I started to write a blog post tonight, as part of the 31dayblogchallenge. About how being happy isn’t always what’s it’s cracked up to be. About how forcing happiness is a sure fire way to be miserable. It’s the dark side of being happy. The idea was a good one, I think. But when I finished writing it, I hated it. The lesson for today is: forcing the thing that makes you happy is a sure fire way to be…
E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Our country’s motto. On our currency. Part of the Great Seal of the United States. I think maybe we’ve forgotten what the hell it means. I am in Washington, DC, a city with which I have a love-hate relationship. I love the rich history, the memories of coming here on one of our early Kertay Guy Trips, the pomp and circumstance. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing the original constitution in the…
Here’s an easy question, a universal question: Would you like to be happy? Well, duh. Try an experiment with me. Really. Like most things in life, this will be more useful if you actually do it as opposed to just thinking about it. Take a piece of paper, turn it sideways, and make three columns. I’ll wait while you go get the necessary supplies. First, in the left most column of your paper, write down the first three things that come…
Geckos. Next time let’s raise geckos. We don’t mean it, but sometimes we think it. Every parent thinks it. Well, probably not exactly that, because that whole “let’s raise geckos instead” thing is a pretty strange way to say it. But some version of it. Every parent thinks some version of it. Because, parenting. Because parenting is not for wimps. Like most parents, I have experienced joy and triumph and satisfaction beyond anything that I ever thought I could possibly…
A 31-day blog challenge? Now? As busy as you are, as much as you’re traveling, with all that’s going on? All good questions, along with the appended good, if rhetorical, one: Are you nuts? A friend once said, in response to me asking this question at an earlier time in my life: “Well, yes, you are kinda nuts. But I don’t see any reason to be judgmental about it.” Apt, I thought then, and still. So here’s the story: About…
Every Face Tells a Story Every face tells a story. That’s what I (re)learned last night. Sometimes the best way out of a self-absorbed, self-pitying dark place is to focus on someone else. Anyone else. Someone happier, sadder, less in need, more in need. The only requirements are that it’s not me, and that I pay attention. That’s what I (re)learned last night. I’ve come to realize, again, that everything worth learning I end up re-learning. Many times. Apparently, if…
Don’t waste your life – so said this article in The Good Men Project that floated across my Facebook feed this morning. The article is mostly a reposting of a letter that was apparently first seen on Reddit, written by a man of 46 who lamented the guy he’d become – working all the time, with a son who barely speaks to him and a wife he’d just found had been cheating on him for 10 years. The article is meant…
Empowered sexuality in women I saw the video below for the first time, posted to Facebook by one of my loves. It’s about empowered sexuality in women, not men. Bear with me, I’ll get to the part about men. “Astonishingly beautiful.” That was my first thought. And then the second thought: “Why should it be astonishing to see women expressing themselves, sharing themselves freely?” No reason other than that it’s still something we have to fight for. So no, not…
The last of three posts about the Books That Matter giveaway. The path to “yes” runs through the middle of “no” Despite getting to bed around midnight without enough time to sleep before rising a flight at 6:00, when I woke at 2:15 from a dream, I knew I had to capture it: I was working in a business startup being built by none other author of The Power of Unpopular, Erika Napoltetano. It felt like a dream gig (yeah, yeah,…
