Lifestyle
Healthy Progress, Not Perfection
How anyone can keep up with the diet trends these days, I’ll never know. If you’re getting your health information online, what’s good for you and what’s bad for you is simply a matter of science… or opinion… or scientific opinion. It’s all very confusing! But the one thing I think everyone can agree on at this point is that what you put into your body matters. Through much...
Weird, Wonderful Creativity
I have some issues with the word creative. I feel like it’s a word people say about you when they want to say that you are weird, but you are also in the room. This is really a shame because to be someone who creates (and is weird) is awesome! I create every day in my job at a Shakespeare Theater and most days in my downtime as a way of de-stressing. I have always loved painting. As a kid, m...
Road Rage Versus the Grateful Heart
For me, driving downtown is the worst. I lose all sense of patience and spend my entire commute questioning other people’s sanity and driving abilities. From start to finish, it’s a very negative experience. Then one day, it occurred to me: I could change my mind. Now there’s a thought. I like to think of myself as having a grateful heart. Most of the time, that’s true. Maybe I should say, in most...
Sufficient, But Not Saving
I often notice that a lot of commercials and ads have one big message in common: if you’re not buying or doing or subscribing to or wearing such and such, your life is not as good as it could be. There seems to be almost a moral pressure to consume the advertised thing. It’s easy to wonder if I’m good enough, doing the right thing, living life the right way, or consuming the “right” things. These ...
Getting Real About Money and Limits
I’ll be honest, I’m not writing about my financial health because I’m financially healthy. I’m writing about it because I’m not great about my money… and it bothers me. A lot of people in my life would say that I’m a pretty good adult—perhaps that I have been since I was about four. It’s a hazard of being an only child. And in a lot of ways it’s true. When I’m presented with a task or an area of m...
When Fall Doesn’t Come
I am a California baby raised primarily in the northern Midwest. For most of my life, fall meant a clear change in the seasons. In childhood, fall meant leaving the city for field trips with my Detroit classmates in the orchards of the Michigan countryside, driving through different northern regions to see the colorful changing foliage, and jumping into leaf piles that my dad created in our front ...
Bingeing, Self-Control, and the “Great Life-Waster”
I’d like to take a moment and consider the word binge. According to Webster’s dictionary, a binge is “an unrestrained and often excessive indulgence.” Another definition is “an act of excessive or compulsive consumption.” Of those definitions, I find the word “compulsive” to be the most significant and the most frightening. The implication is that if I’m binging, I literally cannot stop myself...
Courage in the Wilderness
My feet were dragging across a rocky singletrack trail in the Superstition Wilderness east of Phoenix. It was nearly 90 degrees outside and I was 43 miles into a 52.4 mile run—a double marathon. The entire right side of my body was cramping, my legs were sapped of energy, and I could feel my heart rate climbing like a mountain goat up a scree field. I hurt. I hurt bad. I was in what ultrarunners c...
45 Lessons I Didn’t Learn in School
We have all had levels of “education,” but I’ve found that I consistently learn more from what is not on the syllabus than what is. I discovered more about myself in between the lines of my formal education than I ever did sitting at a desk. A recent poll of my closest friends and relations made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I asked about their top “informal” lessons—here are some of the highlights...
Marshmallows and Delusions of Grandeur
As a kid, I loved marshmallows. The way they turn golden brown over an open flame. Their powdery mouthfeel and sugary taste. And not to mention their effortless ability to perfectly smoosh together on top of a melted peanut butter cup (that’s right—even as a kid, my s’mores game was strong). Unfortunately, these puffy treats were ruined for me thanks to the marshmallow experiment. If you aren’t fa...
How Art Has Changed My Life
I was recently asked what experiencing a creative art taught me, if I could quantify its effect on my life, and what “good” came from it. As a self-proclaimed “arty farty” person, my first reaction is to soap box the importance of art in our culture. How it shapes us and our reality. How it’s used in marketing, film, politics, and is statistically proven as valuable for test scores and SAT’s. I ...
What I Didn’t Know I Needed to Know
Like many others, I wasn’t able to escape craze surrounding Hamilton: An American Musicalthat has swept America in the last few years. Whether it’s the shock and novelty of rap in a major musical, the celebration of an unsung American hero, the brilliant character development, or the themes that keep recurring in unexpected places, it seems to be finding its way into American hearts on a host of l...