New Traditions
A tradition is, by definition, something that is repeated year after year. Even so, traditions change over time. Kids grow up and go off on their own, families that used to live within a few miles of each other are now spread out across the country, and lifestyles of days gone by simply don’t fit our way of life anymore. Easter, like Christmas, has both sacred and secular traditions, and I now find myself thinking about all the Easter traditions [...]
Diamonds in the Rough
One of the speaking programs I used to do was titled, “Where Do Diamonds Come From? A Lump of Coal and a Lot of Pressure.” The inspiration for the title of the program came from an old television series, The Adventures of Superman, that ran in the 1950s. People of a certain age – meaning my age or older – will remember the many episodes in which Superman took a piece of coal, squeezed it, and opened his hand to [...]
How old?
How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? That question comes up every so often, and I’ll be the first to admit there are times when I feel much older than my actual age. But there are times when I feel younger, too, so I guess it evens out. I thought of the question recently in relation to a friend who sent me an email after reading one of my blog posts a few weeks [...]
The right decision
A comic strip on the bulletin board of a health club I used to belong to featured an overweight man in his underwear sitting on the examining table in a doctor’s office. The doctor, standing next to him and staring at the clipboard he was holding, said, “Which works better for your schedule – exercising for one hour a day or being dead for twenty-four?” I was reminded of that the other day while watching a television interview with a [...]
The best and worst in us all
National emergencies – whether man-made or acts of God – tend to bring out the worst in some people, and the best in others. I read a story the other day that showed an example of both – in the same incident. The story was in Forbes online magazine, and had to do with a stock clerk, in a large grocery store, who was getting reamed out by a man who was livid because the store was out of Purell. [...]