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 Cohen
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
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.
There’s a lot of talk out there about the unrealistic expectations of romantic love. Comments about the juvenile hope that the most intense part of “true love” will last forever are ubiquitous on blogs and in print. Columnists decry the idea that we could ever be taken care of the way that we were as infants, and claim that it is this infantile need to feel the center of someone’s
Don’t ever ask me to trust you, it will set off my radar. It’s been my experience that when someone says, “Trust me!”, they are too often not very trustworthy. Even if they happen to be, though, the request is poorly worded. It’s impossible to trust someone instantly. What IS possible, however, is an instant risk, and knowing the difference between the two is a measure of our emotional intelligence.In