This week my spam folder has taken on the tone of a very disappointed guidance counselor. Every morning, nestled between offers for miracle collagen powder and a prince from somewhere needing my urgent banking assistance, I find an email with the subject line: “Failure Notice.” Just that. No […]
People talk a lot about networking. Expand your circle.Grow your circle.Build your circle. The assumption seems to be that the larger the circle, the better. But I have a small suspicion about circles. They are not all created equal. Some circles are power sources. And some circles are […]
Which animal would you compare yourself to and why? Someone recently asked me a question that sounded simple but turned out to be quietly existential. “What animal would you compare yourself to and why?” Now, this is the kind of question people answer very confidently. Someone immediately says […]
I have noticed something deeply suspicious about adult calendars. They are extremely full. There are meetings, deadlines, calls, errands and the mysterious category known as “follow-up.” From 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the calendar looks like a highly organized game of Tetris where responsibility always wins. But if […]
Every once in a while the news produces a story so magnificently strange that you have to pause and admire the human psyche in its natural habitat. This week’s specimen: Tommy Thompson. A 73-year-old deep-sea treasure hunter who discovered the wreck of the legendary SS Central America a […]
There’s a quote by James Baldwin that has been echoing in my head lately like a stubborn song lyric you can’t shake “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.” It feels like the quote of the moment. Maybe the quote of the decade. […]
March, in theory, is a hopeful month. Spring is coming, they say.Birds are preparing motivational speeches. Somewhere a crocus is bravely sticking its little purple head out of the ground like a tiny optimist. But in reality? March is the month of whiplash. On Monday it’s 70 degrees […]
I saw a quote on LinkedIn the other day that stopped me mid-scroll. “I can’t believe what you say because I see what you do.” Which is a polite, professional way of saying: Sir, the math is not mathing. And it struck me how profoundly true this feels […]
The other day I had a small, suspicious thought. What if some of us are a little bit addicted to sadness? Not the catastrophic kind.Not the kind that requires medical intervention and casseroles. I mean the specific, curated sadness many of us seem to carry around like a […]
Every morningthe birds begin their meetingbefore I do. They chirp with an enthusiasmthat feels slightly unnecessaryfor 6:07 a.m. Outside my windowthey are holding some sort of conferenceabout joy. I listen. But the strange thing isI knowthey are not singing to me. They are singing to a lifehappening somewhere […]