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
Old people tend to tell young people they’re too idealistic.
And young people tend to disregard their elders as burned out.
There’s some truth here.
Old people (and I include myself in this wisdom-rich population) are, indeed, pretty burned out. How can we not be?
Life i… Read more...
I’ve always felt that someone is watching me, particularly in times of great decisions, not necessarily life decisions, just those little moments of personal risk when the ego is worried about its edges.
Jumping off a cliff
Dancing at a wedding
Playing on a playground
Speaking … Read more...
You’ve been diving in the same place for a while now.
With time, you’ve collected the prettiest of all the rocks. You keep them underwater because you don’t like how they look above the surface.
Your rock pile.
Each day, when you submerge, you notice (and have come… Read more...
Bukowski, one of the most widely read poets in the world, a craftsman of language, left behind only two words on his tombstone: “Don’t try.”
I got this same advice from my creative writing teacher (who has also passed): “Stop trying so hard, Cliff!”
I … Read more...
I’m the hero of my dreams.
I’m talking about anxiety dreams, the ones we all have and talk about in the waking world. You know the ones…
The naked-in-public dream: I beat that one by giving up the search for clothes and just being naked. Fuck it. I even started to… Read more...
My daughter is picking her high school – 2 good options – and she’s tormented by it.
We all are.
I’ve made a career out of helping people make decisions. I know the exercises, I have the tactics, the methods, the rubrics.
That doesn’t make the actual de… Read more...
One of my most vivid young adult memories is with my high school girlfriend. We were 17, on the verge of graduating, each of our colleges already determined.
My mom was home and we wanted to get away but it was raining outside. With some arm-tugging, my girlfriend convinced me we … Read more...
Mysteries drive us… to peace and to madness.
Sometimes, we can never truly know the source of our pain.
Losing someone, falling out of love, getting laid off, being ignored. These things hurt us deeply. They stab at us in the most tender of places, and the pain persists becau… Read more...
A friend of mine said it and we both became small:
We are a species.
Yes, like a Songbird or a grove of great Oaks.
Homo Sapiens:
Upright, even-toothed descendants of the other species that didn’t make it, one of the most pervasive, diverse, and dominant species in existence, o… Read more...
It is difficult to make decisions when you’re holding up the world with both hands, and that’s often how we feel – with our jobs and our families – like we, alone, are holding everything together.
That’s why we let it go on for too long. Because it… Read more...