Should we talk about you and your heyday? Those years or activities you look back on with fondness or pride? Those years that are (*insert audible wince*) . . . behind you? In workshops I often ask participants to play the Time Machine game with me, where I ask them to transport themselves back to...

Most research papers are soul-stabbingly boring, so when I came across one called, “How Fast Does the Grim Reaper Walk*,” I perked up. I love that guy! Grim’s motives are sinister, to be sure, but I’ve never met a more effective guru to crack the motivational whip of GETTING ON WITH THE BUSINESS OF LIVING...

There is such a thing as an existential vacuum, and if you’re like most people, you’re already feeling nervous that you might be getting sucked into one. Our fine friend Viktor Frankl (yes, the psychologist who wrote the exquisite Man’s Search for Meaning) coined the phrase, and if that sounds too soul-sucking for you, how...

Does the idea of completing a “life significance” scale sound . . . significantly intimidating? A life satisfaction scale—no problem! A life significance scale? Many of us just swallowed hard and wiped beads of sweat off our temples. Will the scale involve a panel of white-coated experts, meticulously assessing the lives we’ve been living, solemnly...

Today we’re going to stir two fabulous things together into a cocktail: Happiness A game (assuming you consider a quiz a game) I can’t think right now of what this delicious elixir should be called, but I’m open to suggestions, so if your idea isn’t hideous, reach out and I’ll give you credit. Back to...

“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are.” —Miguel Angel Ruiz I have a tendency to let fear win the tug of war in my life, so much so that I created an Anti Chicken-Shit...

I know I’m not the only one. You do it, too, right? You carefully craft that last bite of your dinner to be the best one—the one that has the crispy bit of skin, the right dollop of sauce, the right amount of potato. It’s an artform, really. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the...

I’ve been known to go on and on about living a “squander-free life”; it’s kind of what Four Thousand Mondays is built on, this notion of not wasting our precious 4,000 Mondays, of not getting to the end of it all and thinking, “I really half-assed that one life of mine.” (For the record: we...

Welcome back you little glutton for punishment, you! We’re here to shine an unflattering spotlight on the ways you are robbing yourself of aliveness/ unwittingly killing yourself/ detonating your potential to live with guts and gusto. This stuff ain’t for the squeamish . . . but it’s “required reading” for those of us who want...

Welcome back for another life-jolting conversation about things that might need killing off in your life (before they end up killing you first). This is going to be so much fun! As discussed in Part One of this NEVERENDING series, there really isn’t a shortage of ways we snuff the life out of our precious...

We spend a lot of time here talking about your inevitable demise—because as the Grim Reaper’s chief cheerleader, it’s my mission to remind us, ad nauseam, that we might want to live before we die. (There won’t be a well-choreographed cheerleading routine because I am the least coordinated person you’d ever have the horror of...

Which would you rather? A) Spend time with your job-hating partner B) Slam your finger in the car door C) Die from internal bleeding after slamming your finger in the car door Most people choose C. Some choose B (there’s an optimist in every crowd!). No sane person chooses A because NO ONE IN THEIR...