Being human guarantees there will be self-improvement-worthy behaviors and characteristics surfacing in us almost from the moment we are born. As we come of age, with all the cultural encouragement to be our best selves, it’s easy to get caught up in the quest for […]
All posts filed under: Growth and Transformation
Gambling on Humanity
It’s hard to think too far ahead into the future without feeling a certain amount of despair about humanity’s prospects but then someone like 29-year-old Boyan Slat comes along and makes environmental repair feel totally possible. How can it not when this young Dutch inventor […]
The Awe of Transformation
For over a year I watched a house by the golf course go through a head-to-toe upgrade. It was already a cute house on a corner lot in a quiet part of town but by the time the owners artfully staged two pairs of crocks […]
Living the Life We Never Had
“I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened.” Mark Twain I know what you mean, Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain being his pen name). Just like the way I am sometimes seized with certainty that I am going to […]
Bigger Than We Think
Is there a more complicated and conflicted relationship than the one we have with our bodies? And that’s just on the conscious level! Who knows what is going on in our subconscious. But I got a little window into that deeper realm when a friend […]
Mona Lisa
I was once involved with a person who would receive bad news with a sort of half-smile. It’s hard to put into words what that expression seemed to mean. There was a knowing, wistful quality to it, as if he understood that life cannot always […]
The Art of Peace
Spinning a story in our head about the scary thing that is going to happen is like painting a picture of a tiger then forgetting it’s not real. On Friday night I created such an exquisitely detailed painting of the bad health outcomes I anticipated […]
The Yang of Your Yin
Growing up, my sister and I were always “the girls.” We were a duo, a team, always in complementary consort, covering all the bases. Amy was science, I was art. Amy was reason-based, I was emotion. Amy was practical. I was extravagant. But together we […]
How the Light Gets In
A psychiatrist once told me that when people reach a breaking point with a mental health issue, they tend to deal with it in one of three ways: The religion part was the surprise punchline but after a few beats it made sense. If a […]
How do you take your help: with or without a hug?
In the 15 years we’ve been together, my partner Gary has done maybe seven things that have irritated me.* On average, that’s about one irritation every other year: in other words, kind of amazing. And so, when “Irritation #8” came along last week it took […]
A thousand tiny humble things
When I was younger, I was overtaken by premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in a way that sometimes made me nervous to get in the car for fear I might do something impulsive when PMS was behind the wheel. I made an appointment with my OB/GYN but […]
Super Slow
A natural response to an urgent call to action – be it in our minds or real — is to bring the energy of that frenzy into our body and go turbo fast. And if you are already high-twitch, well, we can go from zero […]
Be cool. 