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 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...
We tend to strive for the other side of our achievements.
A clean in-box
An empty desk
The celebration after the speech
The exhale after the test
But then, we get there, to the other side, and after the euphoria subsides, we tend to resent the emptiness and crave the clutter again.
In… Read more...
It doesn’t take talent to destroy things.
Only ego.
And a deaf ear to the screams of the architects and the residents.
Even the ugliest of buildings has some good bricks, some ingenuity worthy of replication.
Innovation comes from working above and beyond the thing before it.
No… Read more...
AI has made cheating almost irresistible for students: to be able to get a 10-page paper done in 30 seconds is certainly tempting. There are some subjects students just don’t care to learn; they just want to get that grade (B is fine), check the box, and move along. I had c… Read more...
I really hate this term.
I prefer a different phrase for something so inevitable that happens to all of us at the same point in our timelines.
Doesn’t it make sense that halfway through our lives we’re going to self-evaluate?
Just because we take the time to recognize th… Read more...
For the first time in 5 years, I didn’t write a blog post.
Nothing occurred to me. And when Sunday night rolled around, and I had nothing in the queue, I just sort of shrugged and wrapped myself in a blanket.
No real accomplishments to speak of. Not many thoughts. I’ve … 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...
Everyone loves Molly.
If you’ve met her, then you agree.
We can’t walk a block without some serendipitous meeting. Yesterday, we were in a HomeGoods parking lot 3 cities away, and we ran into someone cutting across the credit union drive-thru. She gets along with everyo… Read more...
I founded my company on optimism. It’s who I am.
But even the BrightSide gets dark now and then.
And when it does, I try my best to welcome the darkness. It’s coming whether you want it to or not. There’s much to discover in the darkness.
But it’s not a place to spend a … Read more...
Although I was hoping for it to happen all week, it sort of happened organically.
“Ow!” I heard Evaline say through the wall, which made me stop typing.
She came into my office.
“I stepped on a tack. Do you still have that cup of thumbtacks?”
I pointed to my c… Read more...