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
I got a dad who acted like a backhoe operator on Sunday mornings to scoop us up out of bed and carry us to the bathroom to brush our teeth.
I got a dad who, when he watched cartoons with us on the family room floor, laughed out loud so hard that he would buckle over with an elbow … Read more...
It feels good. For them, and for you.
You become more connected to others. Mom, tell me how you met dad.
You live longer.
You can do things you didn’t think you could before.
You are capable of surprising yourself, which, regardless of timing or magnitude, is always a gift.
Lov… Read more...
I hope I’m always the type of person who turns off the Hollywood drama ‘based on true events’ to pick up the imasciated chapbook of poetry and prose written by a self-published high school student.
One is a bacon-wrapped hot-dog of drama and conflict; the other i… Read more...
When I was 5, my mom made me wear corrective shoes.
It was a special brand: Markell Workboots. They had a thick white (glowing?) sole and bright yellow showelaces. They looked like something an old-time cobbler made. No one else had them. I tried to cover them with my pant legs as… Read more...
I feel like the villains are scheming to blow up the planet from their rocketship, and I’m trapped in a basement tied to a sewer pipe.
I feel like someone cut off my hands, and they’re laughing at me through the walls.
I feel like the bomb shelters were not dug deep eno… Read more...
I was moping around the house, half-sick and taking stock of all of the things I should have been doing but wasn’t.
Clean off the bookshelf
Leaky showerhead
Touch-up paint for the door trim
Laundry
“Can we read tonight, Daddy?”
Hazel’s to-do list is a mile long … Read more...
A lot of beer drinkers will never drink Bud Light again because the company aired a trans woman. Once. That was 2 years ago, and judging from the comments sections in a Fox News bit done on it last week, the vitriol toward Anheiseur Busch (or ABInBev as they now call themselves) … Read more...
I don’t get get. How can you smile in here?
Because smiling is better than frowning.
But we’re locked in this room all day and beaten and tortured at night. We’re fed the same rotten food every day. We are ridiculed and yelled at. We are forgotten.
This is all true… Read more...
Her church was the first to call.
“She’s forgetting things.”
It was sort of blamey, at least that’s how I took it — me, one of two sons, 22 hours away. Or two flights and a long shuttle ride, which has to be coordinated ahead of time.
The last time I we… Read more...
“Hey, just checking in. How you doing?”
Man.
So few words, so much impact.
So much love around you in an instant.
Whether you’re good or not so good, you feel seen, remembered, and held.
And if you haven’t gotten one of these sweet sweet checkins in a while, th… Read more...