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
Every morning, blanketed in the black before sunrise, I walk into my office, and I’m faced with the same decision:
Do I start digging into my work pile and get a jump on my to-do’s,
OR
Do I stop and do something that seems both self-indulgent and impractical? In other wo… Read more...
We should all pause and smile when someone mentions a loved one that’s passed away.
In that moment, that loved one is alive again, as if they’ve stepped into the room with their signature style and voice, that smirk they always have, the particular cadence of their wor… Read more...
Sometimes, gratitude isn’t so easy to come by.
If you’re having trouble finding it, here’s some advice: take a crappy vacation.
You don’t have to actually go anywhere; just plan it. Plan it in your head.
Where are you staying?
Are you inside or outside?
What ca… Read more...
I gain empathy for a person immediately after I get to know them. We all do. That’s how it works.
But why wait until then?
I went to a Latin Jazz/Funk show because I felt the need to move around after a particularly heavy week. We got there early to beat the crowd and get a g… Read more...
I was hard at work prepping for a school fundraiser at my house.
I had just finished calibrating the stereo and microphones. I still needed to set up the auxiliary A/V system (just in case), make blackberry rosemary syrup for the cocktails, trim back the ivy on the stoop, vacuum t… Read more...
My daughter gave me a homework assignment before she fluttered off to Santa Cruz for a Girl Scout sleepover:
“I need to catch a fly for Biotech class.”
Easy enough.
Flies seem to find their way into our sunroom all the time. If one didn’t end lifeless on the window… Read more...
Even as a child,
I’d leave behind the chaos of the monkey bars at recess
and go lay down in the shaded dark green grass by an abandoned remnant of playground equipment: a lone pole with a chain attached at the top.
And I’d listen to the sound of the chain clanging into t… Read more...
I love my car.
Excessively so.
I wash it by hand. I never park under trees or power lines. I try not to take it out in the rain.
I talk to it. “Good to see you… Sorry about the rain.”
So when I came out of Rockin’ Jump Trampoline World and saw that my driver&#… Read more...
One thing you can never overdo is love.
“Stop loving me so much!” — said no one ever.
Iterating and reiterating love is always welcome.
Even better than that? Finding a new way to love someone, or a new thing to love about them. Or (oh yes!) a new thing to love abo… Read more...
I had a dream where I was back in college, with all the knowledge and memories of a middle-aged man but surrounded by people trying to discover themselves.
I saw a friend and walked alongside her, trying not to stare. We didn’t actually spend much time together in college; i… Read more...