You're a Loser

You hate losing.Mario Kart 64.Basketball.Your favorite sports team.Elections…Am I wrong?When you studied all weekend and got a C+ on your sixth grade math test (me), knowing you did your damn best, it really hurts to know you lost. When you wrote a letter, anonymously, to the cutest boy in your clas...

"Why?"

Most of us were, unfortunately, children raised by children.Our parents weren’t prepared for us. They plunked us in front of the TV or books or games or told us to just go play with others — anything to have a moment free of the responsibilities and duties of the burdens of parenthood.And why not? W...

Roses into the Abyss

“Throw roses into the abyss and say: ‘here is my thanks to the monster who didn’t succeed in swallowing me alive.” — Friedrich NietzscheWhat did Nietzsche mean with this phrase?In my interpretation, it isn’t meant to be as “out there” as it initially sounds. We should be thankful for the traumas, ni...

Dissent

Are you right all the time?How about just 99%?Maybe 85%?70%?Or would you say you’re right 50% of the time?And now, how often do you know with perfect certainty that you are right?Probably nearly 0%.(Unless you score high on narcissism, maybe.)So, isn’t it nice to live in a world where people of diff...

In the penetrating gloom of the witching hours when I wake, many rabbits come to scrounge for the remaining seeds the squirrels and birds leave on the ground.It isn’t unusual for music to be quietly playing in these hours of darkness. Vivaldi.Meditative drones or the sounds of rain.Sometimes light p...

Perfection and Waste

Don’t allow the belief you need perfection get in the way of simply making small, incremental progress.While this statement could easily be the entire meditation, let’s discuss.So often we allow ourselves to believe “things just have to be perfect” and when they aren’t…Well, we get upset.For instanc...

Kids

Today during church, I shared a pew with a grandmother there with her grandchildren. The boys were wiggly, occasionally loud, and generally, well…kids. About halfway through service, a very young girl — perhaps 3 — ran up behind them, apparently wanting to come join them. I heard the grandmother oka...

Gratitude Meditation XII

Toothpaste.Lotion.LEGO.Paper in books.Touchscreens.Natural gas furnaces.The postal system.Remote car starters.Wool.Hot water on demand without fail.Post-Its.Meat and produce at the supermarket.Gratitude has no lower or upper bounds.We don’t need to wait for the birth of our child or a huge promotion...

Much Fear I Sense in You

Fear serves a good purpose — especially evolutionarily.Hear a twig snap in the woods? Ready your weapon and heighten your senses.The large animal bristling its hair at you? Bearing its teeth? Back off!Walking home at night and hear footsteps behind you? Get to somewhere public and call a cab.But now...

I CAN'T BELIEVE I LOST.

“I-I just don’t understand how it could possibly have happened?” I told my client, incredulous.We had just been rejected on our offer to purchase a home. As a Realtor, this is one of the hardest conversations to have — especially with a bright-eyed youngin’.“We wrote a nice, clean offer with,” I pau...