Are you getting everything you can out of this life?
A self-less, feel-good blog about love, life, and work by career coach and existential adventurer, Cliff Flamer
When you’re feeling positive, it can seem like the world is more negative. You notice all the negative things people say, about themselves and about each other.
People don’t mean to be mean; it’s usually just a habit, conditioned by the generally accepted grievan… Read more...
Early evening yesterday, after looking at a fallen tree in the yard and a deflated basketball, I snapped at my daughter. A loud snap, from the stomach and lungs.
Crap.
I was having such a good day, perfect marks for the peaceful dad – and then BOOM! This happens. There goes m… Read more...
My grad school professor, in describing my laid-back ambition said it was as if a fireball were blazing down the street and there I am jogging gingerly after it, big dopey smile on my face, looking around at the sidelines.
I think of this jogging metaphor often.
It’s widely b… Read more...
I sing songs to my daughter as part of her nighttime ritual.
My wife does it too.
She sings show tunes.
I sing rock ballads and alternative – Aerosmith, Poison, Radiohead.
I don’t get the lyrics right but she doesn’t seem to mind. The music quiets her down more than… Read more...
Nobody likes an elevator pitch.
It doesn’t reveal you. It sells you, or, rather, someone like you.
So don’t do it. Don’t rifle out a prepared speech full of buzzwords nobody uses in real life. You won’t be remembered. Your business card will be one of many… Read more...
A global pandemic is as big as it gets.
Bigger than a tectonic shift (an earthquake only affects a city or two).
Bigger than landing on the moon. (Only a few competing nations care about that.) Bigger than a political scandal, a stock market crash, and the fall of an empire.
The who… Read more...
Mysteries drive us… to peace and to madness.
Sometimes, we can never truly know the source of our pain.
Losing someone, falling out of love, getting laid off, being ignored. These things hurt us deeply. They stab at us in the most tender of places, and the pain persists becau… Read more...
A friend of mine said it and we both became small:
We are a species.
Yes, like a Songbird or a grove of great Oaks.
Homo Sapiens:
Upright, even-toothed descendants of the other species that didn’t make it, one of the most pervasive, diverse, and dominant species in existence, o… Read more...
We all have voices in our heads. I’ve identified 3 that hang out there the most.
The Hip Hop Artist
The loudest of them all is a potty-mouthed rapper. Irreverent, unyielding, and always talking in slang, the Hip Hop Artist cuts to the chase, cuts to the bone with his words. H… Read more...
I stole candy from little kids on Halloween.
This is one of my worst moments.
Those who know me, those who have a collection of great Cliff moments, will forgive me. They will cover this faded fragment with the glitter of my good-doings.
Those who don’t know me, well, they hav… Read more...