I come from steady, stable, secure stock. My parents both worked hard within the same organization their entire careers. We lived in only two houses when I was growing up. They looked–twice (very carefuly)–before they leaped. I was taught to always pay one’s credit card bill at month’s end, never spend what you didn’t have, …
Hump Day Nudge: Musical Lift
There is something about tight harmonies and beautiful rhythms that does my heart good…it stirs something deep inside me to hear beautiful music. And when folks are having fun doing it…the added dimension of laughing joy…well it can change the tone of my day. The rhythm of music becomes the beat of productive work. The …
Shatter the Silence by saying, “I suffer from depression”
There are some 19 year olds that have wisdom beyond their years. Kevin Breel is one of them. He is a courageous young man who told a TEDx audience and now over half a million other folks on YouTube that he has depression. He does so loudly, courageously and boldly …in order to challenge the …
Hump Day Nudge: Enrichment through Adversity
Sigh. I soooo wish the above statement wasn’t true. I wish people didn’t have to go through difficult and challenging and painful times to grow. I wish it could all come easy. But it doesn’t. When I think back to the moments in my life of which I feel were the richest, the experiences that …
Students teaching teachers
When I was growing up, my parents would remind us that we had an obligation as human beings to be of service to others. I grew up with one parent or another being on this board, or delivering that meal, or helping out this person with their taxes, or driving somebody to the doctor. …
Domestic Violence: Looking at the Root Part 2
At the end of May, a woman posted a video of Patrick Stewart, an actor best known for his role on Star Trek, speaking at Comicpalooza. I don’t know about Comic-con or Comicpalooza or any of these sorts of conventions except what I learn on Big Bang Theory. However, almost 4 million people have watched …
Domestic Violence: Looking at the Root Part 1
(photo credit to Rene Asmussen) Our culture raises men in an environment where he dare not be seen as weak, but as “tough”. The men in this culture have been raised by men who have been boxed in by the culture–to not be seen as open and gentle. Violence is accepted as a part of …
Hump Day Nudge: Staying
I read this story last week, and was moved on multiple levels. Lisa M. Fenn is a producer with ESPN, a sports network…and she clearly and unabashedly crossed the neutral line of journalism and got in deep with the folks of one of her stories. She smashed the neutralism of journalism and stayed with a …
Understanding Mental Illness
Glenn Close knows mental illness up close and personal. She’s determined to reduce the stigma attached to mental illness. This is personal for Glenn Close. Her sister, Jessie Close, has struggled with mental illness to the point where it seemed to her that suicide was the route to go…and she told her sister what she …
The cost of the beauty brainwash
Our culture today has made it hard to see true beauty. Folks are literally bombarded with thousands of images per day of “beautiful women”. Problem is, those beautiful women in the ads don’t exist. The women that posed for those ads, wished they looked like the women in those ads. Beauty that is unreachable and …