There’s an old joke about a guy who goes to his doctor and says, “It hurts when I go like this.” The doctor says, “Stop doing that!” It reminds me that there are so many things in life that we do that cause irritation or upset to ourselves, or that we allow, it could be […]
commitment, doctor, joke, stop doing that
One morning, on my way to work, I passed a father and daughter waiting for the bus. He turned towards their mailbox, opened it up, saw nothing inside and shut it. She watched what he was doing, but she wanted to check for herself. So, she opened the mailbox, looked inside, kind of shook her […]
checking it twice, fact check, looking, mailbox, twice
One of my favorite expressions in sports comes from baseball and it’s the term “getting caught looking”. That’s when a batter who has two strikes on them, watches the next pitch come in, gets called for a strike, and they’re out. They didn’t swing the bat; they didn’t take any action at all. I think […]
baseball, bat, looking, strike, swing
One time, when I was in the supermarket, at the front of the line for the self-checkout, a customer and the manager had apparently been going at it, at the point where I got there, they were having the last pieces of this argument where the customer angrily turned to the manager and said, “your […]
argument, emotional intelligence, fight, grocery store, walk away
My brother Robbie was an aficionado of cigars, pens, chocolate, and many other good things. As an attorney, he had very few bad days but when one would occasionally happen, he had a saying: “On a good day, you have a little chocolate. On a bad day, you have a lot of chocolate.” I have […]
bad day, brother, chocolate
One of my favorite sayings is, “No one ever complained that something was too easy to read.” It’s a continual reminder for me when I’m writing for business, or personally, to keep things as simple as possible, not to use big words when small words would do because I want to make sure that the […]
easy, little words, quote, word, words
Once I was walking on the boardwalk in a quiet beach community, and there were a couple people on the boards – one being an old grizzled guy, on an old grizzled bike, kind of riding back and forth, occasionally saying hello to somebody. I stopped by a pole to stretch my leg, and must […]
advice, answers, boardwalk
When I was in high school, I was very happy to get into an Honors English class, and very unhappy when I got the first draft of my first paper back, and the teacher had written on it, “You have some good ideas here. Now, deep six this and start over.” I didn’t know what […]
english, english class, lesson, start over, Writing
One of my favorite movies is “The Chosen”, based on the book by Chaim Potok, and although the movie is about many things, one of the themes is the conflict between a father and son who are no longer speaking to one another. At the end of the movie, an announcer, the voice over, tells […]
chosen, effort, halfway, king
On my way to work, there is one of those little free libraries that you may have seen on people’s lawns. It’s a box on a post with a door that has a window in it, and on the shelves, people leave books and take books that they’re interested in. It’s an awesome concept and […]
book, free library, library, read, reading