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
I grew up on Hip Hop, studied Yo! MTV Rap videos with my brother to learn how to move, bought the albums, mouthed the lyrics on the bus.
The lyrics. Yikes.
I was singing “Poison” by Bel Biv DeVoe the other day – a seemingly benign recitation… And then I got … Read more...
I wake up with my throat on fire, my body and eyelids heavy.
My phone beeps with bad news, it’s still dark outside, exhaustion balled up in my chest like compacted cement, layers formed across months.
I get up only because I know it will be harder if I don’t.
So heavy, s… Read more...
My friend, Paul, complimented me the other day. It was hot. I had my shirt off.
“Cliff, your body is looking GOOD!”
He said it just like that, too: big emphasis on the “good” part.
And it definitely sunk in because, after that, I started eating salads again a… Read more...
It took a while, but it came.
I thought I was immune, but no one is.
There is a tree with thick, knuckly roots driving into the soft green earth. Its branches do all sorts of interesting things: hold nests and tire swings, block the hot sun, reach into other trees, click against on… Read more...
We talk big when we’re trying to convince someone of something. Big words, long sentences. Multiple paragraphs.
The other day, I was talking with a friend of a friend about something important — national politics or smog or something. We were both taking turns making o… Read more...
Next to death and sex, work is the world’s best-kept secret.
We don’t talk about our work, not in any deep and thorough way, at least. Yet work makes up the majority of our lives, 8 out of 16 waking hours, 5 out of 7 days.
What would happen if we changed that? If we le… Read more...
A global pandemic is as big as it gets.
Bigger than a tectonic shift (an earthquake only affects a city or two).
Bigger than landing on the moon. (Only a few competing nations care about that.) Bigger than a political scandal, a stock market crash, and the fall of an empire.
The who… Read more...
I was helping my daughter put together her pinewood derby car for Girl Scouts. We were laying on our stomachs lining up the nail to go through the tire at the exact right angle. As I was explaining why it was important to make sure the tire doesn’t rub the wood she surprise… Read more...
When I’m excited about something, I make machine-gun noises with my mouth. If I’m really stoked, I’ll cup my hands to my mouth to make the noise louder, and then move my head from side to side in a sweeping motion as if I’m spraying the room with machine-g… Read more...
The greatest thing you can do upon meeting someone new is to recognize that you do not know them.
What you see, how you feel… these things will mislead you. We are manipulated by patterns and repetition. Once we see 5 trees grow to the same height with the same fruit, we sta… Read more...