78 Shares It’s that month again. Does your heart leap at the prospect of astonishing your partner with a date that will set their world on fire? I didn’t think so. All that pressure to be romantic focussed on one little day can feel like more of a burden than anything else. You can sulk all you want but declaring that you don’t believe in the whole consumerist conspiracy rarely gets you off the hook unless your beloved shares that same philosophy. It is possible that you are so romantic all year round that... More »
182 Shares I’m a sucker for productivity tips, they give me hope. I think it’s a hangover from school days when each September you would see me equipped with a new set of notebooks and pencils, just dazzled by the promise of a fresh new start on success. Reading productivity blog posts is the virtual version of indulging my office products habit and closely related to my secret guilty pleasure — “Organizing Porn” — but that’s the subject of another post. More things, more quickly I am not a pilot, brain-surgeon or rocket scientist.... More »
208 Shares Have you noticed how obsessed we all are with getting things right? Not only that, but doing the right thing quicker and better than ever before. Everywhere you turn, there are books, magazines and blogs dedicated to making sure we have the secrets of success so we don’t screw up. In the face of all this rampant perfectionism, it’s easy to overlook the importance of being OK without getting it wrong now and then. I had a bad day yesterday. In fact, I would go so far as to say that my... More »
110 Shares When it comes to the holidays, there are those who plan months ahead, thoughtfully selecting the perfect gifts and those who procrastinate down to the last moment, hurtling through the crowds on a wild-eyed, manic mission to find anything that will do. Whatever your approach to the issue, gift-giving can be a stressful process, especially when it comes down to choosing a gift for the one you love. The tenth anniversary disaster Take my friend Ken, who faced with the challenge of a tenth wedding anniversary to celebrate, was quite convinced that... More »
96 Shares For many people, the prospect of a first date inspires more anxiety than eager anticipation. Where to go? What to wear? What to say? Will they be hot? What if they’re not? With so much unknown, it makes sense to be smart about the things you can control. So here are some tips to give you a head start. 1. Location, location, location The first rule of real estate is just as applicable to first dates. If you are lucky enough (– or unlucky enough – depending on your perspective) to be... More »
361 Shares Each individual has a unique tolerance level for how much physical and emotional stress they can endure before something starts to give. Far too often people ignore the warning signs that their stress levels are becoming unmanageable and it takes a crisis of some kind to get them to change. The speeding ticket from God A couple of years ago I was rushing to work and made the split-second decision to keep going through a light when I knew very well that it was going to turn red. Moments later I was... More »
221 Shares When it comes to relationships, I believe that honesty is always the best policy. Not merely remaining faithful. Not in the sense of being able to say that you never really lie to your partner. I’m talking about Radical Honesty; actually coming out and naming the elephants in the room so you can deal with them before they trample all over your relationship. Radical Honesty requires that you speak your truth even when you feel sure that the other person won’t want to hear it. Radical Honesty means that you have to... More »
96 Shares You may not be aware of this, but the two of you are not the only people involved in your relationship. In fact, you may be in a minority when it comes to who is actually running the show. Each time you begin afresh, all dewy-eyed about a shiny, new relationship, your subconscious is inviting a whole bunch of people to the party. Your Inner Child To begin with, there are the children. No, not the actual children. I’m talking about your inner children. That part of you that still feels the... More »
217 Shares Do you remember the story about the new prisoner on the block? He is settling in nervously on the first night of his sentence, when he hears a series of numbers yelled out, each one followed by raucous laughter from his fellow inmates. Nervously, he asks his cell-mate what is going on. The cell-mate replies, “That’s the lifers, they have been in here so long that they have heard all of each others’ jokes, so rather than telling the joke, to save time they just shout out the joke’s number.” If your... More »
1.1K Shares Why are we so fascinated by all those worst-case scenario survival tips about situations that are as statistically unlikely to happen to us as winning the lottery? Some of those tips seem more useful than others, take Wikihow’s guide to surviving a shark attack. Step 1) Remain Calm.” Hmm, calm during shark attack? Not so much. Or this advice on what to do if attacked by a bear, courtesy of the Tongass National Forest: Forest Facts webpage, “If a bear actually makes contact, surrender! Fall to the ground and play dead….” So... More »
99 Shares Relationship Hell. We’ve all been there; you’re doing the same things with the same person that once made you so happy but now cloud 9 has inexplicably morphed into planet misery. Why does it happen? How can you avoid it and how the heck do you get out of it once you’re in it? The number one cause of a good date gone bad, is our dangerous tendency to become focused or even obsessed with the imaginary ideal of a relationship that we create in our minds. We can devote so much... More »
