when clients come to see me in my office, i always have a big glass of water ready for them. some drink it all, others drink nothing, others yet some of it. after they leave, there is a little ritual: all leftover water is given to the plant that lives behind the sofa in the… Continue reading sharing water
Month: September 2006
control and insanity
yesterday, on the way to the CMHA annual meeting, i got a ride from someone whose generosity and wisdom has always impressed me. one of the things he said (and i’ll paraphrase – my memory isn’t the best) that there is no point in trying to direct every aspect of our personal or business lives,… Continue reading control and insanity
happy birthday, robert b. parker!
today is the birthday of one of my favourite authors, mystery writer robert b. parker. i love his writing style (the influence of dashiell hammett, the grandfather of mystery novels, is clearly visible), i love his ideas, how he talks about boston. most of all, i love the mixture of simplicity and subtlety in his… Continue reading happy birthday, robert b. parker!
depression: getting through the dark
the other day i looked over what some people with depression say about their experience. descriptions of numbness and emptiness outnumbered anything else by far. they talked of being in a dark place that made it impossible for them to feel anything, the kind of unmotivating emptiness that creates
what’s your ecological footprint?
in preparing for my last toastmasters speech, where i talked about why i walk and use public transit instead of owning a second car in our family, i came across an interesting site that
understanding “i don’t know” – part 4
how can we move out from under the helplessness of “i don’t know”? as i mentioned a few days ago, what is underneath “i don’t know” sometimes is a fear of knowledge, a fear of what might happen were we to become aware of knowledge that we have hidden away, or perhaps of the consequences… Continue reading understanding “i don’t know” – part 4
understanding “i don’t know” – part 3
the last two blog entries here were about how the words “i don’t know” often come from information overload, or, alternatively, from a certain anxiety around the emotionally laden information. today, let’s talk about how we can deal with this, how we can move from “i don’t know” to something like, “i have an idea”… Continue reading understanding “i don’t know” – part 3
understanding “i don’t know” – part 2
in my last blog entry i talked about how the words “i don’t know” often stem not from not-knowing, but from information overload. the knowledge gets buried in a mass of (often unpleasant) information. the second reason why we sometimes feel we don’t know the solution to our problems is because we might have a… Continue reading understanding “i don’t know” – part 2
understanding “i don’t know”
“i don’t know …” when we’re confronted with a difficult issue, we often come up with these words, “i don’t know”. “why do i always end up drinking more than i wanted? i just don’t know.” “i wish i could change how i talk to my son. we always seem to end up fighting. i… Continue reading understanding “i don’t know”
deceiving self and others: a poem
one of the things that came up in our fireside chat yesterday was self deception. i just stumbled across one of my poems that is somewhat a propos: the king and queen arriving without clothes, and we bow before them. arrived, we also have arrived, knowing the words that clothe them: “how beautiful her skirt!… Continue reading deceiving self and others: a poem