Category: Self Improvement
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What Matters Most
Reading Time: 4 minutesThere’s a 2007 film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman called Bucket List. I’d recommend seeing it for a couple different reasons. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, jerks a few tears, and in the end is plenty thought provoking. Not long after I originally saw it, I was diagnosed (in January 2008) with a… Read more
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Overcoming Life’s Flotsam & Jetsam
Reading Time: 4 minutesI mentioned in my Shorts post on Friday how much I like New Year’s Day. It’s so full of possibilities. To be fair, every day can be full of possibilities. But on any given day we’re usually just moseying along existing from waking to sleeping. As we go through the motions of… Read more
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The Promise of a New Year
Reading Time: < 1 minuteMy absolutely favorite holiday, hands down, is New Year’s Day. Every year when I flip the calendar to January, after the Thanksgiving to Christmas holiday season is behind us, I get super excited about new beginnings. I need to remind myself that no matter what day the calendar proclaims, every morning… Read more
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Conquering Clutter
Reading Time: < 1 minuteYears ago, before the tornado, I taught a class in the adult community education program called Conquering Clutter. It was very popular and I was pretty good at it. In fact, a tornado is the ultimate clutter conquerer but I don’t recommend it. This week, as I was putting the clothes… Read more
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Legitimate, Honest-to-God Tragedy
Reading Time: 4 minutesRegular visitors to my blog know I’m a voracious reader. Many also know I’m a history buff. My interest in history intensified over the last 15 years as I’ve learned to connect what’s happened in the past to current events. It puts so much in context and explains the seemingly unexplainable. I’m… Read more
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Genius!?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteI’ve been wracking my brain this week for inspiration for this post. No luck. I got up from my desk and told Randy I had absolutely no inspiration for Friday’s post. Before I even got to the office door the word “inspiration” triggered a memory of a quote from Thomas Edison… Read more
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You Don’t Say…
Reading Time: < 1 minuteOne more thing about listening. Peter Drucker (a prominent management consultant and author) once said, “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” The point he was making is that listening involves more than just hearing. Often people omit things that are difficult to say or they don’t… Read more
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Listen!
Reading Time: 4 minutesI wrote a short (1 minute read) post last Friday with a graphic that said (basically)….Listen and Silent contain the same letters…..coincidence? I’ve been thinking about listening a lot this week. Someone once told me that God gave us one mouth, but two ears. Another coincidence? Have you ever met a (rare)… Read more
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The Magic of Quiet
Reading Time: < 1 minuteWe live in a very noisy world, both literally and figuratively. It can make us feel overwhelmed, exhausted by the clatter and activity around us. Lots of people think they can’t live without “noise” around them. But silence can be golden. Consider this: you can’t really hear yourself think without silence.… Read more
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What Will People Say?
Reading Time: 4 minutesOn your 80th birthday, what do you want people to say about you? And how is that different than what they will say about you? A friend and I are currently having a kind of deep, on-going, existential discussion. She and I are grappling with some of the same issues. In retirement… Read more