Do you believe people care and look out for others? These people certainly did. They unknowingly participated in a social experiment to see who would stop to help a freezing child. If you’re anything like me, this will warm your heart.
“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” ~Unknown
From time to time during my schooling years I’d be asked to identify my role models. I always chose someone who’d changed the world in a big way—Martin Luther King Jnr, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi.
I never looked within my own life for role models. I had lovely parents and great teachers, and still, I was always looking well beyond what was right in front of me. I was always striving for something more, out there, beyond my own …
“Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ” ~Reinhold Niebuhr
Think about the future! Don’t do something you’ll regret! You need to plan for tomorrow! I wish I hadn’t done that! Will things ever work out? Why did they do that? Will I ever find happiness? Why has life made me the way I am? What’s wrong with me?
Around and around it went inside my mind, a never-ending internal conversation full of questions and uncertainties—the not knowing driving me insane …
“Almost everything comes from nothing.” ~Henri F. Amiel
There are uncountable ways to deal with difficult times in life. Some people turn to prayer or meditation, others open their hearts in therapy or to friends, and many choose to hide from the pain by eating their weight in chocolate or purchasing expensive bags; to each their own. I have a different approach: crafting.
When I’ve gone through difficult times in life—depression, unemployment, relationship problems—I have often turned to craft projects. For a long time, I didn’t think much about it, but eventually I realized how much it has honestly …
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was one of those weeks that felt like I was dragging my feet through mud. Everything seemed like an effort and nothing seemed to be flowing.
I was caught up in conflicts from the past—a miscommunication with my boyfriend, which resulted in hurt feelings on both sides, and a professional crisis that plunged me into fear and self-doubt.
In an attempt to calm my mind and become more present, I meditated and chanted mantras, but the tape of negative self-talk continued to play in my head. …
“But first be a person who needs people. People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” ~Bob Merrill, lyricist, Barbra Streisand, artist
Barbra Streisand and I could be twins.
For starters, we were born on the same day.
Sure, she got here a couple of decades earlier, but except the part where she’s a rich, famous, writer-director-actress married to James Brolin, and oh, that singing thing, we could have been separated at birth.
We both have blue eyes and chemically enhanced blonde hair. We speak the same language; in Brooklyn or Philly, …
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” ~Steve Jobs
A week ago a woman I loved died. She was a member of my family and had been dying for a while from bone cancer, so her death did not come as a surprise.
I was traveling when I got the email, and I sat in Abu Dhabi airport surrounded by the banging and steps of people and grieved.
Yes, I knew her death was imminent, but at a deeper level I found the news …
“You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” ~Steve Maraboli
While going through some major life changes, I am finally learning to let go. I am learning to relinquish control. And I am learning that everything will be okay in the end.
I am in the middle of my first pregnancy. I thought I could control my body. I thought I could control my outcome.
Something I regularly preach to anyone who will listen is that we can’t control the outcome of any situation. We can only control our actions.
That means …
“Doing your best means never stop trying.” ~Unknown
As a teacher, the summer season is special, sacred time when I recover from a busy school year and prepare for the next one. The bonus is that I also use the time as a personal blank slate to be as productive as I can be in the other areas of my life that got neglected when all of my energy went into teaching.
June began with a long list of goals and a meticulously planned schedule for every day and hour of the week. I had big eyes and high hopes …
“Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown
Ten years ago my life changed in a dramatic way. What I experienced in 2004 seemed like a major disaster at first, but it turns out that sometimes what seems like the worst life experience can actually be one of our biggest blessings.
In 2004, I was in graduate school, working toward a PhD in history. When I graduated from college in 2001, I wanted to be a professor. Well, that’s what I thought I wanted, …
“We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” ~John Dryden
This may look good, sound good, and maybe even feel good at first, but it’s not serving you well in the end!
I’d hear this thought in my head over and over and still not believe it. But it had persisted ever since I started questioning the status quo in my life. And I don’t mean a loud, in-your-face, obnoxious line of questioning, but rather, a gentle curious whisper that asks: Well, why does it have to be this way, if I may ask?
Questioning the status quo …
“Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.” ~Charles H. Spurgeon
There’s nothing like a real health emergency for putting insignificant worries into perspective.
By the time I was pregnant the second time, I had left my struggles with anxiety largely behind me. Having been to therapy years earlier to find coping mechanisms for managing my ever-present phobias, I was in a fairly good place when I learned I’d been given a second chance at having a child.
But worry is as much as part of me as breathing, and having lost …
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.” ~Adapted from Plato
I was digging in my half-empty refrigerator one day, searching for leftovers, when my phone rang. I glared at it wondering who the hell had the nerve to interrupt my hunt for sustenance.
I grabbed the phone with pure agitation and put it to my ear. On the other end of the line I heard a faint voice mutter the three most unforgettable words I had ever heard: “Dad is gone.”
The …
“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” ~Albert Einstein
My son recently returned home from college with a new demeanor.
He was helpful, considerate, interested in others, and genuinely happy. The change was a far cry from the boy who had left for college just a few short months before.
Don’t get me wrong, he has always been a good kid, but up until now he’s been a typical teenager. He was a bit messy, a bit lazy, and if it wasn’t part of his …
“The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.” ~Shunryu Suzuki
When I was younger, I am sure I was a little bit arrogant. I had high expectations for my life. They haven’t come to pass. I haven’t achieved whatever I thought I would achieve. It turns out that I’m an ordinary human being struggling with ordinary things.
Now that I’m in my forties, I have experienced disappointment, failure, and confusion. Many times I have lost sight of the path, and sometimes it’s felt like there never was one.
I expected I would be a …
What would you do if you had one day and $30,000 to make a difference in your community? TD Bank gave these twenty-four people an opportunity to do just that, and the results are beyond inspiring.
“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” ~John Maeda
The past few months of my life were a myriad of things, to say the least: busy, chaotic, overwhelming, exhausting, frustrating, and stressful. I felt like my fuel tank was on zero, but I had to get up and do it all over again the next day.
I wasn’t stopping to take it all in and check in with myself to see how I was doing. It took catching up with a friend in town on a whirlwind trip to give me a big, smack-bang wake-up call. I …
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