A student recently told me about a book by Rhaina Cohen called “The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center”. The book is full of great insights, and although I am not quite done, I am really enjoying it. The premise is simply this: what if our closest friend were, in essence, our primary partners in life? It’s not the first time I have contemplated this, but
As I enter the third act of my life, I have become aware that I have developed a very different response (OK, let’s call it what it is, a reaction) to the idea of purpose. All of my life I have considered myself lucky to have had a strong sense of purpose, and while my purpose has changed throughout the years, the feeling that I’m needed here on the planet
Have you ever thought about the fact that everything you know, every single thing, was taught to you by someone else? Everything you know how to do, every value you have, every belief, someone had to teach you. Even if we unlearn or reconsider those beliefs, values or facts, we do so usually through not only our experience, but new beliefs, facts and ideas coming to us through others. It’s
When Byron Katie first published “Loving What Is” in 2002, the book became an international phenomenon. Oprah endorsed it, everyone I knew was talking about it, and I found the approach an outstanding way to shake up my thinking. However Katie came to formulate the questions, they draw on older ideas: those of self-inquiry, which is part of philosophy; ideas that are reflected in narrative therapies, and the power of
Fertile. Abundant. Producing or bearing fruit. I’m reading these in my etymology sources as I look up the roots of the word fertility, and I’m having a number of reactions. Easter, from the Old pagan Oestar, came from a fertility festival (thus, the bunnies.) Sounds great! Sounds sexy! So why am I conflicted? Probably because I saw the word productive and felt vaguely nauseated. I am tired of the Western
A long time ago, I was introduced to the phrase, “The good is the enemy of the best,” and I thought it was brilliant. I was opposed, as many of us are, to “settling”, to the idea that anything but the very best was something to be striven for. Research, it turns out, has other ideas. Striving for the best may get us a better job, or a better house.