I have an elderly friend who lately every time I see him is complaining about getting older. He doesn’t complain in the lighthearted way that people usually complain about getting older. He seems genuinely troubled by where he is and even more so by where he’s going.
He talks about being depressed about it and I feel I have nothing much to offer him as consolation. My most genuine response is that he should seriously consider – as we all should – whether the general patterns of his life is fulfilling to him or whether he needs to shake things up a little. Continue reading
Even though I know that full time jobs suck, I used to go to interviews and lie.
The transitions we’re aiming for can ultimately be summed up in one word, right? Happiness. We are trying to scratch an elusive itch. Contentment might be another word for it. Enjoyment of life or even Fun might be other ways to put it. The most important and reassuring element of aiming for a better future is that if we can dream it, we can reach it. In this blog I want to add one emphasis: If we have dreamed it, in some way we already have it within us. Maybe it just hasn’t reached the surface yet. 
You’re sitting in your evening traffic jam and the idea hits you! By time you get home and try explaining it, it’s gone. Mowing the lawn, same thing. Waking up from a dream, same thing. What had the power and impact as a fantastic, perhaps even life changing idea somehow loses it’s strength even after a few minutes. You try telling it to a friend, and it just fizzles. Where’d it go?
The cashier refuses to let you have it your way, avoiding your eyes she points to the clock and says: It’s after eleven and we have to stop serving it that way at eleven. Or some other ridiculous claim. She doesn’t love her job. She doesn’t think about better ways to serve. When she clocks out she is physically gone, but her mind and heart were never there in the first place.
Feel like taking a leap of faith? You’re watching a trapeze artist a hundred feet above you doing flips, catches, releases and all sorts of amazing feats. And you find yourself becoming overwhelmed with inspiration. As you study him you’re sure you actually can feel how he does it, your stomach sinking as he pulls himself up and summersaults in the air before catching the next trapeze that he has synchronized to meet him just as he dives at what was only a second before empty, deadly air.
The phone hasn’t rung with new business in days… or has it been weeks? The visits to your website are down. The few customers who come through the door seem to have nothing to offer you but complaints. 
The virtual storefront! Wow! What a concept! Who ever thought we’d see a day when having a internet address would make a business as legitimate as having an actual physical street address. And already there is a generation among us who have never known a world without a functioning internet. To them, the priority is already leaning toward an internet identity if a physical storefront is too expensive or even unnecessary. 
Latest Tweets