I recently finished reading a novel by Alain de Botton called The Course of Love. It follows the lives and romance of Rabih and Kirsten as they meet, fall in love, marry, have children, and shoulder on through the trials of life. There was one passage in particular that really stuck out to me, grabbed… Read More The weaknesses of our strengths
As a lover of language, I enjoy playing with words. Puns, plays on words, and semantics are all sources of great pleasure for me. Some semantics, however, matter far more than others.
This is a modified piece pulled from the archives. You can read the original post here. Valentine’s day is coming up, and I’ve been thinking about gifts I’ve given or received in the past from significant others.
There was a passage from a book I recently read, Strangers at My Door, that really stood out to me:
One of my goals from my V2MOM this year was to slow down. Well, what better way to slow down than to visit your 91 year-old grandfather! A few weeks ago Michael and I slipped away from the city for a weekend visit to see my grandpa, or “Pa” as we call him. Life in… Read More How to slow down: taking time to smell the roses
My experience at the conference in Orlando made me realize that there are two types of listeners in the world. The first type is extremely common. It’s what most of us do. We listen for the purpose of formulating a response. I’ll call these people the “Responders.”
A few weeks ago, I went to a conference down in Orlando. At the end, we did a listening exercise. The facilitator had us all pair off into groups of 2. One of us spent about 5 minutes telling the other what we had learned in the conference, and the other person listened. Then we… Read More The painful lesson I learned when I fail to listen
A long time ago, I received a pair of fuzzy pajama pants as a secret santa gift. I remember at the time being so annoyed when I opened them. I’m naturally a very warm-natured person. Additionally, I live in the south. The combination of those things meant that I was pretty much guaranteed to never… Read More The cost of avoiding the unknown
My birthday is tomorrow. For a full-grown adult, I still get embarrassingly excited about celebrating my birthday. For the past few years, I’ve tried to do something special to commemorate the occasion. It’s ranged from playing Whirly Ball, to going skiing in Colorado, to visiting the Christmas lights in Centennial Park. I just really enjoy… Read More Lessons learned from birthday disappointments
As I was writing about the Eisenhower decision matrix, I couldn’t help but think back to my last job. In some ways, my old company was a wonderful place – supportive co-workers, a relaxed work environment, and a caring boss. In other ways…it was terrible.
