I’ll be 50 next week. In thinking about my accomplishments so far in life, it recently dawned on me that I currently have no “goals” to shoot for. It’s not that I’m anti-goals, but rather that I’ve done everything I’ve ever set out to do. Quit drinking? Check. Go to college at 30? Check. Buy a house? Write a book? Help grow a brand in 5-years from scratch to the #120 fastest growing company according to Inc. Magazine? Check check check. I don’t want…
I’m currently on plane heading home from two weeks in Belize. A third-world country filled with poor people who do not know the luxury of driving to a Walmart to purchase a 50-pack of Angel Soft toilet tissue and five-pound packs of beef jerky. The person next to me is American. We’ve been sitting together for an hour and the only time she’s acknowledged my presence was when I had to pardon myself to pee and she rolled her eyes…
My mom called from Texas today to make sure that we were going to survive the hurricane. She’d heard that NC was under attack from God. It was the second call this week about it. I told her that we had nary a drop of rain in the forecast, and that NC is a very wide state. Just not as wide as Texas. “Well I’ve been watching the news and they’re talking about how bad it’s going to be there–so I…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – seek balance in life. Working until your fingers bleed to get the people in power to notice you so that you can climb the corporate ladder and earn the money necessary to attract a spouse and buy a big house and have kids who you’ll have to work even harder for to put through college so that they can have what you consider a good life – this is unsustainable. Learn…
Six months ago I was a sullen soul standing in a swirling, biting, bitter wind. The coats had long been pulled from the attic and were now cluttering our closets. The summer sun a distant memory, my skin already ash. It was December. The winter solstice. Three months to go until spring. Probably a couple more until it was safe to wear shorts. And yet somehow, I smiled. I knew that the darkest days were behind us, and that…
Sitting in a periodontist’s office watching patients arrive, fill out forms, read old magazines, and disappear into the back of the office as staff hurry along shuffling papers and tapping tablets. Everyone is smiling. Patients leave the office with little bags of toothpaste, floss, and a toothbrush – a canon of oral hygiene that they’ll toss into a cluttered drawer in their bathroom at home. Every time a nurse calls a man’s name they look at me like an unmarked square on a…
