone else may be the most courageous act many of us will ever take. Movies, music, books, popular culture–they all teach us love is supposed to be easy. We’re supposed to meet our soulmate, have that immediate connection, then bam! nothing matters from that moment on except that we love each other and we […]
I’ve followed Simon Sinek for a couple of years now. Not because his philosophy is all about courage–like most folks, he doesn’t really talk about it. He teaches that leaders, effective organizations, winners all start with a simple question: Why? For Sinek, the critical question isn’t what we’re going to produce, or what service we’re […]