Standing in the offices of an impossibly cool Chicago interior design firm, about six years ago (back when we used to do hideous things like go to people’s offices to meet in person—remember those dumb days?), I stumbled across these words tacked up on my client Aimee’s wall: “All I Ever Wanted Was Everything.” The...

I haven’t been liking myself too much lately, and I think you might already know that. I’ve alluded to this Disdain for Self in other posts, on Instagram, ad nauseum to The Husband, again to The Husband, to friends, to The Husband again (how am I still married?), to my dental hygienist, to anyone who...

Here is a real snippet from a conversation I had with my new friend Marjorie the other day (and although I am prone to embellishment, this is kind of a word-for-word situation): "As my car was spinning out of control, I said to myself, today is a good day to die." (*Insert record scratch sound*)...

Anybody here like things to be under control? Like to be seen as “on top of things”? Like things to go predictably as planned? Of course you prefer control—and if you don’t, you’re quite possibly an un-housebroken puppy peeing all over the couch: wildly careening out of control (but still cute while squatting—points for that)....

The Trobriand people, living on an archipelago far off the toasty east coast of Papua New Guinea, are highly attuned to bullshit. I assume this because they have a word—native to their spoken language of Kilivila—that describes the things that are known to be true, but definitely not spoken about. So I guess what they...

Life! Sometimes it’s an indefatigable hoot… what with its curve balls and ups n' downs and strokes of bad luck and “resilience testers” and all sorts of other passive-aggressive ways to assert that LIFE CAN BE A CACOPHONY OF UNRELENTING CALAMITY—sometimes of the three-ring-circus kind, and others of the all-hell-broken-loose sort. But it’s what we...

Life—in addition to being fleetingly terminal (HAD TO TOSS THAT IN THERE, YOU SWEET LITTLE TICKING TIME BOMB, YOU)—is remarkably responsive to tweaks and hacks and rejiggerations. Thank goodness. Sometimes the difference between an average/ squanderous/ ho-hum existence and a life that feels decidedly alive/ full of vitality/ like “things are getting lived around here...

Have you ever reached a juicy goal and then robbed yourself of 93.6% of the joy by moving the goal posts? So that your originally-agreed-upon-with-yourself goal wasn’t actually achieved—because now you’ve got to do a little bit (or a lot a bit) more? And then at that point you’ll for sure be happy… unless you...

Once of my recent preoccupations (along with Palomas and Trader Joe’s taco cheese) are the two eaglets that recently hatched in Big Bear Lake, California. (Yes—Sunny and Gizmo! You’ve been watching them on the 24-hour live video feed positioned on their nest, too? Animal voyeurism all day [and night] … it gets in the way...

Please know that this is not an article about tying a pretty bow around a fresh, steaming bag of doggy poo… about putting a silver lining around a colostomy bag… about appreciating the future benefits of currently crappy hardships. No, sometimes we want to wallow in the full-on shitmanship of a full-on shitty situation, and...

Need a little inspiration out there, Slugger? I’ve got you. Pardon me—you’ve got you! I assembled a dozen of YOUR rousing examples of aliveness over the last week or so… and oh, how we love to hear about other people’s joy! (Except when we love to hear about other people’s joy getting stampeded… stay tuned...

'Tis the season for students to graduate and wonder what they're going to do with the rest of their limited Mondays on the planet! I decided to ask my business partner—the Grim Reaper—for his “words of wisdom” for the graduating Master of Applied Positive Psychology class at the University of Pennsylvania (i.e., my alma mater)....