Have you been told to just “be yourself?” What does that even mean? And, does the person know what they’re in for? We teach our children to express themselves, yet our public school system is set up all too often in a one-size-fits-all environment. I remember my mother looking for pantyhose one time and seeing “one-size-fits-all” on the display. She muttered, “Fits all of WHAT?!?” One size rarely fits all and that goes double for our personalities. Truth be told... Read more
A Dance With Life Are so excited to get to work that you almost can’t stand it? Sadly, many people will say “No.” Studies have shown the majority of workers don’t like their jobs .Work is drudgery, paying our dues, a necessity evil. Geez…if THAT’S the way we think about it no wonder people don’t want to go to work! Would YOU want to go to a party that was going to be miserable? I wouldn’t. That’s not how work... Read more
There is a danger about living our lives in a positive way. What’s that, you ask? We may feel ashamed when things don’t turn out the way we thought they would. We might feel that if our desires are sincere then the outcome should be assured. To avoid the pain we may even refuse to admit the situation. “What a wonderful opportunity I’m having,” we may say when our experience goes south. Okay, I get it. I know bad events,... Read more
I originally wrote parts of this week’s blog shortly after Malaysian Airlines flight 370 went missing. A recent event in my own life has had me once again asking the same question – over and over and over again: Why did this happen? Something very personal in my extended family happened last week. My niece, Kalee Scolatti, was shot and killed along with a long-time family friend, TJ, who was like a big brother to her. Their murders were at... Read more
Do you like to receive presents? I think most people would say “yes,” but do our actions support that answer? The books by Spencer Johnson about “The Present” show how living in the present is a present, one that we can give to ourselves if we choose. How would that be if you saw your current situation wrapped up like a beautiful package for a special occasion? Depending on how your day is going you might think, “Yeah, right! Some... Read more
Seeing people with their noses buried in their devices is something I’m becoming more aware of in the past year. When my niece visited last year we saw more of her forehead than her eyes. I knew she was in bed from the radiant glow of her device snuggled in beside her. I now work with a number of 20-somethings that seem to be more connected to their device than to their duties at hand. At the risk of sounding... Read more
Are you reading this on your mobile device? Over half of my readers access my blogs and messages via a smart phone or tablet. But does yours feel like it’s surgically attached to you? I sometimes feel like mine is, which is why I’ve been taking consistent and proactive steps to disconnect from the technology in my life for large blocks of time. One way we do that at our home is attempt to leave our devices out of family... Read more
In my last blog I wrote about accepting people as they want to be. In other words, stop trying to teach the pig to sing – it doesn’t work and it annoys the pig. Please don’t get self-righteous and tell me I’m calling people pigs, although that wouldn’t be an insult anyway. Pigs are perhaps the most sentient animals that we humans eat – enough of a reason not to eat them according to my friend, Michael! But I digress.... Read more
“Just who do you think you are to tell God what to do?!?” That’s the response I got from a spiritual counselor years ago when I was detailing to her all the ways my lover at the time needed to change to have the life he deserved. “What makes you think what he’s going through isn’t allowing him to grow in ways you can’t imagine?” Dang. I just wanted her agreement to help me help him get off his butt... Read more
I appreciate that you read my blog and take an interest in my work. I don’t want to waste your time. That’s why I wasn’t going to write a blog this week. Nothing was moving me to express myself. You see, I don’t write unless I have something meaningful to say. That may sound totally obvious, but if you read some of the stuff that’s out there on the Internet you may have asked yourself, “What’s the point of this?” That’s... Read more
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