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
Don’t judge me!
Sorry. Can’t help it.
We’re designed to judge each other; it’s for our safety and survival.
Our brains make rapid-fire decisions about what we see based on past experience, learned and lived. We tell ourselves (in a split second), we’re … Read more...
Entitlement elbows Kindness right out of the room.
When someone is entitled (e.g. “This is mine for the taking”), they eliminate the possibility of being assisted.
People around them get the message and put their hands down. They may cheer for the entitled person, but t… Read more...
We’re often one question away from peace.
No matter how serious or stressful the situation may feel, if we can figure out the right question to ask (and answer), our suffering will begin to lessen
I ask questions all day long. In some ways I feel like a safe cracker with his … Read more...
One of the great joys in life is being surprised by a loved one.
I don’t mean like a surprise party. I mean being surprised by learning something new about them, something that didn’t fit your idea of who they are.
Like when you find out about your partner had a childho… 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...
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...
I sensed the clerk at the grocery store wasn’t much up for talking, so I grabbed some bags and started bagging.
Beep beep.
Bag bag.
We got into a rhythm like two strangers picking up instruments on the corner.
No words.
Beep Beep.
Bag bag.
His coworker came by, and I was given the… Read more...
Another shooting, this time at a university.
The killer is still at large. My daughter, 16, usually the pragmatic one, surprised me with her response to the news coverage.
“How sad your life must be to kill a buncha people.”
This made me think about something I learned i… Read more...
Scarcity, such a beloved virtue, creates the need for Community.
When we look to our neighbors for the things we don’t have, we step outside of our walled worlds and open our hands. So much is possible between two people with open hands! It’s through these small gestur… Read more...