It’s 6 am, the morning I’m due to fly from Boston to Chicago for a cable TV interview. One thousand miles away, an FAA employee takes his own life by setting fire to Chicago Airport’s air traffic control tower. All flights in and out are cancelled. I get the last seat on a 25-hour overnight train. To my right, a petite woman …
The Waiting Game
In Spanish, the word “esperar” means both to wait and to hope. This is a good lesson. How many of us wait not with hope, but with impatience and doubt? Much of life requires waiting, and how we wait can make all the difference to our happiness. When you’re on a long line at the post office, on hold for …
No Problem
I’m sad to report that today, I was an airport asshole. As I stood in line for the ticket counter, jammed in among several screaming babies, frazzled moms with carry-on car seats, and a crew of eight buzz-cut army guys with two overstuffed duffle bags each, the wait around the four winding turnstiles to the ticket agents seemed endless. I …
Protecting Your Space
Last night, after doing a really fun dance workshop, I went to my favorite Japanese restaurant where customers can sit at the sushi bar. Where they first seated me, it smelled really strongly of something like a cross between ammonia and Glade bathroom air freshener. I thought maybe they had just wiped the counter, but then I realized it was …
The Spirits of the Second Stall
It was my second day in New York City, and I was immersed in a crowd of nervous hopefuls. 100 authors and experts, all eager to get publicity, were jammed into a large hotel ballroom, lining up to meet the nation’s top TV producers, radio hosts, and print media editors. When our number was called, we had two and half …
The “Poor Me” Post-it
Plucky and freckled, my neighbor Lana is a young Irish gal who’s always making wisecracks and is quick to lend a helping hand. Lana grew up poor, raised by a quirky single mom whom she says dated men “with more criminal charges than teeth.” To help make ends meet, Lana’s mom would take her daughters dumpster diving. Since Lana was the …
How to Be Happy When Your Life is Crappy
How to be happy is no easy question, nor is there a short answer. Great philosophers and spiritual teachers have spent centuries tackling the quest for human happiness. Letting go of struggle and negativity and freeing yourself to joyously love and be loved is a lifelong journey. Meanwhile, there are a few basic check-points on the road map to happiness that …
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
In difficult situations, it’s often hard to know whether to stay in the situation or walk away, emotionally or literally. Playwright Tennessee Williams advises, “There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.” On the other hand, Buddhist nun Pema Chodron recommends that we “sit in the fire” until our powerful urges to run away …
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