Good Questions
I love great questions. They help us know our own minds and help us move. They’re better conversation starters, and they can help us think about the simple and beautiful now.
Can’t Reply; at the Movies
I’m starting a new regular on the blog called ON THIS DAY, and today is the day my son suggested a version of me I always want to be.
Water & Sunlight to the Best in You
What if instead of turning toward the things that don’t feel right (a job I’m in, a piece of writing that won’t take shape), I turn toward the things about which I feel confident? What might happen if my energy goes to the things in my life I want to grow? My hope is that it crowds out all the rest.
52 Ways to Be the Boss of You
In July 2023, I published a new book, 52 Ways to Be the Boss of You, Your, Mood, and Your Day. This is the story behind the book.
(For the Boys) Thank You for the Delight
Last year, I let go of a goal that no longer seemed important enough, or certain enough, for the strain it caused me to long for it.
The goal was far too specific, really, and relatively few who try will achieve it: I wanted to be a self-sufficient, day-job-free, well-paid and traditionally published author of novels. Unfortunately, after twelve years of trying, it wasn't happening, and the angst of wanting it so much and not knowing how to reach it was, in popular self-help terminology, not working for me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard
It's one of the 5 Regrets of the Dying: I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I think about it a lot when I go to bed at night or wake up in the morning and look at my days (and thus my life) and wonder, Am I doing this right?
I've always been resistant to the 8-to-5. It leaves so little room for whims or creativity.
Doing My Thing
More often than not, by doing your thing, as opposed to what you think you ought to be doing, you kindle a fire that helps keep the rest of us warm.
Oliver Burkeman said this. He was a columnist for the Guardian, and his final piece has several bits of life wisdom like that. (It also has a brief treatise on why we shouldn't listen to celebrities
Someday, Someday Maybe
It's the title of the book I'm reading (by Lauren Graham, a fictionalized version of her early years in New York City trying to become an actress) and how I feel in this weird, building year in the story of me.
The Sunday Life
If you struggle with Mondays as much as I do, you are probably familiar with their evil predecessor, the dreaded Sunday night blues. It's hard to let go of Sunday, I wrote on Instagram once with a picture of the Anne book I was reading alongside no fewer than four notebooks and journals in which I had been writing.
The Simple Always
I love this picture.Poor Jake is tackling homework he was assigned, but not I. The lucky grownup in this picture is learning for the sheer, intentional joy of it.It was a free webinar. I have some warring principles at play in my little, dreaming heart.
When I Grow Up I Want to be an Architect
More than once in my life, I have been known to say (or, more likely, to write in my journal), "I love my life, but I do not like my days." I'm going to shuffle out on one very large limb here and assume that perhaps someone else can relate.