Dear son, There are things that I want to tell you, that I need to tell you, but I don’t know when, or how. So I will tell you them here. These are the lessons of an old soul in a man-child’s body, and I want you to understand that these aren’t written in stone.……
Category: Play the Long Game
Youlogy
When you don’t know where to start, sometimes it’s good to go to the end and work backwards. Some find it a good exercise to write their own eulogy, not as a morbid experiment, but to account for and summarize a life’s essence in the span of a page or two. A highlight reel, of……
Addition By Addition
So much changes in five years. For reasons beyond but including the pandemic, I have intentionally condensed my universe to my family. A family since grown in these five years. A large part of why I started writing was to show what I know. And I took five years off to learn more. And to……
Five Years Ago
I wrote a blog. Five years ago. Twenty years ago, too. And every so often in between. I would write. But five years ago, I stopped. For five years. After a solid three years of writing. I thought it was all lost and gone forever, but the thing is, I had a backup. I had……
The Tree Called Mom
When you grow up in Manhattan in the 80s, you read a lot of Shel Silverstein. I don’t know if that’s still the case, but it was when I was a kid. My favorite book of his, though, I don’t recall reading as a child. I don’t recall reading it at all, except to write……
Low Tech Kindness
There’s a big problem that we need to talk about. About how we’re more connected and “social” than ever before, how the world is now smaller, flatter, more pizza pie than tilted marble. But we’re still lonely, maybe even more depressed. How can this be? Be A Pal I recently heard a story about a……
Grain of Salt, or How to Take Your Criticism
Criticism is a grain of salt. So take it with it. Much like our delicious sodium friend, it can enhance our experience or it can ruin it. If you stand up, stand out, and stand for something, criticism is a wonderful gauge to measure how you are doing. It can actually be (if not feel like)……
Overdrive
I’m furrowed. Because I want to feign seriousness. Solemnity. It’s the face of a comedian trying not to rush through to the zinger. I wear it well. I’m with my family. Wife and son. We’re driving, on one of our road trips that define our marriage and my son’s childhood, save a brief six month……
Personal Magnetism
I believe in personal magnetism. In that “know it when you see it” quality of a person to magnetically charge another individual, group, or even an entire world. To light them up with electricity. To give them goosebumps. To make them shine. I believe in that. Because I’ve seen it. We all have. Even if……
Life By A Thousand Cuts
Why is it, when you swing with all your might, with everything you’ve got, with 100% strength, you end up hitting a little dribbler or missing the ball entirely? It’s because, in my experience, when you’re swinging from your heels, you’re not using good technique. You’re trading skill for sizzle, humility for the highlight reel.……