Shaking: A fictional short-short story

In Search of Christmas

The Test Result: a fictional short-short story

For Gentle Souls An homage and suggestions

Today, we seem to venerate the loud-and-proud, big-and-bad, badass. Amid the din, the gentle soul can be underappreciated.

After all, disproportionately, gentle souls are listeners, reflective, patient, and considerate. My Psychology Today article today offers  some ideas that the gentle soul might find helpful.

How to Be Kind: 5 ways to make kindness easier and more worthwhile.

Everyone tells us to be kind but a few specifics may help you feel better about the kindnesses you bestow. I offer them in my Psychology Today article today.

How Kind vs. Just Do You Want to Be? 11 questions to help you decide

We tend to behave on auto-pilot. It may be helpful to step back and evaluate our behavior.. Previous installments in this series asked you to consider how ambitious you want to be, how honest, and whether to raise or lower your expectations of yourself and others. Here we turn to where you are and would like to be on the kindness vs. justice continuum.

My Psychology Today article today asks you 11 questions to help you decide.

Successful and Still Unhappy: 3 possibly easy fixes

Many of my clients are financially successful yet still unhappy. I’ve offered tips on this previously, for example, Wealthy but Sad Syndrome. But some people learn more when the tips are embedded in context, hence, as my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer a story.

Is Being Nice Worth the Price?

Alas, it seems that nice guys, while not necessarily finishing last, do get taken advantage of. I'm filled with respect for people who despite it all, recognize the cosmic wisdom of kindness over expedience. I tell a short-short story of such a person in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Old People Doing Good

We tend to write-off old people. But, at their best, they can be a much needed balm for our ever more harried lives. 

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I write an ode to kindly older folks plus a list of kindly activities that older people may have more time to bestow. HERE is the link.

My Last Lecture

A Carnegie Mellon professor, dying of cancer, gave this last lecture.

Here's the essence of what mine would be:

1. Get good at something and then work long hours at it. The extra work hours will be more rewarding to you and to the world than a round of golf, shopping with a friend, playing Monopoly with your family, or getting on a plane to go to your nephew's bar mitzvah.

2. Champion something that most people don't. I'm pro-choice, but so are zillions of other people. My efforts there would be a drop of water in an ocean. In contrast, today, no one seems to care about intellectually gifted kids, especially boys, in our public schools. When I champion their right to get an appropriate-leveled education I feel my efforts matter.

3. Do something very creative--as a hobby. Creative pursuits usually pay terribly. Doing your creative outlet as a hobby allows you to derive most of the pleasure without having to take a vow of poverty.

4. Be nice.

5. Never look back; always look forward. I asked my father why he never talks about the Holocaust. He said, "The Nazis took five years from my life. I won't give them one minute more. Martin, never look back; always look forward."