Want to change your habits?
I read about a surprising way to form good habits and break bad ones. The article said to change your habits, change your identity. The concept was a reminder that how we see ourselves can dramatically affect our habits. A paper published in 2011 by a team of Harvard and Stanford researchers found that people […]
Why ugly and slow is okay!
My sister is a lot better at knitting than I am. It is painfully obvious when she tackles a complex pattern, makes changes in it, and then finishes it before I’ve figured out how to get my project going. She’s a regular wizard at it! And by comparison I’m slow and my projects are, if […]
Luggage or Baggage?
It’s vacation time! Are you carrying luggage or your baggage with you? (And in case you’re wondering, I don’t mean the physical stuff!) Though near-perfect synonyms of each other, baggage has several additional meanings which luggage doesn’t share. We don’t know for sure whether the “bag” of baggage is the same as the English and […]
Here comes the sun!
Summer has finally arrived, even when the weather doesn’t seem to agree! And June to me is a month of celebrating Life! The recent graduates are beginning their new lives; we celebrate the masculine influences in our lives with Father’s Day; and the summer solstice brings the longest day of sunlight. I recently saw an […]
A reminder from a dad…
One day little Jim was taking a walk with his father in the rugged roads of the mountain near their house. Suddenly, he slipped and hurt himself and screamed “AAAhhhh!” He immediately heard a voice from the mountains saying “AAAhhhh!” Jim forgot his hurt and shouted “Who are you?” and again heard that voice saying […]
Train your elephant!
In those days when an elephant would walk through a town with its keeper, the elephant’s trunk was a curious part of the equation. It had a natural tendency to explore whatever it wanted, disrupting fruit carts and kiosks as it made its way down the street. It had no qualms about helping itself to […]
The Clothesline Paradox
If you take down your clothesline and buy an electric clothes dryer, the electric consumption of the nation rises slightly. If you go in the other direction and remove the electric clothes dryer and install a clothesline, the consumption of electricity drops slightly, but there is little credit given anywhere on the charts and graphs […]
The waves of life…
Life is always coming at us. There’s always something more on our to-do list. There’s always some unexpected event that comes crashing into our lives. There’s always something not going according to plan. There’s always something more on the calendar. We can certainly choose to feel overwhelmed by those things. We can hide under the […]
Speaking of angels…
Just for fun, see what these youngsters have said! “When an angel gets mad, he takes a deep breath and counts to ten. And when he lets out his breath, somewhere there’s a tornado.” Dan, 7 “It’s not easy to become an angel! First, you die. Then you go to heaven, and then there’s still […]
The Crystal Cup
A Zen master was given a beautifully crafted crystal cup. It was a gift from a former student. He was very grateful. Every day, he enjoyed drinking out of his glass. He would show it to visitors and tell them about the kindness of his student. But every morning, he held the cup in his […]