Warning: this post is at least twice as long as the typical articles on this blog. I hope you find it is worth your time . . . As a father of two boys, now 6 and 7 years old, I’m thinking a lot about what it means to be raising digital natives in the […]
Do you remember the Sneetches? In one of Dr. Seuss’s most popular books, he told about a society with Star-Belly Sneetches who had “bellies with stars” and Plain-Belly Sneetches who had “none upon thars.” The Star-Belly Sneetches were the privileged elite and the Plain-Belly Sneetches were discriminated against, not being invited to “frankfurter roasts, or […]
Remember when social media used to be fun? Facebook used to be a place to catch up with our friends, share cute pictures of our kids, and have a few good chuckles over cat videos. But those days seem to be over. Today, our social media platforms are filled with fear, anger, and insults as […]
First, an issue arises. It could be gun violence, education, health care, religion, the environment, or the economy. But for the purposes of this discussion we will just call it “the Issue.” The Issue is complex, making it difficult to say for sure what caused the Issue, what the implications of the Issue are, […]
Create more diversity in your social circles. If most of your friends tend towards a particular racial, political or religious profile, try to broaden your circle and invite people in that can bring some different perspectives. Resist the urge to “unfriend” those whose views you find repulsive. Leave the door open for greater understanding in […]
I have a habit of collecting far more books than I can possibly read, so I always have a large stack of books just waiting to be read. I prefer to keep these books out of sight so I don’t feel the sense of obligation that these unread books confer. I tuck them all into […]
In recent months, mindfulness has been the latest buzzword in corporate America, promising to improve performance, productivity, engagement and happiness for the teams that practice it. Some notable organizations, including Google, Apple and Intel have added mindfulness training programs to their corporate benefits packages. When people talk about mindfulness training, they are talking about one […]
Here we go again. Another tragic, horrific and completely unnecessary mass shooting of innocent young people in a school. In response to the shooting, Obama made an impassioned and eloquent plea for our government bodies to work together towards some kind of “common sense” gun legislation to prevent these kinds of all-too-common occurrences. His speech […]
We are genetically programmed to look out for ourselves. Or more accurately, we are genetically programmed in ways that will protect our genes (and their future replication.) So it is not surprising that humans are prone to “assholeness.” On an individual basis, it is generally better for our genes to do whatever is best for […]
I’ve never been that good of a listener. I have the typical (some might insert “male” here) habit of wanting to dive in and fix things without necessarily making sure that I have fully heard the other person. So I was particularly interested when I had a chance to hear Kate Muir, a researcher from […]
