The great philosopher Marshall Mathers, also known as Eminem, once said, Look...if you had one shotOr one opportunityTo seize everything you ever wantedIn one momentWould you capture itOr just let it slip?You better lose yourself in the music, the momentYou own it, you better never let it goYou only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blowThis opportunity comes once in a lifetime– "Lose Yourself" by Eminem It may seem weird to think of this moment in which we find ourselves as the opportunity of a lifetime. After all, none of us asked for it, and all of us wish we could get back to …
Lifestyle Design
Why I Hope Things Don’t Get Back to Normal
It seems we are all yearning for a return to normal. I know what people mean when they say it – I say it myself, and what we have, right now, is not normal. But in truth, I really don’t want to return to normal.As we inch slowly closer to a resolution of this crisis, it might be worth asking a question that was posed when the shelter-in-place guidelines began: What is essential? We’ve been given a gift. This pause has been an unprecedented (anyone up for making that the official word of 2020?) opportunity to examine our lives and our society with a new perspective.For example, are all of …
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You Aren’t Living a Net-Zero Life, Are You?
Can something be good for the environment, but really bad for people?Yep.In discussions about how to best care for our planet, you’ll often hear about the importance of carbon neutrality, which refers to having net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. Net-zero is the result when there’s neither a surplus nor a deficit of something specified when gains and losses are added together. It is often used to describe buildings that produce enough energy (as through solar panels or passive heating) to offset any energy consumed.It occurred to me the other day that although "net-zero" may be an ideal …
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The Only Hard Choice
My family loves teasing me about how, when I was a wee lad, I’d cry over the simplest decisions. Being forced to choose between a vanilla or chocolate ice cream cone caused a full-on existential crisis.I like to think I’ve made progress in this area over the past forty years, but some decisions are still hard.Although the choice of ice cream flavor doesn’t have as much gravity for me as it once did, the fact remains: The only hard choice is the choice between two good things. That observation comes from Roy H. Williams, and I just love it.Unless you’re a monk living in a yurt in Tibet, I think …
Regret Prevention 101
For better or for worse, my to-do list does a bang-up job of keeping me busy. I add to it, celebrate when tasks get crossed off, and stress over the ones that linger too long. It can often feel like I am the servant of my to-do list.Adding a layer of regret prevention has helped it to serve me.Recently we were explaining the concept of “decades” to our kids and how we were starting a whole new one. It occurred to me and Kim that when this one is over, we’ll have two teenagers and Lucy will likely be moved out. Yikes. Meanwhile, I'm still over here clinging to the 1980s and 90s.I was …
Outgrowing Our Sense of Wonder
Remember alphabet soup? I ask you to remember because the last time you had it probably wasn’t yesterday, or last week. It may have been a decade or four. Something about alphabet soup brings out a sense of wonder and curiosity in us as kids. We stir it around to see if any secret messages emerge randomly, like a vegetable fueled Ouiji board. We use our spoon to carefully arrange our own words, spell our name, a simple sentence, or maybe a dirty word...Just me? But then we outgrow alphabet soup. Why? Are we afraid our sophistication will be challenged? That we’ll be considered …
Purposeful Unpredictability
The best parts of life aren’t always planned.But they can happen on purpose. I recently spoke at a nursing conference in Honolulu. My family was put up in a room with a breathtaking view in a huge Hilton resort on Waikiki Beach. It had five pools, twenty restaurants, oodles of neat shops, and all kinds of organized activities you could sign up for. For us, it was…meh. It was a lovely property, but Kim and I have come to learn that massive hotels, cruises, and all-inclusive resorts are not our thing. Places that cater to tourists are often missing the authentic sense of culture that come …
Are You Bad or Just Busy?
All of our technological advancements are supposed to give us more time. Instead, we fall for the temptation of trying to pack more tasks into the time we’ve saved. Last month I was booked to speak in Hawaii. I was able to take Kim and the kids along, and the week before the engagement, we played in the sun and surf of Lanikai Beach. I made a special point – a very concerted effort, indeed – to refrain from checking email, surf the internet, or scan my social media feeds. Somehow, the world continued to rotate on its 23-degree axis. The sun rose and set on a regular basis, and my …
Does Your Life Have a Recombobulation Area?
There is a sign at the General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee that I love very much. It’s visible right after you go through security and are collecting your shoes, belt, wallet, phone, keys, rubber duckie, ping pong paddle, and other essentials. It simply says, “Recombobulation Area.” The fact that it’s printed in a plain, bold, official-looking font makes me love it all the more. (Comic sans would just ruin it.) Now, “recombobulation” is not technically a word, but what else do you call it when you’re trying to regroup yourself after feeling discombobulated thanks to …
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How to Make Your Dreams Come True Faster
We recently surprised the kids by taking them to see Disney’s live-action remake of Aladdin. (All five of us give it two thumbs up.) Us grown-ups can see a movie like that, a fantastical tale of magic lamps and genies and three wishes, and acknowledge it as a work of fiction. And yet, when our own dreams don’t come true as fast as it takes a blue-skinned genie to snap his fingers, we think something is wrong. Ok, maybe we don’t expect our dreams to come true the instant we wish for them, but I know there have been times in my life when the realization of a dream seemed to be in slow …
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