Are you getting everything you can out of this life?
An insightful, feel-good blog about work, life, and the elusive balance between the two, by career counselor, award-winning resume writer, and existential adventurer, Cliff Flamer
Our public school system shut down for a week and a half so teachers could strike for a living wage and continue living in the city where they teach.
They fought for a lot of other amazing things too, selfless things, like making sure the families in the district have a say in wha… Read more...
What else can you call it?
Hazel’s been lucky enough to have after-school care by Temescal Lake, a modest lake with a beach and trees all around. Her child care program meets in a raised meadow that overlooks the lake.
It’s right next to a freeway, but you can’t s… Read more...
Are we innately driven to be kind? Or do we have to work at it?
Is kindness linked to some greater purpose or is it just another goal.
Why am I so obsessed with it?
Where did it come from?
My parents are certainly kind. My mom was a nurse, not just in profession but in her heart. She… Read more...
My daughter calls it “Talking about the world.”
Daddy, can we talk about the world?
This means she wants me to pick something she doesn’t know about and explain it to her. And she doesn’t want kid things. She wants adult things. It started when I needed to e… Read more...
My dad is black and I’m mixed race but I look white, which, I’ve come to realize, means I’m not really black. If you’re a mix of things and wondering what you are, just look at the way the world holds you…
(If that’s too obtuse, think of the cos… Read more...
I arrived to pick up my daughter at after-school-care at 6 on the dot, which means Hazel was the last kid left. She was cleaning off the tables with the 3 teachers. It was a peaceful scene, a real contradiction to my own hurried state.
The program coordinator stopped her sponging … Read more...
I’ve always struggled with telling my kids about Santa Claus. I have to look away when I answer their questions, and I try to layer in at least a shred of truth.
I don’t know how he does it. I guess it’s magic.
I’m not thrilled about this.
It’s the only… Read more...
I listened to a 15-minute podcast yesterday about two men hugging in a hallway.
They’d both lost their moms.
One was a young man, a high school student who had shut himself down in every way. The other was a football coach who “didn’t normally do that sort of thin… Read more...
I’ve been obsessing about digital storage.
Up late on review sites trying to find the best backup drive.
All my precious files from computers, from phones: images, photos, MP3’s, Word documents, PDFs… but really, memories, ideas, accomplishments… love.
My fil… Read more...
As adults with full lives, this often becomes our mantra:
I wish I had more time in the day.
We carry the belief that we need more time. We work hard with the hope that we’ll free ourselves by day’s end and capture that elusive extra time we know is out there somewhere.… Read more...