Category: Life & Living

As a little boy, I always dreaded when it was finally time to remove the band-aid covering my scraped knee or cut elbow, which was a pretty common occurrence. My mother would lovingly apply antiseptic to clean the wound before covering it with the plastic and gauze tab to help protect it from infection. The band-aid felt comforting and even provided a feeling of safety, like the armor of a superhero shielding me from unpleasantries. But sooner or later the band-aid needs to come off This often raised my anxiety level and induced my brain to retreat into a state of fear. That fear over the excruciating pain caused by removing the band-aid was admittedly based more on false truths spread around by older classmates or friends and had little…

“Doing the right thing isn't always easy - in fact, sometimes it's real hard - but just remember that doing the right thing is always right.” - David Cottrell, Business Author. Many of us go through our lives doing the right thing regarding finances – abiding by rules, being responsible, and even respectful of what money represents. Growing up, my grandfather always tried to instill in me the importance of financial responsibility. His perspective was undoubtedly the result of the economic disparities he witnessed during The Great Depression and in the years that followed – forever cementing a mindset that few of us possess today to appreciate money, not take it for granted. While some of us commit to financial freedom, making the necessary sacrifices to achieve that goal, others…

I recently read a book by Michael Finkel entitled The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. The title sounded intriguing to me after growing tired of reading a series of self-help books that were designed to inspire but did little to do so. The book tells the real-life story of Christopher Knight, who in 1986 left his childhood home in Massachusetts (at the age of 20) and spent the next 27 years living alone as a hermit in the woods of Maine without any human interaction. After being caught stealing necessary supplies from an unoccupied summer camp, Knight was forced back into the society he abandoned some 27 years prior. Thrust into a world he no longer understood and struggled to reacclimate himself to.…

My grandparents were famous for what they called putzing around the house. Considered slang, it’s often described as engaging in aimless recreation or frivolous time-wasting, but I can assure you it meant just the opposite for my grandparents – and me. Putzing around the house wasn’t about laziness at all for my grandparents. On the contrary, it was born from their inability to waste the time they were given. While I’m not saying that my grandparents didn’t enjoy mindless entertainment on occasion, if given the choice they were often putzing around the house whether outside picking weeds from their garden beds, organizing the garage or closets, making a few batches of eggplant parmesan to bring to family and friends, or a host of other random tasks which brought a sense…