Positivity

A friend, your spouse or a co-worker, compliments you. “That’s nice,” you think. By the next hour, day or week you’ve forgotten about it. A friend, your spouse or a co-worker criticizes something about you. “Ouch,” you think. And for the next hour…

Have you paid any attention to the very first thought you have upon waking? For months after a tumultuous divorce, my first thought was, “I hate my life.” Anyone else thinking that today? I knew at the time it wasn’t the best idea to give the thought…

Rain splattered against the windowpane, mimicking the worried rhythm of Joyce’s heart. Her son, Allen, was due back from a camping trip with friends, and with every passing minute, the storm outside echoed the one brewing inside…

This is the season of celebrations. Yet, for many of us, finding good cheer to celebrate is difficult. These days darkness is trying to sneak into our lives as both our daylight and our spirits grow shorter and darker. In my part of the world…

When I look at my dogs, I marvel at their astonishing, vibrant self-esteem. My two big puppies, four and eleven years old, respectively, never question their deservability. They assume, and rightly so, that they are fully worth being fed yummy meals…

Living now, in our day and time, is unparalleled, which requires me to revisit this theme again. You might ask, “What do you mean?” Every time I finish an article, something amazing happens that reminds me of the incredible resilience and creativity…

Author James Thurber, who had very poor eyesight, once wrote a hilarious story called “The Admiral on the Wheel” about a time when he was forced to spend a few days without his glasses after his maid stepped on them and broke them…

As the leaves fall, the trees become bare, and a few apples hang stubbornly on my apple tree; ebony crows sit watchful on the fence row. I, too, have hung stubbornly to the tree, resisting change. In the last few evening hours before Daylight Savings…

We all complain now and then. It’s human nature. But it’s a slippery slope and the more we complain, the worse it gets. When it gets out of control and becomes a habit, we’ve contracted that insidious disease known as negativitis. Inflammation of negative thinking…

We don’t think about it much, but we go through our daily lives with a huge range of assumptions about what is going on around us. At least I do. And I expect you do, too. You’re in the supermarket and a mother is yelling at a little boy…