Another World is Probable

One of the most striking things for me about being in Australia is not the accent or driving on the left side of the road, it’s their take on security. More in this week's post.

Whenever I share about my upcoming Australia trip, people are genuinely happy for me. I’m taken aback because sharing good news, especially over social media, seems perilous these days . A year or so ago, Glennon Doyle shared a video of her singing on a boat with her friends and family. The next day, she had the single-largest drop in followers her entire time on Instagram. She posited it’s becaus...

Lately, I’m noticing how much I catastrophize. Catastrophizing is assuming that the worst will happen . It can also be believing you’re in a worse situation than you really are or exaggerating the difficulties you face. What to do about it? More in this week's post. 

I feel contracted about money right now because the situation with one of my highest-paying clients is in flux. Not only that, I’m spending a lot of money all at once for this upcoming Australia trip. I didn’t know what I was signing myself up for, honestly, because I booked the ticket semi-impulsively. My response is wanting to hoard money like a dragon sitting on her riches. “Amass all the wealt...

The new year is typically when many people start to set resolutions of how they want this year to be. They want to change an aspect of their life or behavior. Resolutions abound such as: “I want to lose weight,” or “I want to make more money.” But how do those things actually happen? How can we make a change stick? After all, most people abandon their resolutions by February, and sometimes even ea...

As we enter this new year, I keep thinking about envy. Not the way I normally do in that my chest burns with the emotion, aching to have what someone else does. Instead, I’m thinking about something my former therapist told me, “ Someone out there envies you .” More in this week's post.

My dad told me about a TV show where people try to be the last person to survive in the woods on their own for a chance at winning $500,000. The premise is interesting because it touches on the themes of competition, human versus nature, and also resourcefulness. I get the appeal. But what I don’t get is the lengths people will go to in order to win . More in this week's post.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been on my mind because as you’re likely aware, the Lensa AI app that creates “magic avatars,” or in other words digital art, went viral and jumped to number one in the Apple App store recently. Not only that, ChatGPT gained more than a million users in five days around the same time. The AI program can create A+ academic papers and Netflix-worthy scripts . It's bo...

I’m working on a novel about a 32-year-old woman who is deeply insecure but tries to mask it with false bravado. When I show small snippets of the novel to a writing group consisting primarily of women around my age, the feedback is positive. However, when I show small snippets of the novel to a writing group consisting primarily of women around 30 years older than me, the feedback is negative. Re...

The idea male and female wolves compete to become dominant within packs is inaccurate . This competition only occurs in zoos and not in the wild . In 1944, Rudolph Shenkel, a biologist, first observed this behavior of vying for dominance in wolves at a German zoo but in the subsequent years, David Mech studied wolves in the artic and found wolf packs are families . In other words, the “alpha male”...

My birthday is swiftly approaching and I keep thinking about time. I’m pondering how things happen and when so it seemed only fitting to recycle this post from October 2018. I have yet to see the man mentioned in this post again, but it’s a nice story regardless. Enjoy. This weekend I met someone formerly associated with my yoga and meditation group way back in the 70s when he lived in Atlanta. Th...

A friend said something to me recently that keeps ringing in my ears: “Wealth is not a sign of good leadership.” She’s right. Let’s look at CEOs of companies who are usually wealthy and considered the leaders of their organizations. Instead of being a good leader, it’s more likely they’re a psychopath because roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, studies find. That’s ma...

I wrote this post in December 2017 so a lot has changed since then. My sleep is sorted and my health challenges aren’t nearly as taxing as they were before (although I’m still a spoonie ). However, some of my dreams still feel far away so re-reading this post brings me comfort. I hope it does for you as well.  So often we talk about our dreams as something to pursue, to constantly work toward...

What you’re looking for is looking for you . So often when it comes to searching for a job, a romantic partner, a literary agent, etc., we think it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack – arduous and nearly impossible. We think we’re the ones putting in all the effort and if we stop trying, we won’t get what we want. However, what if instead of a needle in a haystack, it’s like a needle and a...

On Saturday I sat in the backseat of a car with a moon roof. I stared up at the sky and noticed a rainbow hidden in the clouds. I lowered my sunglasses because usually, that helps me see colors better but, in this case, I was surprised. Leaving my sunglasses on helped me more clearly see the rainbow. It blew my mind a little, to be honest. More in this week's post. And if you're interested in the...

I enrolled in a novel writing class and I confessed to a fellow writer that I feel a lot of pressure to put into practice everything I’m learning. I want my dialogue to conceal and reveal. I want to keep the reader guessing but not withhold too much. I want the plot to be engaging while also emotionally stirring. And I want to do all that perfectly in the first draft. More in this week's post.

I keep thinking about the cycle of luck. If you take a snapshot of an event, it might initially seem like bad luck. But if you widen your lens, so to speak, that unlucky event can become lucky. More in this week's post. 

I don’t particularly enjoy limbo, whether that’s a season or a situation. I want to cross a threshold but how often does that happen? Isn’t most of life instead a transition? Aren’t we perpetually waiting for one thing to end and another to begin? More in this week's post. And as promised, here's the link to the animated version of the Skeleton Woman story I mention. 

As we’re finishing the Jewish High Holidays, I think it’s only fitting to share a concept I learned about recently. In Jewish mysticism, there’s an idea that in every generation 36 people hold up the world. These lamed-vavniks do not themselves know they are one of the 36 and no one else does either. More in this week's post.

As we enter into a new year according to the Jewish calendar, I feel the energy of change. I’m being transformed. Some might say I’m like a piece of coal being turned into a diamond, but that’s a myth . Diamonds are related to coal, but they’re the purer cousin so no, if you squeeze coal really, really hard, it will not become a diamond. When discussing this with a friend, she said a more apt meta...

I am very attached to the fruits of my creative labors. I want my blogposts to become viral. I want the book I write to hit bestseller lists. I have very specific ideas about the trajectory of my creative efforts and boy do I get irritated when my ideas don’t match up with reality. It’s tough being an artist y’all. My ego can get in the way and when that happens, I have to remind myself what it me...

I learned something interesting recently. If people think they’re supposed to help someone else, they will. If they don’t think it’s their responsibility, they won’t help. That has interesting implications for kindness. More in this week's post. 

I notice people seem to feel despondent and hopeless when it comes to climate change. They’re saying things like, “ This is the coldest summer for the rest of your life ,” and “Better move to the Great Lakes region because it will be the only place to get fresh water.” I get it. When there’s an onslaught of terrible news stories, such as flooding in Pakistan or the U.S., record heatwaves, epic fir...

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post called “ Plants and People Need Pruning .” It was about letting go of relationships and recognizing it’s really hard for me. Part of the reason it’s hard is that all too often I don’t get a proper goodbye. The people that mattered to me – friends, partners, potential partners – just stopped talking to me. They were in my life one day and gone the next....

Several years ago I watched a Ted Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert on extreme success and extreme failure. She made the point that both positions catapult you out of your normal range of emotion and so both are hard to process. Both feel surreal because they aren’t everyday occurrences. Her point is resonating with me because I just got back from my sister’s wedding. More in this week's post.