As a positive psychologist and coach, my contacts on social media tend to be with others who have similar points of view. As a result, many of the notifications that I receive in my inbox or on my social media pages tend to be ones that advocate for: staying positive in the face of challenges…
My wife and I became apartment dwellers eight years ago, and we were fortunate to move into a building where most of the people are friendly, greet you when you enter the elevator, and wish you well when you exit. We have become good friends with a number of the hundreds of people who live…
At this time of the year, when we just celebrated Mother’s Day and prepare to celebrate Father’s Day next month, it always brings to my mind a question that I remember from my youth. It was pretty universal in my generation to ask the following question – particularly after seeing parents receiving gifts and being…
We all have bad days – and some of them are of our own making. Of course, sometimes things don’t work out because we are treated unfairly, and sometimes we are treated fairly but we don’t get the job or the relationship or the discount or the tax break that we want. Even on the…
Some very compassionate people have a difficult time expressing self-compassion. According to Dr. Kristin Neff, self-compassion expert at the University of Texas, the practice of self-compassion involves giving ourselves the same kindness and care that we’d give to a friend. Why do some people find that concept so difficult? In some cases, the problem is…
No matter how positively we approach life and how satisfied we are with our situations, nothing ever turns out right all the time. We all wind up being disappointed at times, feeling regretful at times, and feeling that we are being treated unfairly at times. During those times, it is pretty normal to try to…
There are very few things that we can do during the last week in December to change the quality of the outcome of the year. Hopefully, not many of us would want to change it to any great extent, but I do feel that it’s appropriate to have a level of discontent about the past in order for us…
If you’ve been to your local mall or downtown shopping area in the past few days, you don’t need a calendar to let you know what time of the year this is. The rush to find suitable decorations and gifts (hopefully at bargain prices) is an obvious indicator that this is the time of the…
I don’t usually get overly personal in these blogs, but events of the past few weeks make it a little different this week. Like every couple, especially one who has raised children, we’ve had to deal with our share of stresses over our 52-year marriage. Since we have lived healthy and active lives, however, few…
Every once in a while, people are surveyed about what they consider to be the most significant inventions that have taken place in the past century. Cell phones are usually up there in the top ranks along with some of the vaccines and the rockets that enable space exploration – and I suspect that the…
Whenever people discuss potential calamitous events of the future – like destruction of the planet due to global warming or an intentional or inadvertent nuclear event or the total collapse of the Social Security System or robots who start controlling humans rather than the other way around, you will often get at least one person…