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As children, we learned to align our feelings with those around us.  We learned to change our opinion to go along with others and not feel different.  And that’s okay. It’s a survival tactic. We did what we had to do. And it worked.  But as we get older and gain a more mature understanding of relationships and communication, chronic agreeableness is a skill we must unlearn.  Otherwise people…

They’re everywhere.  People who let others take advantage of them so they can resent it afterward.  People who have their grudge list memorized and camera ready to share with any audience who will listen.  People who use negative terminology to describe neutral or even positive events. People who get high on telling others how badly they have been treated. People who brag about being chipped and weathered away by…

The interesting thing about expressing joy and ambition and vulnerability and earnestness is, it intimidates some people.  It grosses them out. It triggers resentment. There’s just a certain population of the world that doesn’t want to hear about our happiness and enlightenment.  It’s like we’re holding a massive candle to their face, just so their darkness looked more pitch black in comparison.  Which we’re not, of course. It’s all…

There’s nothing wrong with feeling energized by the simple act of consciously moving toward our goal.  We just have to make sure that our goals are actually goals.  Not strategies we inherited from someone else. Not dreams borrowed from other people because they seem attractive and we think they’re going to make us whole.  That’s the reality we fail to realize. Our goals aren’t really goals, they’re strategies. Stops…

Each of us is obliged to carve our own path.  It’s one of the great freedoms of being a conscious human being.  And the good news is, we don’t have to put undue pressure on ourselves to do so. There’s no contest or time clock or scoreboard for the person who finds, walks and masters the best path. There are as many paths as there are people to walk…

We wake up with aspirations of grandeur. Thinking we can come right out of the gate and blast past our edge.  Which is a commendable mindset. But we have to be honest with our own limits. We have to ask if we’re merely impressing ourselves with a temporary surge of ambition. We have to wonder if we’re unwilling to accept the sometimes slow process of change.  Recovery programs teach addicts…

It’s the small thrills that remind us who we are.  Those mundane, quiet, undramatic everyday experiences that are gently woven into our days, these are the moments we remember forever. These are the joys that create the inner smile of peace and rebalance us above the precipice of meaninglessness.  Without them, we’re just piles of dust and bone.  Consider this hilariously pathetic article from the world’s best satire magazine about the…

Many of us have mission statements, but we should really have mission questions.  Because good questions work on us, we don’t work on them. Each one is a small experiment. A mirror into which we can see what’s possible for us. And if we learn to love questions themselves as if they were locked rooms, there’s no telling what me might discover inside.  Several years ago, my company launched…

Here’s an interesting paradox.  Only the pain of anger can tell us who we really are.  And yet, anger is the mood we are the worst at controlling.  Because most of us never learned how to allow that emotion to work for us. Our parents and teachers never told is that we could actually domesticate and metabolize anger before it turned into resentment. What a concept.  Lincoln was a master…

Reacher, my favorite fictional character, is a retired solider turned vagrant who reluctantly solves government crimes and usually beats up five guys at once. Nobody does it better.  In one particular story, his former commanding officer asks him why he chose to quit the army after thirteen years of decorated service. To which he replies: You wake up one morning and the uniform doesn’t fit anymore. Love that passage. As…