The mother of a friend of mine passed away recently and while making some arrangements, my friend was lamenting that she and her three siblings had drifted apart over the years. There wasn’t anything specific that happened, but due to the geography, and growing families, and work obligations, they rarely talked. My friend’s mother was […]
advice, cheesecake, connection, family
A riptide or rip current is a strong current moving away from the beach that can trap swimmers who are trying to swim to shore. In that situation, people often panic and try harder to swim against the tide. Lifeguards recommend that in that situation, what swimmers should do, is start swimming parallel to the […]
advice, lifeguard, riptide, tide
I started my Rise & Whine episodes over 2 years ago, and the idea was pretty simple. It was just a way to connect with people offering a brief word of encouragement or a concept from psychology that I thought would help people in their daily lives. What was surprising and quite rewarding, is how […]
R&W, rise and whine, youtube
An article in a recent issue of Psychology Today noted that although we know the benefits of receiving a compliment, people are often reluctant to give one. The reason is people tend to underestimate the positive impact of the person we’re paying the compliment to. And people tend to overestimate that the person will be […]
advice, kind, kindness, sincerity
Sometimes we can become anxious when we feel like somebody is expecting a response from us about something, and we don’t have anything to say, at least not in that moment. I’m reminded of the great line from Meg Ryan in “Joe Versus the Volcano” at times like that, where she says, “I have no […]
no response, nothing to say, silence
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez book “Love In the Time of Cholera”, the main character is frustrated in trying to give a box of chocolates to a love interest. He tries for months every day, and frustrated at his failure, he hands them to a complete stranger and says, “this is for a love going all […]
advice, book, love, no love wasted, quote
One of the most common questions people ask someone they are meeting for the first time is,” What do you do for work?” I suppose they ask because it’s sort of a safe question, isn’t considered intrusive, or too personal. If you think about the closest relationships you have in life though, it’s likely you […]
advice, connections, getting to know someone, questions
Many people are familiar with the story from Greek mythology about Pandora’s box. The gods give Pandora, who’s the first human person, this box, and they tell her not to open it; curiosity gets the best of her, and she opens the box, and all these evil things come out into the world because of […]
box, hope, pandora, pandoras box
In the Spring of 1973, the President of Haverford College, Dr. John Coleman, made a decision to do something in the spirit of advice he had given his students for years to break out of the patterns and routines of life. He decided to use part of his sabbatical to work blue collar jobs. He […]
blue collar journal, freedom, haverford college, power
Mark Twain said,” There are two kinds of people in the world. One kind separates people into two kinds of people and the other kind doesn’t.” I am definitely the kind that separates people into two kinds of people, and when it comes to how we experience our own thoughts, this apparently is true. There […]
