Practical Creativity for Everyday Life and Parenting
When our kids were growing up, we never used the word “allowance” in our house. I made that decision partly because the concept of an allowance sounded to me like entitlement, on the one hand, and loss of agency on the other. If you get an allowance simply for being someone’s offspring, that sends a...
Are You Growing Wiser Or Just Older?
I was chatting with some friends the other day, and someone said something about how people get wiser as they get older. “Not necessarily.” I said. “You have to choose to get wiser.” They asked me to elaborate, so here’s what I mean . . . Unlike knowledge, which can be accumulated deliberately and systematically,...
Matchup: Mind Vs. Heart (Revisited)
This post originally ran April 30, 2022 I raised my kids to follow their hearts; to trust their intuition. I truly believe our gut responses are often the best. So why is it so hard sometimes to just “go with the gut”? Why do our minds feel the need to try to override our intuition?...
Won’t You Come Home, If Only For a Day?
A year ago, my husband and I were visiting our daughter, and the three of us made a quick trip to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. My daughter may have read one or two of the Little House books as a child, but didn’t have much association with the author, so...
The Gift of Receiving
My birthday is coming up soon, and since I’m too happily busy this year to plan anything, I’ve instead enjoyed looking back on past memorable birthdays and what they meant to me. This morning, this memory came to mind: It was my 12th birthday, I think. My mom always hosted a joint birthday party for...
Are You Really in the Pursuit of Happiness?
This post originally ran on July 1, 2017 This Fourth of July weekend, I’m musing on the Declaration of Independence. What exactly did our Founders mean by including “the pursuit of Happiness” as one of our unalienable rights? Some say they were influenced by Francis Hutcheson, an Irish reverend and philosopher, and others who believed...
Are You Boredom Averse or Stress Averse?
Whew, what a crazy week! I feel like I say that a lot. Wait, I do say that a lot. My friends and family have come to expect crazy weeks from me, which is why the many months I took off last year to address health and personal issues was so unsettling for them and...
Where Imagination Meets Conscious Choice
My friend Bruce Adolphe is a world-renowned composer. In reading through his new book, Visions and Decisions: Imagination and Technique in Music Composition, I wondered how many of his insights I’d be able to apply to my own art. I’m not a musician, after all. While I did enjoy playing the piano well into my...