You’re probably not old enough to remember, but a commercial in the 70s reminds me of this episode. In the commercial, a woman who represented Earth informed the viewer, “‘It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” I don’t know if this ad made an impression on me, but my adult…
Tag: Psychology
Why Good People Do Bad Things
Are humans evil? Are humans inherently evil? There’s a popular hypothesis that says we are. It’s a great excuse for bad behavior. But believing we can’t help ourselves has never set well with me. Kind of like when some guys use ‘millions of years of evolution’ as an excuse to…
Personal Growth as a Model for Society
Much of our lives seem haphazard and disorganized. Sometimes doing our best simply means being able to get out of bed and go through the motions. As we gain awareness we learn how to better navigate life’s obstacles. We learn to see the obstacles as the way. It is possible…
The Cause is at the Source
Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom 138 One of the most influential papers from my former career described the ‘River Continuum Concept’. Though quite basic, this paper revolutionized how we thought about streams and rivers. Specifically how freshwater systems changed from their springs where they began to the oceans into which…
Making Room for Discomfort Leads to Growth
Episode 137 Do you ever think about your comfort zone? You know, the thing that keeps you doing the same things over and over. And helps you stay calm, minimize anxiety, and do the things you need to do. I think of the comfort zone as being like a cocoon…
Using Common Sense to Win at Life
Do you remember common sense? That people just kinda know stuff. What’s right and what’s wrong. Do you remember Common Sense? The document by Thomas Paine that was a precursor to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution? The first thing is something we think everybody we agree with has,…
Walk Your Talk to Win at Life
There was a time when my relationship with my father was pretty good. But during my teenage years I pretty much avoided him. During that period he gave me a lot of advice I didn’t want nor listen to. One of the things he told me was that I needed…
Growing Smaller is a Worthy Goal Part 2
Here is Part 1 of this two-part series. In it, I focus mostly on the Growth part of the equation In Part 2, I want to focus on the Smaller portion. As I said, I used to be an entrepreneur. In my small town, I struggled to generate enough traffic to…
The Downfall of Modern Life
This episode is inspired by the idea that the USA has the world’s most expensive yet least h care. At least this has been the type of conclusion drawn from many analyses that compare things like GDP, cost of health care, and individual health. The idea is that we have…
Our Feelings Drive Interactions with Each Other
If I’ve said it once by now, I’ve said it a thousand times: It blows my mind that any two people can have a conversation and walk away feeling understood AND having understood the other person with any degree of accuracy. In other words, our communication sucks. We often hear…