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
On the way to camp this morning, we passed Hazel’s elementary school and she started sobbing. I asked her what was wrong, though I already knew.
“I miss Miss Zimmerman,” she said from the back seat. And then she cried real hard, as if the words out loud were tell… Read more...
A Park Squirrel crosses the Road and goes into the yard where she sees two House Squirrels. She knows they’re House Squirrels because they don’t have stripes on their backs.
The two House Squirrels spot the Park Squirrel immediately. They know she’s a Park
Squirr… 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...
My peeling deck is a trophy.
The damp garage, the unmanicured garden, the semi-clogged drain, my frayed hoodie.
Though ugly and inconvenient,
these things
are proof
that my focus is in the right place.
It’s one of our favorite things to do: blow off the day and go to Six Flags.
For me, it’s a way to remember I’m alive, that I’m in control of my destiny, and that I value fun, awakedness, and spontaneity more than the other stuff.
For her… well, I̵… Read more...
I’ve been going through old papers. My mom saved everything, especially the art stuff: Half finished pictures, 3 words on an otherwise blank page, an excessively pasty attempt at a pop-up book…
I found a gem.
Apparently, when I was in second grade I wrote my first poem.… Read more...
I’m a pretty calm dude. I’ve always been this way, but it’s a talent I become more and more proud of as and enter middle age.
Life is hard. Adults have more responsibilities than time, more aspirations than years on a calendar. There’s always a good reason … 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...
When Evaline was a kid, I took her down to Jack London Square where the pavement runs straight for a good half mile. We brought her bike, which she barely wanted to touch, hadn’t touched since we got it.
It was early enough that there weren’t many people out, just us a… Read more...