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
To me, from a car window:
Hey, is that a poodle?
I had just got back from the lake. It was 6pm, dark, I had on my mask and my headphones, listening to a podcast of my favorite French marriage counselor.
Like most people on walks during a pandemic, I was deep into my internal world. … Read more...
It was our mom’s idea:
to lug the sofa-bed mattress out of the living room, through the kitchen, and out onto the back porch.
The porch was small (before the renovation), so the edges of the mattress curled up against the railing and house, rolling me and my brother to the c… Read more...
Boat trips, hotel suites, and private beaches are nice but it’s moments like these that make my heart full and put me at ease.
ACT 1:
[Husband and wife in kitchen, standing around table.]
I guess we could make the salmon.
Yeah, it’s gonna go bad.
[Man pulls out salmon. Put… Read more...
There are remnants of Halloween around the house.
White crumbly dust on the floor from sawing styrofoam balls in half with a hacksaw.
Orphaned swatches of tape hanging off the edge of the sill
Dresses laid over chairs in the corner
Hardening paintbrushes on the back of the sink
At lea… Read more...
Sometimes I wonder how I can possibly be well-equipped enough to guide people in finding meaning in their lives and careers when I can’t even remember which one of my laundry baskets is socks&underwear and which one is pants&shirts. I still can’t remember whic… Read more...
When writing fiction, I’ve always taken real people in my life and had them do amazing things, things maybe they’re not capable of but wish they were. I make them into heroes. I place them in impossible situations and give them a way out.
I’ve realized I do the … Read more...
I always hope (and believe!) that things are more adventurous than they are, like I’m always on some great big treasure hunt, the greatest mystery of all time.
Clues are everywhere.
Pitfalls can’t stop me.
Something great lies ahead.
This is not just a story I tell myself… Read more...
I don’t give discounts but I almost always have a pro-bono project on hand.
There are plenty of people down on their luck or just struggling with where to go and how to get there.
This time.
How lucky I am to have a skill that can make that all go away.
30 minutes on the phone … Read more...
I like to take notes in a blank sketchbook. I’ve always hated lines and boxes, and writing by hand is more fluid… (see what I did there?).
My notes are thought fragments, shorthand, just enough to remind me what I was thinking.
And in this process, I’ve developed… Read more...
Weather’s getting nicer.
I need some new lounge chairs.
The ones I got are wobbly. 10 years old.
Come to think of it
maybe I can just tighten a few screws
instead of buying a whole new thing.
Pull ’em out of the weeds.
A few more screws in different places.
A few minutes on … Read more...