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)....

What’s the worst thing your parents could’ve said to you while you were growing up? A) “I’m so angry at you!!” (👈Said with the emphasis of two exclamation points.) B) “I’m just so… disappointed in you.” (👈The word ‘disappointed’ pronounced with the inflection of italics.) C) “Your father and I are going to have a...

What thought goes through your head when you arrive at a social event/ concert/ networking happy hour/ fundraiser/ baby shower/ spoken word poetry night/ pretty much any outing at all: A) “I’m going to savor this event and loiter linger as long as I can… I’ll probably be the last one here. It won’t be...

I’ve coined a phrase—and while it’s not as good as procrastibaking (baking when you should be doing a way more important thing OH LIKE WRITING YOUR MONDAY MORNING BLOG POST), it’s pretty good. Ready for it? Vicarious vitality: living vicariously through people who are living decidedly livelier lives than yours. Was that an audible wince I just...

Admit it: you have a list of things you like, and things you don’t like, thank you very much. “I love murder mysteries!” you might proclaim with confidence—with just as much surety as “don’t even let cilantro touch my plate.” You’ve been around the block by your age, and you know what makes you tick…...