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
Whatever side you’re on, we all can agree on one thing: we’re splitting apart in the middle. And nothing can survive that’s torn through the center.
Yet, somehow, this knowledge is not enough for us to make it stop.
Quite the opposite actually. We’re aggress… Read more...
The choices we make for our kids really show, and test, our values.
My teen is in a prestigious multi-year STEM internship. We literally danced when she got in.
But, she hasn’t been learning anything for a year. She’s bored and says everyone is bored. We checked it out … Read more...
When we’re going from point A to point B, our instinct is to plug into a podcast. It’s become our thing.
I guess we feel less like we’re wasting time if we have information flowing into our heads, especially when we’re doing something mundane, like cleaning… Read more...
There’s that trope that teens rebel.
As if, they do it for no reason, like they actually want to make both of us miserable.
It’s not like that.
They’re the new ones.
We, as the adults, are slowing down, partially because we want to and partially because we have to.… Read more...
The Art of Chill evolves over time. It’s a craft I’ve been practicing since birth.
In youth, it’s about taming your anxiety about the future, being okay with not knowing what lies ahead, taking your hits gracefully. It’s remaining poised and relaxed while … Read more...
Since roller coasters aren’t an option anymore due to my proclivity for dizziness (sob), I went to the water park with my daughter, instead.
We hit the Big Kahuna, The Typhoon Lagoon, and the wave pool.
But it was 70 degrees, not nearly warm enough for a water park. Even a la… Read more...
My peeling deck is a trophy.
The damp garage, the unmanicured garden, the semi-clogged drain, my frayed hoodie.
Though ugly and inconvenient,
these things
are proof
that my focus is in the right place.
I’ve been going through old papers. My mom saved everything, especially the art stuff: Half finished pictures, 3 words on an otherwise blank page, an excessively pasty attempt at a pop-up book…
I found a gem.
Apparently, when I was in second grade I wrote my first poem.… Read more...
I’m a pretty calm dude. I’ve always been this way, but it’s a talent I become more and more proud of as and enter middle age.
Life is hard. Adults have more responsibilities than time, more aspirations than years on a calendar. There’s always a good reason … Read more...
A creative writing professor once told me, “If you’re bored with one of your characters, try giving ’em a beard.” It became a thing. When something was off in one of our stories, he’d slam the paper down and yell out “Give ’em a beard!… Read more...