“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” –Albert Einstein1 We live in a culture that prizes fame and fortune over contribution and service, so it’s understandable that many people are driven to achieve conventional success. I too am driven, in part, by the desire for money and status. But while wealth and prestige do provide a certain sort of pleasure, they do not… Read More »Doing Work That Matters
Too often, we engage in self-improvement as a form of self-punishment. In Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach explains what looks like to pursue self-improvement for all the wrong reasons: “We embark on one self-improvement project after another. We strive to meet the media standards for the perfect body and looks by coloring out the gray, lifting our face, being on a perpetual diet. We push ourselves to get a better position… Read More »Self-Improvement For All the Right Reasons
Like many folks, I thought we were on our way out of this mess, but the recent spike in cases has made it clear the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. And, like many folks, I rode out the spring in a sort-of holding pattern – not taking on new projects or pushing myself much in the arena of self-improvement. Sure, I’ve kept up with my writing and my full-court… Read More »Self-Improvement In The Time Of COVID
Photo by Steven Pierson. Creative Commons 2.0. In Alexandria, Indiana, hangs a strange piece of ever-evolving art: the world’s largest ball of paint. It began in 1977 when Mike Carmichael and his three-year-old son painted a baseball. How did that turn into the world’s largest ball of paint, you ask? They never stopped painting it. They got friends and neighbors to paint it. Eventually, they enlisted strangers who happened to… Read More »Legacy, Contribution, and The World’s Largest Ball of Paint