More gets a bad wrap. People like me are always writing and raving about the dangers of our MORE obsession. About how our insatiable desire for abundance destroys and deceives us. But there is another side to our pursuit of More. There is a case to be made that pursuing More leads to innovation, growth, and learning. It is the spur that catalyzes our progress. So maybe More really is the answer. Why More Our obsession with More is dangerous... Read more
We often talk about reality TV shows as “guilty pleasures”. I must confess there are some reality shows I watch and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it. After all, life is much less about what banal things you do and more about why and how you do them. For me, reality shows (certain ones, to be clear) are fascinating experiments in what it means to be human. Without a doubt, the most prevalent reality in any of... Read more
Although there is very little to it, as far as “holidays” go, my favorite day of celebration throughout the calendar is New Year’s Day. When you think about it, it is a pretty arbitrary thing. We are celebrating a marker in time. Not an achievement of mankind. Not a memorial to a hero of the past. Just a day we decided is going to be the day we start anew. I like New Years so much because it invites, almost... Read more
There is a subtle rhythm to the way we live. A pattern of ups and downs, twists and turns. Consolation and desolation. We do well for a time or in a certain area. And then not so well. We spend the majority of our life trying to shortcut this rhythm so that we avoid pain. Of course, that is not a terrible thing. We should try to do better, to be better. We should fight against injustice. We should take... Read more
Little Drummer Boy is one of the most recognizable Christmas songs in modern culture. It speaks to the heart of what Christmas is about. The heart of what it really means to be human. I didn’t really give this song its due for a long time. I thought it was about drums. It isn’t. When I was a kid, I thought the part that went “pa rum pum pum pum” was some sort of language. I thought it was saying something... Read more
What a year it has been. What a life we live. What a world. One of the things I am learning as an adult is how challenging it is to face the confusion of the world. I once thought it was supposed to get easier. That life made sense the older you got. As you obtained wisdom, you suffered less and accepted more. Maybe wisdom is learning how little you can control and how incessantly confusing and frustrating is the... Read more
We toss the word around. We know it when we see it. But what exactly is an “enemy”? What does it mean to classify someone or something as an enemy? Because we assume a lot about our own narratives, it is easy to think of an enemy as “the bad guy”. After all, we have to be the good guy. So an enemy is anyone who is trying to get in our way…which is bad. The problem is that even... Read more
So, let’s be honest. We are all holding onto a secret hope. We want to avoid the choice between mission and money. When I was a kid, I went to church and fell in love with Jesus – so I dreamed of becoming a famous pastor/author who changed the world with my messages… and owned a home in Switzerland. We dream of living out our mission in such a way that the money also rolls in. This is not impossible,... Read more
Conventional wisdom goes something like this: if your actions don’t match what you profess to value, you need to change your actions to match your values. This makes sense. We are talking about a life of integrity, being true to oneself. But what if we get the solution backward? What if, when we encounter a “say-do” gap in our lives, it is what we say that is inaccurate rather than what we do? I am not sure this is right,... Read more
Like most of you, I’ve rarely questioned where my feelings come from. Does it really matter? They are there. That is undeniable and unavoidable. People talk so much about “controlling” emotions or even “managing” our feelings. There are some things we can do to lessen the blow and minimize the damage, but I am starting to explore the idea that where our feelings come from are actually a vital part of the process. If we can figure out the source... Read more
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