Are you getting everything you can out of this life?
An insightful, feel-good blog about work, life, and the elusive balance between the two, by career counselor, award-winning resume writer, and existential adventurer, Cliff Flamer
When I was in high school I got my heart broken and I listened to Every Rose Has Its Thorn ad nausum for 3 days straight.
It was a dark time. Literally. I covered my walls in black satin and traded in soft white light bulbs for red floodlights. Total fire hazard, but who really ca… Read more...
It took a while, but it came.
I thought I was immune, but no one is.
There is a tree with thick, knuckly roots driving into the soft green earth. Its branches do all sorts of interesting things: hold nests and tire swings, block the hot sun, reach into other trees, click against on… Read more...
We talk big when we’re trying to convince someone of something. Big words, long sentences. Multiple paragraphs.
The other day, I was talking with a friend of a friend about something important — national politics or smog or something. We were both taking turns making o… Read more...
Next to death and sex, work is the world’s best-kept secret.
We don’t talk about our work, not in any deep and thorough way, at least. Yet work makes up the majority of our lives, 8 out of 16 waking hours, 5 out of 7 days.
What would happen if we changed that? If we le… Read more...
When the ones after us come along and regard what we’ve created, it will be almost mythical, indeed legendary, the story we tell them.
We will say we were there. And they will know from the look in our eyes and the tiredness in our throats that we’re telling the truth.… Read more...
A man looked out his window and saw a woman in her yard, pulling her house apart. He noticed her doing this every day, sometimes just a single brick took all afternoon. She was using a spoon.
He couldn’t stay away for very long.
“Why are you destroying your house?”… Read more...
I had a dream where I got robbed.
It was a clever plan. I was the only one home and they lured me into the driveway, then one of them went into the house and took stuff. It seemed to happen so quickly.
They left with only my food – frozen bags of things, some fruit, one of t… Read more...
I see you:
Standing there with the sign
Walking for miles
Shouting ’til you’re hoarse
Reading books
Watching documentaries
Calling people out
Giving yourself up
Wondering, constantly wondering, what more can I do?
You’ve acquired a new anxie… Read more...
Riots are not the problem.
In Family Therapy, the person who acts out — the cheating husband, the depressed wife, the son who threw a brick through the neighbor’s car window — this person is not to be vilified, not to be punished. Quite the opposite, actually.
If … Read more...
[Certain Voices Aren’t Being Heard. Here’s one of them. Please listen.]
I hear on the news that a cop station went up in flames and I’m like yeah. Then I feel bad about cheering for that shit, but if you’re cheering at all right now, no matter what side you… Read more...