The Christmas season is a unique blend of guilt trips, memories (happy and sad), pressure, and false obligation. Here’s how to deal.
Tag: life
How to cure your daily boredom headache
For each of us, it comes down to being a cog/zombie or figuring out who we are and who we want to become, then becoming that. Nobody wants to write, or read, or live Tales from the Rut.
The way to happiness: who’s right?
There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there about how to be happy. What should you think in order to be happy?
Why it’s so hard to get started
If you try a lot of things, expecting some to fail, you maximize your chances of success and take the scariness out of starting.
How to do something big
Is there something you’ve always wanted to do? Something grand and ambitions? Maybe you’ve always wanted to write a book, or build an airplane, or hike the Appalachian Trail. It’s huge, life-changing even, and you’ve known for a long time that you want to do it, but you haven’t done it. Here’s how to change that.
The secret to a more interesting life
Amelia Earhart said “When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.” And then Chris Guillebeau quoted her. When two of my heroes speak, I definitely take notice. Adventure is important and too often neglected in our lives. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut or even just […]
How unhappiness works–and how to beat it
Pop quiz: only one question and it’s multiple choice. What would make me happy? a) winning the lottery b) my loved ones truly appreciating me c) a lifetime supply of chocolate d) my neocortex Happiness, and unhappiness, are actually pretty simple, but they’re not caused by circumstances like most people […]
Get rid of clutter, lose weight, improve relationships: Surprising lessons from car manufacturing
What does car manufacturing have to do with relationships? Perspective. If you feel a need to control every step to make everything go right, that’s a hindrance to life, peace, and, surprisingly, manufacturing. Needing to control also causes the need to hoard. If you need parts for your assembly line […]
The #1 stumbling block for smart people (and how everyone can avoid it)
A lot of people think intelligence, or innate talent, is responsible for success. It seems to make sense, right? But actually, that’s not quite true. It’s the people who keep growing that come up with the best ideas and are willing to take the risk of trying something new. There […]
Five simple steps to making your dreams come true
A few weeks back, I wrote a post about big dreams. Dreams are important—they can give us direction and hope, something to work toward. If you don’t know what you want to do, check out that post for a few suggestions on figuring it out. But dreams can only take […]
How to ditch your worst excuse and start getting things done
Do you have a hard time getting things done, or even started? Do you give yourself a lot of excuses for why? I do. It’s come to my attention that I have a lot of excuses for why I don’t/ won’t/ didn’t get something done, and they all come down […]
Cynicism and changing the world
Yesterday’s post generated some really great discussion about optimism. This is a subject with a lot of strong opinions! Most people wrote very thoughtful and interesting insights, but what struck me was the tone of scorn in a few of the pessimists’ comments, and the slight defensiveness in a few […]