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
Hello
Good morning
I appreciate that
Yes
Okay
Let’s go
You first
I’m sorry
I will
You’re great
I love you
Thank you
That’s awesome
Good for you
Good luck
Good anything
These words are the passwords to the universe. And you don’t have to even feel like using them to … Read more...
Years ago, in my twenties, back when I hid my tears, I found myself lodged between the screams of my mother and my girlfriend. We’d driven up from San Francisco to my grandpa’s house where now only my mom lived.
We chose an Italian restaurant. At dinner, my girlfriend … Read more...
I woke up yesterday, was wide awake. I had ideas that needed to get out, creative energy asking for daylight.
But my arm was under my wife. I gave a slow pull but she didn’t respond. She was out.
So I laid there.
For an hour.
I thought about things, worked some stuff out. She s… Read more...
I’ve always had trouble saying I love you.
It was a thing with girlfriends: me not being able to say it.
I don’t think I’m alone in this.
We can write it down well, we send shiny red hearts over the Internet, we drop it into the end of a p… Read more...
It was Christmas morning and a thought was forming
inside my little-boy brain,
as I lay in a heap of wrapping so deep
my heart felt a little pain.
“Mama, I’m sorry” my voice was quite jarring.
“With presents I’ve come up short.
“You gave me a ton and … Read more...
I’m done with stories of oppression — Twelve Years of a Slave, The Piano, The Handmaid’s Tale…
I need no more evidence of our ugliness. I know it’s there. It’s so there.
And I don’t need what comes after that either: vengeful violence of a … Read more...
Humans are strange. Our way of dealing with stress is to summon more of it.
When we’re caught in a tough situation or we get a cold or our luck is different than usual, we tend to say something like:
“This kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me…”
“I&#… Read more...
It’s okay that you’re tired at the end of the day.
You’ve worked hard. It takes a lot. Mentally. Physically.
You’re human!
Up and down is our way forward.
Just because you’re tired, doesn’t mean you have to rethink your life.
Instead, when you recog… Read more...
We walk the earth carrying our thoughts, a heavy load for a single person. These thoughts become laws. They become a rock-hard truths, stories of stone.
And we may use these stones to step on, to enable us to reach higher – this is a good thing – it’s why we carr… Read more...
The problem with Self Help is that it presupposes there is something wrong with the way you are now.
But fully embracing your current state, whatever that may be, can prevent meaningful growth and change.
Take the simple example of lying on the couch. When you resent yourself for l… Read more...