Some assembly required.

Snowmen fall from heaven... unassembled. - Anonymous

I thought this quote fitting given the state of my sidewalks and the streets I had to drive through this morning to get home.

When I was a kid, we lived in North Dakota for a couple of years. While the frigid temperatures might drive some mad, it was a magical time for me. We learned the value of being able to spend time outside. We learned that it's okay to go ice skating when it's ten below and the wind chill is dropping rapidly. We learned that some of the best moments are the quiet ones, watching the snow fall together, wrapped in blankets near the heat spewing from the register. We learned to appreciate the snow days... and the days that we actually made it to school.

Something that I didn't realize back then was that the tools for a good life, for success, for happiness, were already at hand. No, that's a recent development.

You see, we are all capable of making the decisions necessary to move forward with our lives. We have the tools to learn what needs to be learned to enjoy success. We all are capable accepting the past and the outcomes of the future. We all are worthy of happiness. It's a choice.

The gifts of heaven are showered upon us when we enter this world. All we need to do is use them. Yes, we are like the snowmen. And like the snowmen, some assembly is required. Thankfully, we have all the gizmos, devices, means, and implements to do the job.

Give it a try.

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. - William Faulkner


Too often we become discontented with our lives, stuck in a mundane, day-in-day-out existence. While I have been determined not to plague myself with resolutions, I am finding that I have become determined to challenge myself, to become greater, more fulfilled. Recently, something occurred to me: what if the great thinkers, dreamers, athletes, poets, had never bothered to challenge themselves, never bothered to bring their visions for the world around them into reality? What would the world be like without the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln or Maya Angelou, the songs of Bob Dylan and Michael Jackson? Where would we be without the ambition of Henry Ford or Mary Pickford? They started by offering themselves the challenge of personal transcendence.

We have an opportunity everyday to be challenged, not by any outside means, but solely by ourselves. And with that opportunity comes not only the chance to become the person you imagine yourself being, but greater than you ever imagined. That's a challenge worth taking.

Let's play pretend!

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

I have some very distinct memories of pretending as a kid. I remember being a princess, being the Wicked Witch of the West (possibly the most fun), being a pilot, being a damsel in distress (hanging off the cliff that was my bunkbed), and being a cashier at McDonald's (I'm not kidding). It's safe to play pretend when you're a child; you know that if you don't like what you're doing you can always become something else. There's no worry about changing careers, going back to school, finding the money to go back to school, worrying about success and failure. When you're a child, these things don't exist - they are merely the figments of adult imaginations.

Which makes me wonder: do we have this thing all wrong?

Maybe the starting of being the thing we really want to be is in the pretending. The confident stance, the image of that success, the feel of that accomplishment, even if not achieved already, can only push us towards that endeavor. If things don't work out exactly as we'd hoped, we can change our minds and do something else or start again. Life isn't a fixed state. So how can we be?

People debate what "time" really is - an illusion, a mental construct, a tangible measurement? Is it relative or constant? I really don't know. You could listen to a dozen different physicists and still have no real answer. But if time is an illusion (and it could be), then the person you might be lies within you already. I think.

No napping here.

There is no point at which you can say, "Well, I'm successful now. I might as well take a nap." - Carrie Fisher

Yesterday, I commented on Roger Federer, and asked what it is that drives apart the champions of the world and the rest of humanity.

The determination that I saw yesterday, and that I continue to see in the rest of the "successful" bunch, goes hand in hand with constant action, constant improvement, constant reinvention.

I think I've always wondered, is there a point at which people truly retire? Do people just stop once they've reached what they designate as "success"?

The answer is an emphatic "no".

Those who become legends, much like Michael Jackson, whose memorial touched me today, never stop searching, never stop working, never stop dreaming for bigger or better. They know that even if things are great at the moment, they can always get better, forgetting the possibility of failure as they do so.

What if we all forget about the destination, instead looking only at the journey, and decide that was what we really wanted after all?

Welcome to a New Year!

I know I've been absent for over a week, so to those of you who faithfully visit, I want to apologize.

This new year is so full of promise and hope that even the evermore dire reports of the economy and the state of the world's many conflicts cannot deter me from the hope that ushers me forward.

As we make goals in the next few weeks, I'd like to remind everyone that there is no such thing as "too late", or "too far gone". As long as humans inhabit this planet, our miraculous existence means that there is good in the world and that we can fix any problem, compromise with our enemies, and overcome our differences. We need only to be willing to believe and to act, doing the right thing at every turn. There are endless possibilities if we only open our eyes to them.

Happy New Year! May it be prosperous and healthy for you and yours.