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The work is its own reward.  To look beyond that is foolish.  If you can get paid for the art you make, that’s great. If you can build a career out of it, that’s a miracle.  But any remuneration that you think will set you free and make the slog worthwhile, it’s just stardust. It evaporates the moment you touch it.  All that matters is the process. The journey….

Next month, Ixia Press is releasing my new book, 365 Daily Meditations for On and Off the Mat: A Year in Hot Yoga.  Here is an interview I did on their website to talk about my yoga journey, the publishing process and of course, sweat angel competitions. DP: I see a commonality in your TEDx talk and your book: you provide an insight or meditation and then ask the audience a…

Lewis was more than a professional critic, but also a prolific corresponder.  More than twenty years after his death, his foundation published an anthology of letters written to family, friends, and fans, spanning from his youth as a student to just a few weeks before his death.  In one particular letter from the mid fifties, he wrote the following.  The pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. If there…

Seuss famously wrote a graduation speech in the form of a book to address the ups and downs of life.  You’ll come down from the lurch with an unpleasant bump. The chances are, then, that you’ll be in a slump. And when you’re in a slump, you’re not in for much fun. Unslumping yourself is not easily done.  That’s for damn sure. Because when you’re slumping, it’s difficult to…

I was listening to an interview with the highest paid supermodel of all time.  Crawford’s thirty years of success at modeling made her an international icon, and so, it was no surprise that she was savvy enough to impart the following piece of advice.  This business will use you, so you better use it back.  That’s the story we’re afraid to tell ourselves when we enter into the professional arena.  That knowing we’re…

For thousands of years, we’ve been brainwashed into believing that we should be afraid of our desires.  Thanks to the powers that be, humans have lived in fear that desire would lead them into dark, objectionable, indulgent and shameful places.  Consider the origin of the word.  Desire literally translates to mean lustful. It’s one of the seven deadly sins. It’s a capital vice. Dante even depicted it as the first circle…

The viewpoint that it’s all bullshit, that we’re all powerless to do anything and that everything in this world subject to some absurd and inevitable predetermination, that’s not wisdom, that’s defeatism.  It’s a lazy response to life. A luxury. The weak way out of things. Needless negative thinking that only empowers the problem.  Yes, it’s more interesting and clever to proclaim that it’s all bullshit.  Yes, it’s liberating to…

Moore’s manifesto about the future of healthcare not only teaches providers to preserve their souls, but also reminds patients to preserve individuality.  If you express your soul, he warns, you will be eccentric. There is no other way. You will rub people the wrong way. They will criticize you. They will be uncomfortable with your individuality.  After all, heterogeneity is threatening. Especially in an institution, which usually prefers that everyone fade…

People they mosey in their pretty little promise wheels Send us out into the world just to get our hearts broken again Take your thunder struck marginal notions Take your thunder struck marginal notions Smoke Like a fish bone Smoke I’ll be one of the last ones who missed out on the boat to bliss Begging the rose to unfold faster, you ain’t my last sir Take your thunder…

Nothing ever turns out the way you expect it to.  And nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get.  Think back to your first date.  Friday night you showed up at the front door, flowers and candy in hand, dripping with sweat and far too much cologne, running through every possible scenario in your head about what she might look and smell and feel like.  It…