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Criticizing ourselves for the path we took to get here
Regret is a normal emotional response to missed opportunity. We risk it every time we make a decision. And nobody is immune to it. Even the most conscious among us know that to admit our regret is to understand we are fallible and human. But there’s a fine line between honoring our humanity and prosecuting ourselves for crimes past. If our regret about yesterday’s decisions and actions helps us…
Opening a valuable door of growth
Boundaries are deliberate limits that protect what we care about. And what’s empowering about setting them is, they not only keep us safe, but they can also spur another person’s growth. Years ago, my application for membership in an exclusive leadership group was approved and moved forward to the group interview stage. Which meant sitting in a chair facing twelve strangers who apparent job was to intimidate and challenge…
When the insanities and horrors of the world exhaust me
Reality is not interested in our opinions, objections or agendas. It is the one thing that’s ever renewing and ever progressing from one state of completion to another, with or without our consent. Question is, how do we forgive reality for being what it is? When things go south, how do we keep ourselves from punching holes in walls and hurling heavy objects across the room? There are two…
Hospitality is the work of the host, not the guest
My friend belongs to a church who has used nametags for fifteen years. In fact, their congregation has grown to a few thousand members, which is no small feat. The challenge is, several of the new hires to the church staff have opposing views about nametags. They out rightly refuse to wear them. Either because they feel silly, the badges clash with their wardrobe, they don’t like the attention,…
Save the trees, the bees, the whales and the snails
There’s an idealistic part of me that weeps for the future of the world. Because if we take a good look around, there are all these profound, pervasive, urgent and expensive problems that are not going away anytime soon. Somebody should definitely do something. But then there’s the pragmatic part of me that wonders if obsessing about and trying to create a solution for the world’s biggest problems isn’t…
The upside of feeling down about yourself
Health is the force multiplier of all of our other attributes. It’s the catalyst that drives us to fulfill our potential, the fuel that enables us to engage the rest of ourselves and the constructive force that propels our life forward. And if we’re willing to take care of ourselves without guilt or blame or justification, then the daily momentum of all those healthy actions will build the foundation…
Seeing isn’t believing, it’s conceiving
According to the rules of quantum mechanics, any given particle’s behavior changes depending on whether there is an observer. Researchers clinically proved that reality does not exist if we are not looking at it. Now, this marvel of nature primarily applies to the atomic scale. But as a thought experiment, let’s consider the interpersonal application of this idea. What if being seen is precisely what brings people into existence?…
There is no us and them, only one universal we
Wearing nametags in foreign countries is an exciting experience. Having traveled around the world to a plethora of cities, it never ceases to amaze me just how easily and quickly a nametag builds bridges to people who don’t speak my language. Forgive my grandiosity, but the sticker always seems to be this icon of peace, gesture of hospitality and a translator in the global dialect of humanity. Because everybody…
Where the wounds are, the gift lies
Camus once wrote that we are just biological matter spinning senselessly on a tiny rock in a corner of an indifferent universe. Which is true, but while our biological conditions are not our fault, they’re still our problem. We all have a responsibility to deal with whatever spell has been cast upon us. Maybe be grateful for it. Maybe even use it to our advantage. Maybe even use it to…
The Twelve Dirty Words of 2020
Carlin’s list of seven dirty words you can never say on television famously received a citation from the federal government. The supreme court upheld that those words were the ones that would infect our soul, curve our spine and keep the country from winning the war. And yet, there are so many other words out there that inflict far more damage than a harmless term like piss. Today we’re…