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Naiveté can absolutely be a loving companion.  But there’s a fine line between trusting the universe and blindly believing that everything will work out just fine.  The former creates hope, but the latter can enable acquiescence. And if we allow ourselves to slip into that state, we won’t generate the necessary motivation to apply ourselves toward making things better.  We won’t move the way things are any closer to…

People overestimate the capacity of human memory.  They ascribe far more meaning and drama to the fleeting little moments that happen between people, when the reality is, most of the world isn’t losing sleep over most of the things that happen to them.  But it’s not our fault. Just blame it television.  For over fifty years, our culture has watched hundreds of thousands of hours of sitcoms that portray…

Turkle’s book on the psychology of human relationships with technology reminds us that just because technology can help us solve a problem, doesn’t mean it was a problem in the first place.  And yet, we’re still being urged from every side to become more efficient. We are drowning in a glut of tools, kneeling at the altar of productivity, imprisoning ourselves in an endless loop of technology, and ultimately burdening…

I have a constitutional need to rebel and resist and be different and stand out and express my authentic self in every situation.  It’s who I am, it’s who I’ve always been.  But the irony is, no matter what I’m rebelling against, that thing is still controlling me. I’m still in relationship with an entity that has power over my behavior. No matter how bold and independent and oppositional…

When my wife and I joined our local food coop, the prospect of working a regular shift to unload trucks, pull produce, stock shelves and sweep floors galvanized me.  Because in a world of bullshit jobs where millions of smart, talented people are getting paid heaps of money to blow hot air about invisible products that nobody even pays attention to, there’s something deeply refreshing and about working in…

Part of me wishes that I did believe in astrology.  Because then I would finally have an existential scapegoat. Somewhere to point when life doesn’t turn out the way I want.  It just sounds so comforting.  Knowing that no matter how many rejections and disappointments and depressions and failures come my way, there will always be a magical external force over which I have no control that will justify them all….

Woody once said that whenever he started to write his films that in his bedroom, he would think they were going to be the greatest things ever made.  But then, once production was a go, he would start backing up the dump truck of compromise. And by the end, when the movie was about to be released, he would hope and pray that he wasn’t massively humiliated.  Because you can’t…

When we begin experiencing an emotional crisis, we rarely have the time or temperament to figure out what to do with our feelings.  The moment is too overwhelming for rational thought.  And so, unless we have a solid plan in place, we resort to unhealthy ways of coping. We make things worse by falling back on old behaviors that we used in the past.  Like eating an entire box…

Carlin believed that a sense of humor was a sense, an understanding and a feeling for what didn’t fit, for the incongruous, for that which was out of place or in the wrong scale.  What a beautiful way to comprehend the world. Laughing our way to clarity and wisdom.  The challenge, though, is making sure there isn’t an emotional casualty in the process.  Because when we resort to humor as the…

Happiness is a mental habit.  Of course, so is depression. Both of these emotional states result from our lifelong practices and sequences and patterns of conscious thought.  What’s encouraging, though, is that we don’t have to remain biological slaves to our routines. Cognitive behavioral psychology research indicates that any conditioned habit the human brain has learned, can also be unlearned. Even if we’re predisposed to a particular behavior, we can still…