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It’s a great relief to look to nature for simplicity.  We can use it as a way to calm down during times of chaos and not further complicate our existing problems.  For example, how does the flower push its way up from the ground and through the crack in the concrete? Simple. Throw slow, gradual, persistent pressure that’s so small, it can’t even be measured. That’s the kind of…

When I was seventeen, my high school football team blew a fourteen point lead in the final few minutes of the championship game and wound up losing in a devastating upset.  Our head coach almost had a heart attack. The bus ride home was a quiet one. But before we slumbered into the locker room with our heads hung in shame, he said something we never forgot.  Don’t get…

Human beings are primed for immediate gratification, and if we don’t have to be patient, we won’t.  Which is unfortunate. Because despite our natural longing to do things quickly and instantly, the axiom of sustainability never changes.  Everything that lasts, starts out slow.  My publishing business took a few years to make sense, a few more years to make money, and even a few more years to make an…

Brown was right when he asserted than mankind’s evolutionary obligation was to use all the powers at its disposal.  Who doesn’t want to be alive in all their parts? Who doesn’t want to use everything they’ve ever learned? And who doesn’t want the opportunity to bring all of themselves to everything they do?  The challenge is, when it comes to the relationship we have with our own power, it’s complicated.  Some…

Joy isn’t the goal, but the experience we create for ourselves on the way to the goal.  But most of us invert that process. We obsess over the imagined details of some future event, at which point we will finally feel happy and complete and whole. Only then do we deserve joy.  This carrot on a stick approach can be highly motivating for some. The only problem is, it’s a pattern…

People are highly motivated by finding out that it’s not their fault.  We love looking for something external to blame for everything that’s wrong in our lives.  My mid to late twenties was a period of my life symptomized by bloating, abdominal pains and host of other gastrointestinal delights.  But of course, these issues had nothing to do with the fact that I was a workaholic codependent love addict trapped in…

Imagine taking a road trip with five people, each of whom is giving you conflicting directions as to how best to get to the destination.  One guy paid for the gas, so he feels entitled to have the last word.  One lady thinks she’s a great driver just because she has a license.  One guy comes from a town that only used bicycles for transportation.  One lady is a…

Here’s the hard part about being a blacksmith.  You have to find a delicate balance of having enough irons in the fire to keep you busy, but not so many irons that you become overwhelmed and inefficient.  With too few irons, for example, the blacksmith has to wait around until things heat up. And it becomes difficult to stay constantly busy. Plus, he’s vulnerable to a single point of…

Ethel’s book on the redefinition of power makes an important point about letting go.  It’s a mark of security when we are so comfortable in our own skin that there is no nagging doubt about the road not taken, the opportunities missed and the shortness of the road remaining.  Sounds like a peaceful place to be.  The challenge is, how do normal people, who aren’t monks, attain that level…

Out of the five thousand species of mammals on this planet, only humans have the luxury to doubt things in the universe.  Isn’t that incredible? What an extraordinary gift we’ve been given. The ability to scrutinize ourselves and our societies and our surroundings.  Because contrary to popular conditioning, doubt isn’t a snag, it’s a spark. Doubt is a starting point for deeper thinking. It’s an elixir that keeps us…