Independence

My wife and I watch more movies at home than we did before the pandemic began.  I like watching movies on the couch together.  We saw a movie the other evening about the life of singer Ray Charles.   I was impressed with how his mom raised him to be so independent in...

Learning

I misplaced my car keys the other morning and it nearly drove me crazy until I found them.  For some reason, I seem to be misplacing and losing stuff more during the pandemic.  I ended up finding my keys on the picnic table where I had been doing exercises the day...

Coaching Yourself

A part of my job as a psychologist is to teach people to coach themselves.  In order to teach something, I need to figure out how to do it myself—so I can give advice that is reasonably helpful.  While I try to take a less-is-more approach when it comes to advice,...

Holidays

I think most us are lowering the bar for this holiday season.  For me, the bar of peace & joy has never been much different during the holidays than the rest of the year.  At the risk of sounding like a calendar socialist, I tend to treat most days equally,...

Belonging

I used to take my evening walks across town, but now I stay away from campus because college students have proven to be as bad at spreading the virus as ultra conservatives.  Instead I walk through neighborhoods where I’m less likely to see other people. I choose to...

Teamwork

Our country is in the process of learning to become a better team.  All teams go through this process before they can achieve greatness.  Our country has yet to achieve greatness, even though a lot of people wear hats about how great we once were or how great we are...