This week I sometimes felt frustrated when trying to soothe our three week-old baby girl. She’s not particularly fussy, but requires a lot of attention. When my wife sent me some tips on how calm the baby, courtesy of Ask Dr. Sears, it got me thinking about how as adults, we devote a majority of our adult lives to the same self-comforting activities, and through them, learn to tranquilize the anxiety that comes from dealing with the choices and responsibilities of our freedom. (more…)

While we are busily preparing for the birth of our daughter, I’ve been steadily creating playlists for her first musical experience. This has not been easy. Assembling the crib, setting up the nursery, even choosing her name has been relatively straightforward. But the first music our baby will hear has required much deliberation. The Mozart effect aside, I believe the music we first hear sets the tone for the rest of our lives. (more…)

The other day I watched a 4-D ultrasound of our soon-to-be born baby girl. If you’ve never seen one of these video scans, they are way beyond the grainy black & white images of last decade’s techology. During the exam, I could see her yawn, smile and suck her thumb in blocky, slow-mo, baby claymation. This confining bubble is her whole universe, and I watched her silently dance, unaware of any limitations within this crowded space. (more…)

Whenever I have worked with organizations that talk about being “stuck”, inevitably someone will come up with the unhelpful phrase, “We have to think outside the box”. This is like saying “we have to stop thinking along the lines of what is known and think along the lines of what is unknown”. How can we know what is beyond our experience? Answers don’t come from without, they come from within, as part of a search for purpose and fulfillment. When we are stuck, we don’t need to think outside the box, we need to re-define the box. (more…)

In an upcoming post, I’m going to write about how to monetize a hobby. I feel I’ve achieved some success in this area, to the point where at the age of 42, I don’t have to go to work anymore; I pursue what I love and find a way for it to pay for itself. In the words of Joseph Campbell, I follow my bliss. Bliss is all well and good but only professionals get the kwan. So if you’ve ever wondered about how to become an expert beyond your day job and get paid for it, I’m writing this for you. (more…)

You are perfect. I mean it. And not in a stereotypical American way of heaping praise on people to make them feel better about themselves. If your immediate response to this is, “nobody’s perfect”, this is what most people say, because we have been taught that we all have our weaknesses and must work on them or at least hide them if we are ever to: get into a good school, find a good job, attract a mate and live up to our potential. (more…)

You may have heard the practice of Japanese fishing ships keeping a small shark in their fish tanks. The first time I heard this I wondered, “Why would you want to put a fish in the tank that will eat other fish?” What the fishing companies found was that because they were having to go further and further from Japan to catch tuna, if they froze the fish, consumers didn’t like the taste. When they put the tuna fish in the tank, they would become sluggish, which apparently, also affected their taste. The shark, however, would keep the tuna darting around the whole return trip to avoid being eaten. So how can we stay fresh while avoiding life’s sharks? (more…)