While vacationing in Utah several years ago, my wife and I found ourselves in the visitor center of Arches National Park, watching a film on the area’s dramatic natural history.
The narrator was explaining the forces and processes that, over tens of millions of years, created the confounding and awe-inspiring…
Have you ever noticed it can be far easier to treat other people with kindness than to do the same for yourself? …
While on a silent meditation retreat in October 2019, I spent some (non-sitting) time pondering what a “great life” consists of, if broken down to its most essential qualities. Obviously, different people have different values and therefore different aspirations for their lives. But I wanted to distill this down to…
Yesterday as I was nearing the top of the stairs to my second-floor apartment, laundry basket in hand, I heard a buzzing sound from above. Expecting it to be a large moth, I looked up and saw a hummingbird flying around in the square opening just below our building’s skylight…
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788–1860)
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I am willing to bet that at some point in your life you have already achieved the impossible. How am I…
If you watch any number of nature documentaries — or, perhaps, simply observe the world around you — it becomes readily apparent that we exist in both a nurturing and an incredibly harsh environment. The earth is supportive of our being here (to a point), but is also a notoriously…
As a hominid (if you are reading this, you probably are one), you — like the rest of us — are subject to bad moods. Our moods are in a constant state of flux, and can be affected by many factors, including:
— Whether or not we’ve eaten
— What…
I love to entertain provocative, if ultimately pointless, questions (perhaps I should have been a philosophy major). Case in point:
If you could choose any one — but only one — super power, what would it be?
It’s a great question because “super powers” speak to some of our deepest…
The following is my wish for you, wherever and whenever you happen to be reading this:
May you be filled with loving kindness, toward yourself and toward others.
May you be healthy, in body and mind.
May you be safe, and free from harm.
May you be and feel: fully supported, and deeply…
I would guess that it is a vast minority of people who haven’t fantasized about winning the lottery. (And I’d further speculate that this would consist mainly of those who, somehow or other, never heard of it to begin with.) After all, what would (seemingly) be a more sure-fire, effort-free…
