A few years back, when I was working longer and more stressful hours at the office, I would often come home to find my husband, John, had set out a plate of olives, cheese and crackers with a glass of wine for me. It was a kind way to welcome me home, as well as a smart move of self-preservation.…
It breaks my heart every time I hear someone just biding time until retirement — not only because it’s a waste of the here and now, but also because stories of people who die just as retirement arrives seem a bit too common. What if you suffer for decades in a job you hate, waiting for deferred happiness, but never…
We’ve just passed the halfway point of 2014 — how is the year going for you? Are you following through on your ambitions for the year?
For our new year’s card this year, we provided a range of verbs we felt showed actions of improving your life, including several pairs of actions: start and quit, commit and release, host and visit, save and give.
It’s nice to have a steady job that pays the bills, but many of us aspire to more. We want to do work that’s engaging, that feels worthwhile and rewarding. A recent Fast Company article included expert advice for a 28-year-old feeling bored by work. Leadership Coach Lolly Daskal and Psychologist Art Markman contributed to “ASK THE EXPERTS: HOW DO I STOP FEELING…
They say no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. But social media gives us more of a view of what’s happening in our friends’ lives, and sadly, I’ve gotten good at reading the signs of unraveling relationships. Facebook gives users a wide range of relationship status choices, including “separated” and “divorced,” but I’ve never seen a friend be that…
About the time I hit my goal of losing 10 pounds, our friend Lou Rosenfeld posted on Facebook in March that he’d lost weight and trimmed his waistline. I found the timing interesting — it’s tempting to scarf heavy casseroles and skip exercise during a bitter winter like we had this year — and I was struck that we’d both taken…
My fabulous British journalist friend Jane Mulkerrins travels the globe interviewing celebrities (Kevin Kline, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton, Tilda Swinton, Victoria’s Secret models … it goes on and on) but that’s not all she does. She recently interviewed Esther Perel, a couples therapist in New York. The headline on Jane’s article in the Telegraph tells you this is going to be good reading:…
What do you think is the meaning of life? Recent research shows that people who have a sense of purpose live longer — so if you figure out why you’re here, you might even have longer to pursue that purpose. A Huffington Post piece with the headline, Sense Of Purpose Adds Years To Your Life, Study Finds, says in part: Researchers…
It’s not just what you do, but where you do it — and the people with whom you do it — that determines how you feel about your work. A recent column in the New York Times with the provocative headline Why You Hate Work is not surprisingly the Times’ most emailed article. In it, Tony Schwartz and Christine Porath of consulting firm The…
This isn’t the blog post I expected to write today — I have a few topics I’ve been meaning to get to, including taking better care of my health and another take on doing what you love. But I couldn’t look away from the powerful #YesAllWomen conversation on Twitter this weekend. Yet another act of mass violence in California, this time…
My husband, John, and I celebrated our 14-year wedding anniversary this week, which had us reflecting on our gratitude for our happy marriage and what we think we’ve learned since we first said, “I do.” Just a few days before our anniversary, Leo Babauta included the following tips in his email newsletter, Zen Habits. I thought it was perfect timing, better…
Happiness is a subject I frequently blog about — specifically, that it’s not just a virus you catch or something that happens to you, but like love or fulfillment, it’s something you consciously cultivate. So of course I loved this column by Jacob Sokol on Huffington Post headlined 12 Things Happy People Do Differently — And Why I Started Doing Them.…
My husband and I have thrown dinner parties for years, but I always thought of them as big social occasions — a reason to haul out John’s mom’s silver, to set a proper table with fresh flowers and present a multi-course sit-down meal. We started hosting weekday spaghetti suppers late last year, inspired by our friend Pableaux’s weekly red beans…
I love birthdays — I think of them as my own personal New Year’s Day, reflecting on where I’ve been in my last year and how I can make my next year better. And my birthday always falls during Lent, which is a Christian season of reflection leading up to Easter. Though many people simplify Lent to giving something up,…
Which sounds more like your reality? That’s the way we’ve always done it Let’s think outside the box A recent Slate article headlined, “Inside the Box: People don’t actually like creativity,” rang true for me. One of the mantras I heard in business school, and again in management workshops, is that most people don’t like change. And creativity and change go…
In the blocks around our Brooklyn apartment, there are several check-cashing places, which seem foreign to me. Why would you pay to cash a check when there are dozens of banks in the neighborhood? But many poor families don’t use banks, whether that’s because they can’t afford the fees or don’t trust them or live a cash-based life. That leads to…
Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, this past week predictably brought huge crowds to my local YMCA. Every cardiovascular machine was full, classes were packed, the hallways bustled. Also predictably, the people who were working out in November and December grumble about the New Year’s resolution throngs. For instance, a friend funnier than I am wrote on Facebook: Dear people…
We’re a little more than a week in — have you already abandoned your optimistic New Year’s resolutions? One of my favorite blogs, Zen Habits, recently had a post that spoke to the reasons we struggle to make change, even changes we might really want or need. The Child That Holds Us Back By Leo Babauta It took me a…
