The Pleasures And Sorrows of Work – A Book Review

As you travel along your own particular path you sometimes find yourself a bit lonely for company. At best, you enjoy the camaraderie of the odd fellow traveller for a while before you must both again head off into the unknown. Few, it seems, share your language, and...

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I Have A Dream

Books and movies are transferrable waking dreams. And perhaps, as Jung believed dreams themselves are our individual way of tapping into a world of greater possibility. Perhaps, they are even examples of divine providence: a roadmap for our waking lives that will...

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Are You Being Robbed At Work?

A man walked out of the bank to find his friend standing there with a look of surprise on his face. “They've taken all my money!” he said. "All the cash from your paycheck?”?“All of it,” said the friend. They looked down the street where the fleet-footed thieves must...

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The Diet to End All Diets

The Wild Man has revealed something about my food intake recently. We have all heard about how what we put into our bodies, it's fuel, should be of good quality if we are expecting good results. I've noticed that the Wild Man is thin but with good muscle tone. He...

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Restoring Your Full Sphere of Energy

In his book Iron John, Robert Bly tells the story about the little boy accidentally rolls his golden ball into Iron John's cage. When he asks for Iron John to give it back to him, the Wild Man responds that he can only return it if the little boy opens the cage.  When...

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Land of Opportunity

I remember being distinctly underwhelmed about this latest job when I took it. I drove the long distance to the office park and thought to myself, "How ugly. How sterile. I would hate to work here."  I laughed as the front door to the building on the first and every...

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The Big Pay Off

About a year ago, just about when I was first forming the idea for ADayOn.com and had first conceived the swearing off of jobs, I was offered a job. And though a job wasn't what I was looking for at that time, I took it. I took it because it offered more money that I...

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Is This What It Means To Be Centered

I’ve noticed that when we follow a train of thought farther and farther out we begin to come around “full circle.” Like circumnavigating the globe, worlds of thought seem to be circular or maybe even spherical in form.  This seems to be one way of...

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Dogged

I was walking my German Shepherd down the street yesterday and as we moved along we received the usual barrage taunts and arguments from the neighborhood dogs. My dog sometimes took notice, sometimes seemed to ignore, sometimes sniffed and peed.  I, for the most part,...

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Making Peace With Todays Roadblocks

Seems I almost always get this intense feeling of dread whenever I have a meeting the following morning with my boss?  Why do I always have this feeling that I am responsible for the whole world and not simply my project. My project isn't that simple. I'm always sure...

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6 Rules of Work Life Improvisation

Most of the descriptions of art that I find satisfying include implicitly or explicitly some mention of improvisation. I love the liberated spirit, and Art (and truly living), by my definition, must break from rote expression or automatomism in order to conceive and...

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Hope and Change in the Obama Presidency

For the first time in my life I felt moved to donate to a political campaign. I gave a small donation to the Obama candidacy and have been on their email list throughout the campaign. But now, even though he’s won, I still receive their communications. It seems...

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Artist Looks For Something – Art Happens

I listened to a podcast called “Conversations With Modern Artists” featuring Martin Creed. On it, Creed speaks in a thick Scottish brogue sounding almost apologetic in his attempts to explain answers to questions that are asked. “I don’t know,...

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Loving Someone Whose Not A Day On

Frustrations crop up in any relationship. Times when it seems like you "get it" and your significant other simply doesn't.  Maybe your partner has never read a word of Emerson, Thoreau, Jung or Kerouac. Maybe they have no desire to get rid of the TV or eventually pay...

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Quote of the Day

The laboring man, even in this comparatively free country has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. Life's finer fruits cannot be plucked by him. He has no...

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Sunday Night Fever

I get most of my ideas for A Day On from itches that need to be scratched, but are difficult to reach. The kinds of nagging aches that, if you found a way to soothe you would be that much closer to solving the mysteries of Life. Tonight, a Sunday night, I feel a...

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The Curse of Workplace Success

Sometimes it happens. You know the scene in the romantic movies when there is every good reason for the heroine or hero to walk out that door into a world full of other possibilities, but then their romantic opposite takes the initiative... changes... does something...

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The Job As Albatross

In the Coleridge Poem, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, (or the Iron Maiden song by the same name), the sea bird that follows and brings good fortune upon a ship is shot and killed for sport by a young seaman. What follows is terrible misfortune, which can be dramatically...

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The Million-Dollar Question

Lawrence from Office Space responded in his own memorable way to the question. Everyone has encountered the "Million-Dollar Question." What would you do if you had a million dollars? Of course, a million dollars doesn't seem as infinite as it did when you were a...

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No Depression

Would it be so bad if we had another depression? It's one of those taboo utterances that will get you in trouble at a dinner party as everyone is inwardly fretting over their stock market losses and portfolios gone bad. I don't have much of a portfolio other than what...

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Teach The Children Well

Tonight I experienced the frustration of watching a child rush through a homework lesson haphazardly without care being taken for accuracy, and instead the focus being only on getting through with it. I felt myself becoming angry with my daughter as she scribbled down...

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Enough

Enough is a beautiful concept.  I see it as a crossroads, a place where so many issues come together and enjoy the harmony of each other's company before sadly being driven on by ambition.  Enough, believe it or not, is  a place where you can settle down and live your...

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