We are bombarded daily with tips for how to live longer, healthier lives. How to treat our bodies better, bolster our minds, and nourish our souls. We’re supposed to drink eight glasses of water a day, get eight hours of sleep per night, eat our greens, meditate, take time for ourselves. Blah, blah, blah. I’ll...
Tag: stories
40 Decisions a Day
A recent study found that mothers make 40 decisions a day! That’s 280 per week. Well heck, I could have told you that. But it got me thinking about artists and entrepreneurs. We easily make a like number of decisions in a single day. Some are big and some are small, but all seem so...
You Make It Look Easy
Beginner’s luck is defined as “unexpected success for someone who has taken up a new pursuit,” and we have all experienced it. For example, the first article I wrote after quitting my job to become a freelance writer was picked up immediately. The second article landed on the front page, and was quickly acquired for...
Don’t Waste Your Luck
I had a bit of financial luck recently, which has given me the ability to pull back on some of my paid work for a while and focus on my writing again. While I’m wildly excited by that prospect, it’s harder to do than it sounds. For most artist-entrepreneurs, there is no such thing as...
Does the Universe Take Our Ideas?
I was having lunch with a friend the other day, and she said she’d heard that the universe sometimes gifts us with ideas, and if we don’t act on them, it pulls the idea and gives it to someone else. I startled when she shared this. How many times have I thought of something, told...
Spontaneity vs Planning
I was sitting in a focus group the other night, and the facilitator threw out an icebreaker question: “What do you miss most about being a kid?” I said, “I miss spontaneity. You know, deciding you were in the mood for tag and then knocking on doors until you found someone who could come out...
Who Will Tell the Refugees’ Stories?
When I was in college, I befriended a girl whose family members were refugees from Laos. She went by the name of Jenny because her teachers had deemed her real name too hard to pronounce. I learned it, though, and called her by that. I can still remember how to say it, though I can’t...
Giving Your Most Precious Gift
Today I had the pleasure of attending a fundraiser for one of my favorite local charities. As always, I was in awe not only of the stories told by the families who benefit from the services, but by those of the volunteers and staff who shared how much their work means to them. We are...