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
The world moves so quickly.
Prices and temperatures rise, stores change hands, technology reinvents, products cycle out, hip people become unhip, language evolves…
And all of us chasing after these things, trying to stay on top of it all, to be in the know.
I get overwhelmed a… Read more...
We bought a ridiculously huge Slip N Slide.
Technically, it’s not even a Slip N Slide. It’s a commercial grade, 40-foot long inflatable blue water slide with 7-foot tall inflated rings that spray water down on you as you slide through. It takes up our whole yard.
(Fortu… Read more...
The Art of Chill evolves over time. It’s a craft I’ve been practicing since birth.
In youth, it’s about taming your anxiety about the future, being okay with not knowing what lies ahead, taking your hits gracefully. It’s remaining poised and relaxed while … Read more...
My mom is starting to lose her memory.
Sometimes there are sweet moments, like how she reveres a sunset from her balcony while we drink Budweiser tall-boys.
And then there are the hard moments, like when I watch her forget where she is while walking down the street, when she messe… Read more...
Since roller coasters aren’t an option anymore due to my proclivity for dizziness (sob), I went to the water park with my daughter, instead.
We hit the Big Kahuna, The Typhoon Lagoon, and the wave pool.
But it was 70 degrees, not nearly warm enough for a water park. Even a la… Read more...
If I hadn’t stopped scrolling, I wouldn’t have started petting Ziggy.
If I hadn’t pet Ziggy, he never would have put his head in my lap and looked at me with those eyes to take him for a walk.
If I hadn’t gone for a walk, I would not have run into the Italia… Read more...
I agreed to play 30 consecutive games of Castle Mania with Hazel, or “The Troll Game” as we call it. (She had advocated for 50 games but I talked her down.)
Castle Mania is a simple but surprisingly suspenseful card game where you team up with each other to prevent a p… Read more...
I had been running around all morning figuring out how to FedEx my suit overnight so I’d have it in time.
When I opened the door to the room, there he was, laying on a single bed, on his side, knees bent, hands flat together, snugly tucked under his cheek. He lay there grinn… Read more...
Epiphanies can be deceiving.
Once we figure out the way – Eureka! I’ve found it! – we tend to disregard all other paths. It feels good for a while but, in the fog of euphoria, we stop looking around. Holding tightly to our compass, we become crotchety.
Simply by t… Read more...
I have a teenage daughter who loves everything about the human body so I get to relearn all the facts I forgot in high school.
Everyone knows that breathing helps you calm down but I think we forget what’s actually happening on the inside to make the outside more bearable. I… Read more...