One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is in The Matrix. Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) sit facing each other in old leather armchairs. The room they are in mirrors the chairs perfectly. In what appears to have once been upscale decor, old paper peels off the wall and every surface […]
In the past, I have mentioned the subject of discipline when I talked about learning to play the drums. Anyone who has ever learned to play an instrument or paint or play a sport knows that type of discipline—playing a phrase over and over until you get it right, running a play until it is seamless, […]
Failure does not mean defeat Failure can be devastating. It often means the death of a dream and the realization of a nightmare. It’s so painful, some people spend their entire lives trying to avoid it. They see it as the Wicked Witch of the West, Darth Vader, and the Boogeyman all rolled up in […]
“… if you feed and indulge your dark nature, it will one day consume and control you.” A serious man in a dark laboratory contemplates a small vial of liquid briefly before upending the contents into his mouth. Almost immediately after swallowing the concoction, his face contorts in spasms of unthinkable pain. Slowly, his countenance […]
What would Sherlock Holmes deduce in regard to your Power of Choice? I was already in my early thirties before I discovered Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s wonderful books about master sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Like everyone else, I had been exposed to the character Homes all my life, but had somehow missed reading any of his adventures […]
In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is lead by the Ghost of Christmas Future to a cemetery and forced to look upon his own gravestone. The inscription had only his name, and yet it was a symbol of terror and despair for Scrooge, the physical manifestation of a life misspent. Suppose for a […]
Blinded by a Ignorance Not long ago, a second-year college student named Cathy told me that she wants to go to law school when she graduates. I asked her what type of law she wants to practice, and she replied that she wants to prosecute animal cruelty cases. I asked her if there is a […]
Have you ever heard the expression “Out of sight, out of mind”? It means if something leaves your visual range, you’re probably not going to think about it anymore. It’s human nature. We are instinctually and habitually visual creatures. When you think or hear the words “red wagon,” you don’t visualize the letters r-e-d-w-a-g-o-n in […]
It’s interesting that of the three basic animal instinctive responses to danger–fight, flight or freeze, most people just freeze when they face a threat. Whether dealing with a health, work, or personal problem, most people’s first reaction is to do nothing. But one of the biggest mistakes you can make in life is doing nothing. […]
