As we were playing, I involuntarily started roaring. You know, because dinosaurs roar. Or do they?
Help! When it comes to encouragement, I don’t have much practical, explicit knowledge.
Our culture of excessive praise is destroying me, albeit slowly. And I think it’s destroying more than just me. Where I often get stuck is what’s the alternative? If not “I’m awesome” nor “I’m not awesome”, then what?
I never really saw anyone in action as a parent until my friends started having kids.
It seems to me that finding meaning is a reaction to psychological suffering.
Unlike visioning and planning, life is lived in minutes at a time.
How does one create an organization that doesn’t waste its talent?
It is strange to be in a place where I don’t have many dreams left, and only have a desire to breathe life and love into the dreams that are already here.
Saying goodbye to my family when I head to work, or they are going somewhere, is the worst.
The difference between suffering and sacrifice is determined by who it is for. It is a fine line.
Social media is dangerous because it’s really hard to discern if someone is truly happy, healthy, and prosperous or if they’re faking it. Which makes it really easy to emulate the wrong people.
Being with my son is liberating, despite the commitment and full devotion it requires, because it frees me from the painful wandering of my own mind.
After three years of suffering and grief, I see his death was, in at least a small way, a gift. And I am grateful.
It seems the way to be a hero is to be yourself and improve yourself, even when it is hard. And paradoxically, the first step to being yourself and improve yourself is to stop trying to be a hero.
The more I think about it, mental health isn’t a personal health problem, where it’s solely our own responsibility to make healthy choices and “get fixed” if our mental state is unhealthy. it’s something for which we have a reciprocal responsibility with others. When it comes to mental health, maybe it’s better - and more accurate - to think about it as something for which we are our brother’s keeper.
This is one Robyn and I do together every 3-5 years to envision our marriage and family life. You could apply the same exercise to a team at work, a community group, or any sort of project.
A weekly exercise to check-in on how your marriage is doing. Could also be done daily.
My advice to you, to us really, is to make the choice to take what life throws at you over the next three years and let it change you for the better. Fight like hell when it tries to change you for the worse.
As I reflect on 2018, I could think of one lesson worth sharing.