Ewwww. That thought makes me squirm. I don’t really want to think about my behavior in relationship to money. But admitting my problem is the first step in solving it, right? My relationship with money certainly has evolved and taken many forms. I can tell you that, just like when I was married, I have dragged money to therapy so it can find out how it needs to fix itself. […]
Great-Grandma My great-grandmother had a cross-stitch sampler on her kitchen wall, that read: Use it Up Wear it Out Make it Do Do Without This was her ethos. She had always known scarcity and hard-scrabble. Her grandparents were all pioneers – one of her grandmothers traveled from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains on foot. She was born into poverty, the middle of five children. Her father died when she […]
Is money the goal anymore? Or, in the age of insta-famous self-helpers, is personal fulfillment and living “on purpose,” the goal? What has finally become clear to me is that the goal is actually both, and the particular mix of money and meaning that is right for each of us is personal. There is no formula. All one way, cash is king. The problem with putting dollars at the pinnacle […]
My next door neighbor died nine months ago. His name was Tom. We lived across from each other for seven years. He lived a very quiet, modest life, only owning a beat up car that rarely started, and a few antique furniture pieces. He kept cash hidden under his bed (he didn’t trust big banks), and lived alone in a rent-controlled apartment for thirty years. Over the years, a handful […]
On Fire John O’Leary 2016, Gallery Books The Idea This book is a combination of autobiography and motivational tome. As a nine year-old, John O’Leary was burned over 100% of his body. He wasn’t expected to make it through the night, but yet here he is today as an adult, sharing seven life views on how to live a “radically inspired life”. As the book sleeve states, “Once expected to […]
Money. Chances are, you have a visceral reaction to that word. There’s the word itself, and then the object… but the meaning it has in our lives can range from insignificant to (more often) make or break. In money, as in every area of aspiration, we benefit from keeping it real. In this month’s issue, our contributors strip away any pretense around money to share their true experience grappling with […]
Did you know that the original marathon runner from ancient Greece, the guy who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce victory over the Persians, delivered his message, keeled over and died? True story. So why did we “modern” humans insist on taking a bad idea—running obscenely long distances— and turn it into a competition? Not only did we turn it into a race, we decided that running 26.2 miles […]
Chip Wilson is his own employee of the month. Right there on his website, you can see a portrait of his smiling face, set within a cheap wooden frame and festooned with a gold star bearing the accolade. But in his colorful new memoir, Little Black Stretchy Pants: The Unauthorized Story of Lululemon (LBSP), the controversial Lululemon Athletica founder makes clear that, beyond ostensibly putting himself above his actual employees, he also […]
Since I was 17 years old, I’ve been prone to bouts of debilitating depression, particularly in March. By my mid-twenties, mid-August joined the annual mix. In my thirties, the holiday season became a danger zone. Over the past few years, late February started feeling left out and joined the gang. But even if you see the tsunami approaching, you can’t always outrun it. Depression is a chronic mental illness. Like a […]