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
My grad school professor, in describing my laid-back ambition said it was as if a fireball were blazing down the street and there I am jogging gingerly after it, big dopey smile on my face, looking around at the sidelines.
I think of this jogging metaphor often.
It’s widely b… 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...
You put it on because it felt good at the time: that giant velvet cape with the impenetrable, high-grade nylon on the outside. It’s comforting. It protects.
But when you walk around the corner — usually the same corner — where the sun drops down and the wind kick… Read more...
We get overwhelmed, not because we don’t know what to do, but because we have recently learned exactly what we need to do and we can’t yet see the best way to do it.
We feel the weight, the sharp edges cutting into us, and it interrupts our decision-making.
So we don&#… Read more...
The real myth about the Fountain of Youth is that it is NOT a fountain.
It is a river.
The secret to vitality couldn’t possibly exist in still waters. It’s not something you can damn up and keep for yourself.
No, it’s stronger than that. It’s wild. It has a c… Read more...
My daughter twisted her ankle walking up our steps. She’s 13 which means the agony of it shone on her face but no tears were allowed to come out.
I know her well. I could see the tears start to come and then I watched as she swallowed them up and reverted to other things … Read more...
Accomplishments are food for us humans.
That’s why we cheer out loud when a baby walks or when our friend crosses the finish line. It’s why we pass around videos of special needs adults beating their best time on a treadmill.
We do it for them but we also do it for us. … Read more...
All the light in the world and it’s never enough.
The sun, as generous as it is, must also cast shadows as long as there are things to illuminate.
Here’s the problem: sometimes we feel the coolness of the shadows more often than the heat of the sun. Not by choice, of co… Read more...
We’re all in need of the same thing:
Acceptance.
In love, at work, with family, with friends, in the presence of God. We’re hoping our jagged little pieces will make sense to someone else, that they’ll fit into something important and prove our life’s work w… Read more...