Have you ever gone through a “winter of discontent” and wondered quietly if you could trade your life for someone else’s? If you have, don’t flog yourself silly. You don’t even have to admit it to anyone else but yourself. It’s nothing more than a normal rite of passage that allows us to imagine what…
One of the things that make living in this land exciting is coming to an appreciation of the culture, the language and the origins of certain phrases that are repeated like a refrain year after year when Christmas comes. I have often wondered who Virginia was and what was the reason Francis Church made famous…
It’s that time of year again. And every year, whether we like it or not, we go through the same rituals. This is a time of winnowing and thinning, just like the fall season when we prepare for hibernation and rest and when balance must to be restored by slowing down the pace to bring…
I like rerunning this story during Christmas. It is is pure fiction. It grew out of my curiosity about the forgettable, minor characters I identify with and their viewpoint of the greatest story ever told of how on one silent night in Bethlehem, God, out of LOVE, sent His only Son to save humanity. Here…
This is culled out from the series “The Bucket List” written in 2018. Travel is a pure metaphor for our life’s journey. There are two choices in the way we can travel. We can travel light or we can load up on stuff and literally become a beast of burden. The reality for most of…
THIS is culled out from the series, “The Bucket List” written in 2018. You have become a collector over the years. Memories, good and bad, you have them, by the bucketful, stacked in yellowing photographs in frayed and tattered albums. You used to dutifully collect them, way back when printed photos were the norm. But…
THE one thing that differentiates a life of deprivation from a rich one is the availability of choice. And making wise choices from the array made available to us, is not always obvious or easy. Awash with a steady stream of choices on radio, television, cable, satellite and the ubiquitous internet, we have morphed into…
IT is November. And we are coming full circle. Again. A circle is perhaps the perfect geometric structure there is. Although some would claim the triangle or a square to be better structures because of their stable nature, the circle and all its derivatives — the orb, the sphere, the globe and every structure on…
IF you’ve been given the chance to restart a new life after you’ve gone through some life-changing, miraculous experience, such as surviving a horrific accident when everyone else perished, or finding yourself inexplicably healed from a deadly disease, then you’ll know what it feels to be given a reprieve, a fresh slate, a clean paper,…
When we buy stuff, we think we own it. The truth is the stuff owns us. If we bought the stuff on credit, then we have contracted a set time in our future to pay for the stuff by working our tail off. We now are responsible for its care, upkeep or maintenance, its use,…
Years ago, I was searching for something to place a small amount of money that can yield a little growth if left alone for some time. A bank certificate of deposit, perhaps, I thought. But the yield was minuscule and hardly worth my time and effort. Then I understood slowly what investing was all about….
WHEN something goes wrong regarding personal finance, our mental default setting is that we need someone else to help fix the problem. But if we stop and think about it, there is really nothing new under the sun, as Ecclesiastes says. Our guidelines for how we should live then as now, come from the Good…
Forget the past and fully live in the moment. Why? It is because life is just too short. Or so they say. I say we still ought to make time for the past. Whether we like it or not, the past is a big part of who we have become. At some point, it may…
What’s your game plan when you retire? The timing can be one of 3 ways: you yourself planned when it will happen; the government said it’s time you did; or circumstances beyond your control, like the onset of illness, finally put you out to pasture. Or are you one of those who have decided to…
CARE to dance? Most people have rhythm embedded in their DNA. Music moves them emotionally and physically. Music is a powerful gravity-defying force that can speak to the soul. Watch when people listen to an upbeat Michael Jackson tune or even a Strauss waltz piece and before long, they will transform any empty space into…
There are no shortcuts in arriving at a decision to live a simple life. Sometimes, one has to go through a personal hell experiencing an inner fatigue and helplessness over the never-ending chase for the almighty dollar and quality of life in order to come to a conclusion that there has to be a better…
Eighty percent of things don’t matter; twenty percent do. That is essentially the Pareto Principle. Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian sociologist in the late nineteenth century, introduced the concept of the 80/20 rule. It states that in any given group, only 20 percent will constitute what is important and the remaining 80 percent will be trivial….
Unless you were born with a golden spoon in your mouth, one of the crucial choices that anyone makes is how to make a living in the world. Will he choose a career in government service or work in the private sector? Should he go into business? Should he pursue the arts? An accurate assessment…
Part 2 of 2 (Continued from last week …) We are tempted to look at movie stars, fat cats and other luminaries who dare defy conventions basking in the public limelight pursued by TMZ cameras as people worthy of awe and respect. And if you let it, a tiny tinge of envy gnaws at our…
Part 1 of 2 IN 2010, a young boy who climbed Mount Everest gained a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. He was on TV for his 15 minutes of celebrity status. I had to flip the channel. Abby Sunderland, a California teenager who set out in January 2010 to circumnavigate the world…
Part 2 of 2 (Continued from last week…) I plead the case for mindfulness for everyone at all times and in all places. Do you feel incomplete, naked, inept and insecure when you are not tethered electronically to your cellphone or your computer? Do you feel less of a person? Take heart. You are not…
I nearly had a vehicular accident. Operative word: Nearly. I was minding my business at a traffic stop when the vehicle before me decided to back up because her car was caught in the crosswalk. I then noticed her white tail lights — a red flag — warning me that she had left her car…
WHAT does it cost to be kind to others? We often think that being kind costs us something — whether it is time, money, connections or any of what we consider to be our personal resources becoming depleted. Being kind does not diminish us. On the contrary, it adds a certain glow to our persona….
Conclusion of 3 Parts (Continued from the previous week…) It is said that 1.3 million were in Auschwitz, of which over a million Jews either died of starvation, exhaustion, or shot directly for any arbitrary infraction. Most were herded like sheep and silenced by the gas chambers. There were 13 other death camps and starvation…
Part 2 of 3 (Continued from the previous week…) It has been 77 years since Auschwitz was liberated from Nazi Germany by the Russian Army. When the Russians arrived at the camp, they found over 600 corpses and several thousand prisoners still left in the camp. Days earlier, SS guards had rounded up and were…
Stories have the power and influence to touch the heart that a cut and dried essay or a report does not have. Somehow the lessons and insights we learn from stories have a longer shelf life. They stick. Along the way, I have met many whose stories seem like the stuff of fiction. Other stories…
Stories have the power and influence to touch the heart that a cut and dried essay or a report does not have. Somehow the lessons and insights we learn from stories have a longer shelf life. They stick. Along the way, I have met many whose stories seem like the stuff of fiction. Other stories…
Stories have the power and influence to touch the heart that a cut and dried essay or a report does not have. Somehow the lessons and insights we learn from stories have a longer shelf life. They stick. Along the way, I have met many whose stories seem like the stuff of fiction. Other stories…
Stories have the power and influence to touch the heart that a cut and dried essay or a report does not have. Somehow the lessons and insights we learn from stories have a longer shelf life. They stick. Along the way, I have met many whose stories seem like the stuff of fiction. Other stories…
“Will you marry me?” she asked him. Stories have the power and influence to touch the heart that a cut and dried essay or a report does not have. Somehow the lessons and insights we learn from stories have a longer shelf life. They stick. Along the way, I have met many whose stories seem…
