Success Starts Here!

This week has been an eventful one in my household; sending our older son off to college and getting our younger one ready for his freshman year of high school starting next week. It has been a busy and emotional week for our family. This week I've had to remind myself multiple times, something I learned a long time ago which has served me well. Be "in the right now." Be "in the moment." Too many times the milestones in our lives come and go without much fanfare and later we are left with an emptiness as we look back. 2,500 years ago, a guy named Siddhartha Gautama was figuring out all kinds of things on his way to "Enlightenment." One of the things he learned through trial and error and a cornerstone of the movement he began which was eventually called Buddhism was to be in the moment. To be in the right now. To truly treasure the moments of your life "as" they were happening. In our 24/7 go, go, go world very few people do that anymore.

Well for most of my friends on the east coast this has been one heck of a few days. Hurricane Irene definitely made an impact on all our lives this weekend and as I write this she is still battering my home state of Massachusetts. Hurricanes, like other natural disasters are interesting phenomena. They are mother nature's unfortunate spring cleaning mechanisms. They destroy everything in their path. Yet something interesting happens after the hurricane; life always returns. Life is so incredibly resilient. It exists in places life really shouldn't exist. From boiling sulfuric vents in the bottom of the ocean, to aresenic-filled lakes in Latin America, to the coldest ends of Antarctica and the driest spots of the Sahara, life somehow finds a way. As surely as a wildfire will singe entire forests, after the last embers have cooled, seeds will seemingly miraculously begin to grow plants out of the ashes. As surely as this hurricane has knocked trees down, pushed houses into the

In this era of coddling youngsters, of buying them everything they want, of not daring to raise your hand to discipline them, of 2-year olds knowing exactly how to get their way with dear old mom and dad by throwing a hissy-fit at Walmart to get that toy they want, I am probably somewhat of a relic. I'm more of an "old-school" parent. I can't tell you my way of parenting is better or worse than anyone else but I can tell you it is the only way I would want to parent. A recent article in the Associated Press noted that for the first time in history, moms (the story was about mother/daughter relationships) spent more time trying to "be" like their daughters than the other way around. Really? Are you kidding me? Come on! There is a particular dynamic to parenting and trying to look like your 16 year old daughter and wear what she wears and listen to what she listens to when you're 45 so her friends will like you is darn-right ridiculous and shameful. Good

A recent paper by a researcher at the University of Cambridge suggests the first person who will live to 1,000 has already been born. The author purports genetic medicine is advancing at such a rate, science will literally be able to "cure" old age within the next 10 years in laboratory animals and the next 25 in humans. If that is the case, I don't know how I feel about it. Sort of seems like a huge change to our human experience. Someday not too far in the future, my romanticized ideas of life and death, of the human experience may be as ridiculous as the earth being flat I assume. Yet, until sience proves me a neandrathol of a bygone era, I will continue to believe the human experience, what makes us who we are, is a cycle which begins at birth and lasts long after our death. I believe we already have the ability to live forever. Not in the sense science measures, but in a far more important way; we survive in the lives we touch. Yeah that probably seems corny but co

Over the years I have had the opportunity to meet thousands upon thousands of people in my travels and here at home. I've had the chance to make some amazing friends along the way and I've been able to observe some of them make great strides in their lives while others fail miserably (I have personally experienced both ends of that spectrum). There are many factors in success or failure of course but in my opinion the most significant variable is you . I believe we all have a base, a default setting. That base is very powerful and is a combination of our genetics (what we picked up from mom and dad) and our experiences. It is that state which you always find yourself defaulting to. For me it is a lazy procrastinator who views the world just a little bit on the pessimist side. My base individual is one who is constantly in fear of failure and of ending up where I started. Why do I feel this way? Well I don't know exactly but I know growing up in a very poor environment whe

I have a friend who is always wondering "why" this happened or "why" that happened to him. He lives in this constant emotional state where he feels like everyone and everything is out to get him. He wonders why bad things happen to him all the time. Of all my friends; the funny one, the successful guy, the one who has the seemingly perfect life, he is the "victim". Recently he asked me why I thought something or other happened to him and I said (rather callously I'm embarrassed to say) "did you ever think that maybe it is your own damn fault?" I'll be honest, I felt bad saying it. I'm usually the guy everyone comes to talk to. I'm usually the guy who will sit there and listen and try to share words of encouragement. Usually because most people who come to you with problems don't actually want you to fix them. They just need an unjudging ear to bend to let out their frustrations. So I try to be that person. Having said that,

You might remember Chris Medina. He was a 2010 American Idol contestant. More specifically, he was the contestant whose fiancee had suffered a horrible vehicle accident and sustained permanent brain damage. The reason he was memorable wasn't for his talent or her accident, but the fact he stayed by her side even after it was evident she would never fully recover from her injuries. This wouldn't be so uncommon if it wasn't for the fact it is uncommon. Chris promised he would stay by her side through thick and thin long before her accident. Two years earlier, he took a knee at a Starbucks where Juliana worked and asked her to marry him. She accepted and he pledged he would be by her side until the end of time. In our throw away society where we don't fix anything anymore, we just throw it away and buy a new one, relationships have taken a toll. Many people take the same attitude towards relationships they take with "things". Everybody loves the honeymoon stage