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Oh So Many Books
Successfully Navigating 10,000 Negotiations
Working Remotely? How To Stay Connected
Human Moments
Strengths Of Our Children
Everything I have learned in life that has mattered, I learned from my children. They are the “sacred Yes” about whom Nietzsche spoke. In positive psychology we study strengths. This is good and valuable and has taught us so much about people at their best, and about life’s luminous moments. …
What Is Your Wish?
Readers respond: Our wishes tell us something about what it means to be human. If you had one wish for the world, your family or yourself, what would it be? More here and a video here.
Faith in Humanity
A question for you: Goodness is all around us all the time. What is one thing this week that confirmed or restored your faith in humanity? (Photo credit aaron gilson, made available via a creative commons license.)
Strive to be of Value
To many people, this post will not make any sense. It has been several years now since my aunt died. She never went to college. She was heavy. She had human problems. But, dispatch for the local fire department, the whole community came together when she died. Every strong and…
I Choose Astonishment (Part 1)
As a poet and reader, I love words. As a child “dyslexicly” trying to make sense of inky scribblings and smudges on paper, I fell in love with the majesty of language. I was amazed at the way words can create whole new worlds and change the contours of how…
Affective Prosperity
af·fec·tive (adj): relating to, arising from, or influencing feelings or emotions pros·per·i·ty (noun): a successful, flourishing, or thriving condition Affective Prosperity is the principal that all of our authentic emotions and feelings add a texture and richness to life, and can be a creative force to be drawn upon to…
The Rain Stick
No one is sure of the exact origin of the Rain Stick. Ancient versions of the percussion instrument have been found in Africa, pre-Mayan Peru and with the Aztecs in Mexico. They have been discovered among the artifacts of the Diaguita people of northern Chile and Argentina, as well as…
Survival at Sea, In Business and In Life
The New York Times Magazine recently published a story about a fisherman who fell off his lobster boat in the middle of the night, forty miles from Long Island. No one knew where John Aldridge had fallen off or when. It was hours before anyone discovered he was missing and…
An Argument for Kindness (Part II)
(portions of this article first appeared on positive psychology news daily: http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/sean-doyle/2013032525681) In my first post on this topic, I concluded that in the face of hardship, injustice or deep trauma, the only answer was love and holding even tighter to kindness. This seems naive, trite. However whether in the…
What Good Are Words?
What good are words? Can there ever be a poetry that saves nations or people? Abraham Joshua Heschel pointed out that “the Holocaust did not begin with the building of crematoria, with tanks and guns. It began with uttering evil words, with defamation, with language and propaganda. Words create worlds.”