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
Your life is a great work of art.
It is one of a kind, twisting and turning, some of it intentional, some of it spontaneous, some of it luck. You’ve spent years on it.
So, when it shatters into hundreds/thousands/millions of pieces, it is devastating, to say the least.
Our bod… Read more...
“You’re an artist.”
He said it as a compliment, albeit a bit surprised to see me in this way. Me, the guy writing his resume.
I was busy brainstorming job titles with him. I came up with some ideas he hadn’t thought of. But the real artistry is the fact that… Read more...
My parents were always so inventive with my birthdays. They were mostly at my house or in my backyard, not extravagant, no visiting Disney Princesses or anything, but they were far from average.
The first one I remember is around 4 or 5. My mom made red capes and put our names on … Read more...
I remember the first time I got in trouble at school. It was in the cafeteria. Grade school. We sat at those massively long tables, 8 rows of ’em, with the teachers patrolling the edges like border collies.
I’m not sure how it started but Matty P, my best friend in the… Read more...
Is a writer who doesn’t write still a writer?
Is a musician who doesn’t play still a musician?
What about a filmmaker? If they’re not making films, are they still a filmmaker?
In other words, does being an artist run deeper than the deliverables?
Are artists walking… Read more...
After Hazel’s Power Tools Class (I love saying that!), we went to our fave Italian joint in El Cerrito, run by an Indian couple.
It’s become sort of a tradition.
There are only 4 tables in the restaurant, but there are always at least a few people sitting up at the bar … Read more...
I hope I’m always the type of person who turns off the Hollywood drama ‘based on true events’ to pick up the imasciated chapbook of poetry and prose written by a self-published high school student.
One is a bacon-wrapped hot-dog of drama and conflict; the other i… Read more...
I want to share a moment I often think of, but never openly talk about.
I can’t remember her face or her clothes, but I remember her voice and the delicate hand on my knee as I sat cross-legged next to her on my friend’s living room floor.
I was in my early 20s, employe… Read more...
Scene: Dusk. Me, outside washing my car in the driveway, which crosses completely across the sidewalk. A passerby approaches.
—–
THE WAY IT COULD HAVE GONE…
Passerby: Rude! I have a disability, you know.
Me: Easy, lady. I’m just washing my car.
Passerby: Well,… Read more...
As I take in the trash cans for the billionth time, a general malaise washes over me, and I wonder if it’s this moment in time we’re in.
Uncertainty, everyone says. What’s next? And the people in the control tower tell us, once again, to hold on while the ship go… Read more...