You’re Damn Right It Sucks

On a particularly frustrating day on an excessively screwed-up mission, I got some bad news from higher headquarters that we needed to change routes and go back through the potentially IED-laden roads we just came through. The way I got handed the information was so casual that it stung – it was clear that the [...]

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Harnessing the Power of Endings

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Ali Hale from Aliventures. As well as writing blog posts and the occasional ebook, I write fiction. And one of the things I struggle with most is endings. You’ve read novels and watched TV series and seen movies, so you’ll understand why. A great ending sticks with [...]

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How A Wealthy Sage Becomes A Poor Hermit

Some time ago, a poor but wise young man walked into a village and began helping the villagers out in their daily lives. He showed up every day to answer their questions and would often give talks that encouraged, inspired, and empowered them. Since he had no place to stay, the villagers began to shelter [...]

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4 Questions To Ask Yourself Every Day

Toward the end of last year, Angela and I had started to get out of sync with each other. It’s not that we were fighting or even spatting, but rather that things were moving so quickly that we weren’t communicating in a way that was effective given the new pace of our lives. We went [...]

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How to Flourish: 17 Quotes On Living, Being, and Doing

I’ll step out of the way and let the quotes speak for themselves: “Fall seven times; stand up eight.” – Japanese proverb “You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.” – Joseph Campbell “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. [...]

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Is this Signal or Noise?

Are you increasing signal or adding noise in your communication with other people? Most of the time you hear people complaining about the noise they get from other people, whether it’s junk mail, spam, inane phone calls, water cooler emails, or that chain mail that’s been forwarded forty-seven times. Very rarely do we admit that [...]

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What’s the Difference Between Offline Friends and Online “Friends”?

This week’s Food for Thought: What’s the difference between offline friends and online “friends”? (If you answered that online friends are ones you made online, you get 10 Smartass points. Proceed directly to the university nearest you and sign up as a philosophy major with said points.) Sure, it’s a Web1.0 type of question, but [...]

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How Friends Help You Flourish

Friends and flourishing are like cookies and milk: the addition of the one makes the other so much better. But friends and flourishing are unlike cookies and milk in that you can’t have one without the other. “Friends,” Aristotle says, “are our second selves.” They help define who we are and improve our character. They [...]

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Fake Plastic Trees

I’ll give you fair warning on this post: if you don’t like “the making of” pieces or introspection, you likely won’t get much out of this post. I’m not sure how it’s all going to fit together or whether I’m going to be providing anything useful. I’ll also admit that part of this post is [...]

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