I know several people that are always amped up about some major public issue. It might be guns, Obamacare, tax policy, the governor’s latest stupid statement…pick the poison.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned. None of these people can affect a damn bit of difference about their issue of the day. I like most of these people, but their sense of doom wears me out. Continue reading
Ben Franklin was an autodidact.
An autodidact is someone who is self-taught. In today’s parlance we might call them a “self-directed learner.”
Autodidacts were common in Colonial America. Many of our founding fathers were autodidacts as well as polymaths. Ben Franklin might be one of our nation’s most famous autodidacts. Franklin abandoned formal education at age 10 and we all know how that turned out. Continue reading
I wanted to cover this yesterday, given that it was actually Blue Monday. But since it was Inauguration Day and even a national holiday, I decided to save it for Self-Help Tuesday, today.
Apparently Blue Monday is the most depressing day of the year. Actually, until last week, I’d never heard of it. Someone I was talking to mentioned the term and when I asked her what “Blue Monday” was she said, “It’s the day when most people bail on their New Year’s resolutions.” Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I had an interesting discussion with a friend about dissonance. In the course of our conversation about boundaries and having the courage to say, “enough is enough,” the topic of dissonance came up and whether the presence of turbulence or dissonance in our lives was an indicator of something bigger and more important. Continue reading
Let me make an observation. Excellence isn’t something that most of us strive for. It seems that good enough is close enough. Perfunctory is too often the norm. It infects our work culture, our politics, our interpersonal relations, and our communities.
We expect excellence from everybody else though, don’t we?
What if we chose to pursue excellence in our own lives? Would it make a difference? Continue reading
How do you know that what you hold dear and true is in fact so? What are you using as your own personal fact-checker? Merely going along to get along might make you popular (it might also make you a doormat) but it doesn’t guarantee veracity. Following the masses could find you stepping off a cliff with a group of your fellow lemmings. Continue reading
Personal growth requires frequent self-assessment. You need to know where you are, and maybe more important, where you’ve come from, if you harbor hope of arriving at the next point on the horizon.
This week 10 years ago would have knocked me for a loop. High-stress, coupled with multiple, complex priorities—made more difficult from lack of sleep, as well as a huge change in my normal daily routines, would have triggered all manner of negative behaviors. Continue reading