When I was in middle school, I showed up to class one day without doing my homework. I rarely did homework because I just couldn’t be bothered to do it, and if a teacher didn’t regularly check, I didn’t see any point in doing it. However, this one day, a...
Continue reading...addiction
Self-Pity is the Enemy of Integrity
Self-pity makes us live beyond our values, which makes it difficult for us to live with integrity, and therefore impossible to gain peace and serenity.
Continue reading...Naming Your Feelings
This week, I had one of those days where I couldn’t seem to win. I had two particular encounters on that day that didn’t go my way. In the past, this would have been a very good reason for me to go out and eat fast food, or junk food, or a lot of food, and then go to bed with a stomach that was too full.
Continue reading...Starting with a Vision and a Timeframe, not a Resolution
Many years ago, I decided not to make any New Year’s resolutions because I have a terrible track record for keeping them. This, ironically, is the only resolution that I have ever kept. Recently, I have found a way to achieve the same intended effect as a resolution by going about things quite differently.
Continue reading...Am I too Greedy or too Lazy? Or too Stupid?
A lot of people think that being overweight is a result of greed and/or laziness. It seems like such an obvious problem to fix. You just need to eat less and/or move more. If it really were that easy, there wouldn’t be so many overweight people in the world.
Continue reading...Living with Integrity
I know what the word “integrity” means, but I don’t think I understood clearly what it meant to “live with integrity” until recently.
Continue reading...Leave Some Space Around It
As a workaholic, I have a tendency to forget to put white space around my time and energy, in particular. I will use up these resources right until the last drop and not leave any extra for later, like I somehow believe that time doesn’t apply to me, or that I have limitless energy.
Continue reading...How to Divorce Your Phone
The key point here is that you need to start by having a conversation with yourself about WHY you want to spend less time on your phone. If you can figure that part out, the rest of it has a chance to fall in place. Without the why, all of the tricks and tips in the world probably won’t help.
Continue reading...Chase Serenity
In 2021, when I started on my journey of recovery from food addiction, the serenity prayer was reintroduced to me in the context of addiction. I had never thought about the connections between addiction and serenity, courage, and wisdom before. I thought addiction was just about the substance, and I didn’t realize that it’s our thoughts that bring us to addiction, and that serenity, courage, and wisdom could help get us out of it.
Continue reading...Perfectionism: Superpower or Character Flaw?
When an interviewer asks about our weaknesses, we aren’t going to tell them how lazy we are or how we have a rebellious streak. It’s much more likely that we will try to find a “benign weakness” or one that is actually a backhanded compliment to ourselves, like “I’m a perfectionist”.
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