You Can Always Take Back the Wheel on Your Life Path

Who’s driving this life anyway? It’s all too easy to get distracted and unwittingly allow outside influences to take the wheel and do the driving. Much of this is due to modern society’s near obsession with automation, ease, instant gratification, and the like. This obsession leads to doing more and more by rote, routine, and habit. So much so that even personal matters take that form, too. Rote, routine, and habit aren’t part of the conscious human mind, but rather

Why is Doing the Uncomfortable Thing Positive?

Growth comes only from leaving our comfort zones. As I’m writing this, I’ve reached the end of my third foray to Farpointcon. This sci-fi con in Maryland has allowed me to meet and hang out with other like-minded geeks. As a guest author, I also get to sit on some cool panels and get an hour at a table to sign and sell books. Despite being an actor in HS, a DJ in college, and serving as a court herald

Why and How Do Little Annoyances Add Up?

They might not be much by themselves, but altogether they’re something. I live in an apartment. It’s an amazing home for my wife, cats, and me. We each have our own office space, shared bedroom, decent-sized kitchen, and a small deck. The apartment is on the second floor of a three-floor unit, and in the winter we get sufficient heat from the neighbors around us that we’ve never had to run heaters during the winter. The neighbors below us have

Why Does Your Approach to Life Matter?

Your approach is a choice that determines if you merely survive, simply exist, or thrive. The status quo never lasts. Never. That’s because change is the one and only constant in the Universe. Like it or not, work with it or ignore it, you cannot avoid it. Change can, will, and does happen. Recognizing this is huge. Accepting it is even larger. Everything you know is subject to change. If you don’t believe it, apply it to yourself. Are you

When Is It Okay to Say No?

Nobody but you can answer this question. All around us, there are messages recommending that we say yes. Say yes to new experiences, new people, new opportunities, and on and on. What’s more, “yes” has become associated with positivity and “no” with negativity at the most basic levels. The result we tend to experience from this is that, often, saying “no” is seen as selfish, undesirable, and utterly negative. When you say “no” you close doors rather than open them.

Why is it Always Better to Choose Than Not to Choose?

Choice is how you can take control of your life experience. Quite possibly the single greatest superpower that we have is choice. The rest of the animal kingdom on this planet largely have a very set life path. Survive, find food and shelter, propagate the species, protect them, and keep surviving. Simple, really. Humans, however, have choices, like to merely survive or thrive. Some are the product of environment, privilege, birth, etc. However, most are inherent to all and are

Is What We Think Other People Think About Us What We Secretly Think About Ourselves?

What do we know about how others think and feel – especially about us? Even the most introverted people I know have interactions with other people along the way. Friends, family, coworkers, random strangers, and so on. No matter if you are an introvert, extrovert, ambivert, or uncategorized personality type, you do not exist in a bubble. Because of this truth, to a greater or lesser degree, you desire to make an impression on people. This is wildly variable, situational,

It Hasn’t Always Been This Way

Recognizing and acknowledging this truth can change your life. One of the most fascinating elements of conservativism, to me, is how they want to go back to a simpler, better time. Realistically, of course, they want to go back to a simpler, better time that never existed (save in a few minds). The reason this fascinates me so much is because that desire ignores progress made. Not just social progress, though. Technological progress. The world of the ridiculously idolized 1950s

Why is it Healthy to Admit “I Don’t Know”?

Not knowing things is how you grow and evolve. One of the biggest issues in modern American politics right now is that one side claims that they have all the answers. They know everything they need to know. Whether it’s been endowed by God, Ronald Reagan, or some other demagogue, they have the answer. Their go-to “leader” is a self-proclaimed “stable genius” who always knows everything and is never wrong. This party is thus, with their claims of knowing everything,

How Does Your Approach to The Unknown Matter?

Your choice of approach always impacts your outcome. In part because I blanked and forgot to take my meds for the first time in ages yesterday; partially because the weather is grey and it’s cold; in part because of a contentious email chain; partially due to anxiety over the surreal insanity of this election year, I am feeling lost, frustrated, and depressed. The reason is simple. The unknown. Everything above represents an unknown. Forgetting my meds is impacting me physically,

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