I can’t control whether anybody reads this blog. I can’t control whether you tell anybody about this post after you read it. I can’t make anybody buy my book, and I can’t ensure anybody will like it even if they do. I can’t force a publisher to take on the book I’m working on right […]
Allowing Syrian refugees into our country will change the way many of us live. So will wrestling with gun violence, and police shootings, and rape culture, and immigration. We’ve done it a few times before: When we recognized the right of gay couples to marry. When we ended the Cold War. When we recognized a […]
My Scoutmaster is often good for a topic to share here. At our meeting last night, he talked to the Scouts about how to deal with a stressful situation using the acronym STOP: Stop, Think, Observe, and Plan. In the woods, he said, it’s easy to lose your way and panic; but instead of running […]
We’ve built a society on avoiding pain. We tell ourselves we can have what we want, and we can have it easily–with only a little bit of work, only a little bit of discomfort, only a few easy payments. We tell ourselves we have a right to the things we want, that we deserve them, […]
There are aspects of your life you do not control. You don’t control how others think or what they want. You don’t control how they treat you or how they respond to you. You don’t control the weather, or the news, or what the late-night hosts say on their shows. You probably don’t control the […]
My last post struck a nerve for at least one reader. It’s probably unfair to say this person lashed out at me with their response, but they certainly directed a different sort of criticism at me than I’m used to receiving: my post was slamming whites, I was blaming society instead of working on my […]
We seek comfort in almost everything we do. In many ways, that’s a good thing. After all, the easier it is for us to do what we need to do–whether it’s sitting at a desk all day, digging trenches for power lines, or catching a football–the more likely we are to do it. A level […]
I can’t remember an election cycle like this. For the first time in my memory, it seems our country is going to select a president based on which candidate the majority dislikes less. This doesn’t seem like a recipe for success. And as long as we spend our energy focusing on which presidential candidate we […]
Today is the best day of my life. Not because I expect something incredible to happen today, although I’m open to that possibility. Not because I think today will be significantly better than yesterday, although it certainly could be. Not even because I feel particularly good today, although I choose to feel good as often […]
We all have plenty of crap in our lives. Maybe we’ve been fired from our job, or we don’t like our job, or we don’t like our boss. Maybe a friend has died, or a family member, or a pet. Maybe our marriage is in trouble. Maybe our marriage has failed, or we can’t find […]