Where Freedom Ends and Responsibility Begins

Excuses Metastasizing

A Stained Mattress: A fictional short-short story

Loaded Dice

Tired of Being Responsible: A fictional short-short story

One Minute on How I Get So Much Done

A Word With Marty: "FACEBOOK"

If All Public Colleges Were Free? A thought experiment

A Loyal Gardener: A short-short story

Funster Phil: A short-short story

Steady Eddie: A short-short story

An Orderly Life

5 Keys to Becoming More Conscientious

A large-scale synthesis of studies on conscientiousness, covering more than 100 years of research, merged the findings of 92 separate meta-evaluations covering 2,500 studies, with a combined n of 1.1 million. It identified ten ways that conscientiousness manifests.

To make it easier to implement its findings, my Psychology Today article today merged the ten manifestations into five. For each, I offer a suggestion for how you might make it part of your life.

Quotes on Wisdom

I believe that this collection of quotes could be particularly helpful.

Are You as Responsible as You Want to Be? Questions to consider

It’s tempting to be irresponsible. As Freud would term it, to let your id reign. For example, if you work as little as you can get away with, there’s more time for play, for example playing or watching sports or video games. And irresponsible play can be more fun: risky sex, mind-altering drugs, treating the highway like a speedway. Indeed, I’ve noticed an increase in the number of cars darting in and out of lanes at a zillion miles an hour.

Yet I want to risk being a spoil-sport, like the dour, finger-wagging father or cleric often portrayed in the media: from The Scarlet Letter’s Reverend Dimmesdale to the eponymous father in The Great Santini to Game of Thrones’ Tywin Lannister.

My Psychology Today article today makes the case for the primacy of responsibility and then asks you questions to help you decide if you're as responsible as you'd like to be.

7 Suggestions for Becoming More Diligent

Imagine that your counselor emailed you between sessions to ask how you’re doing. Or that your friend promised to help you on Saturday at 9 and, voila, there s/he was. Or that your romantic partner remembered that you dislike cilantro and when phoning for takeout, made sure that nothing had cilantro.

Diligence is one of those virtues that seem to have gone a bit out of fashion, along with duty, discipline, responsibility, and restraint. Yet diligence has always been and always will be at the hub of accomplishment and, among the discerning, of respectability.

But how to get more diligent? Ay, there’s the rub. My Psychology Today article today offers my best but I fear inadequate suggestions:

The Straight Arrow: An underappreciated type?

 It seems we ever more venerate the rebel, especially the quirky artistic type. But has the pendulum swung too far from the straight arrow? I make the case in my Psychology Today article today.

My Father’s Store: Life Lessons

The way my dad ran his story provides what for me, have been the important life lessons. I believe they will for you. So I describe my dad and his store in my Psychology Today article today.

On Turning 70 The thing I most want to tell you

I’ll be 70 next month and wanted to write something special. To come up with something I thought might be worthy, I reviewed my thoughts on career, relationships, money, mental health, physical health, and the meaning of life. One thought rose to the top. I talk about it in my Psychology Today article today.

Tough! Is being intolerant of bad behavior an underappreciated value?

Previous articles in my occasional series on values include one that invites readers to place themselves on 12 continua, and three articles on values that are tough to live by: discipline, hard work, and responsibility. 

Today’s article aggregates those three: It makes a case for toughness. It's potentially applicable in the widest range of contexts, as the article attempts to demonstrate.