pfrazer

Well, Christmas has happened and New Year’s is coming.  And, it’s quite possible that you’ve experienced the dark side of the holidays by now.  It’s something that is talked about a lot and certainly needs to be talked about more. So, what is the dark side of Christmas?  Well, let’s first consider what Christmas is supposed to be.  It’s supposed to be a time of good cheer.  A time of joy, hope and love.  And, parts of it are to some people some of the time.  But, for many people Christmas... Read Full Story

Time is ticking and it is getting close to the start of our big adventure.  If you’re not aware of the big sailing adventure, I’ll fill you in.  My wife and I are taking our 3 boys out of school for 8 months so that we can sail around the Eastern Caribbean.  Very exciting!  This has been in the works for quite a while and we’re so excited. A large portion of the fun of this adventure has been the planning, as it is with so many things.  And, the nice part of this was that it fit so nicely... Read Full Story

Have you experienced the situation where someone has bad news to give you and yet they don’t say anything. They feel that because it’s bad news, there’s some good reason to procrastinate or not tell you about the bad news. They believe that what they are doing is actually being nice. Or, perhaps they feel that somehow by waiting they’ll be able to have more time to make the news go away or maybe they’ll even be able to fix the problem. Quite likely, you’ve experienced this situation and you... Read Full Story

Before we get to being normal, let’s look at being average.  I think that many of us can buy into the concept that we don’t want to be average.  In fact, studies show that that a much higher number than 50% of us believe that we’re above average in any specific measurement of us.  This of course, leads us to the fact that some of us are over estimating our abilities.  In fact, being able to clearly understand where our true strengths exist and where our weaknesses are, is a real sign that the... Read Full Story

Recently, I heard a radio phone-in on a subject that I completely believe in. The topic was on people being lonely anywhere, including when being surrounded by a crowd of people. So true. Most people have felt lonely at some point while being in the middle of a big crowd, in a downtown of a city, at a concert, a shopping mall, etc. This condition is a concern and I certainly hope that everyone experiences this as infrequently as possible. The above example is largely one of an involuntary... Read Full Story

For me, there is no such thing as a project that starts, happens and ends.  Whether this is a small job of a couple of hours to a multi-week project.  Inevitably, the project gets put on hold either because I’m have no choice, or in many cases, exactly because I have a choice.  Now, to be truthful, there are those jobs and projects that you’re just not enthusiastic about and you are happy to put them down, but I’m not talking about those.  I’m talking about working on a project that is going... Read Full Story

This is a bit of a silly story but still one with a good learning point. It started when I went looking for a new car. I researched the features that I wanted and I filtered my needs down to one car. Next step, to go for a test drive. The result… I was quite happy. But, there was one thing bothering me. The speedometer and other dials were laid out in a really different style. Completely unnerving. But, I really liked the car. I immediately knew that this was going to be a great... Read Full Story

I met a friend’s husband a while back and we got to talking. Through the discussion, we started talking about success and failure… a passionate topic for me. As we discussed our views, he made an outstanding comment that has a lot of interesting truth in it. He said, “You only have one chance to fail.” I really really liked that comment. It’s true. We only really get one chance to fail or at least to fail properly. Because the next time we try something similar, we’re unlikely to fail in... Read Full Story

In the category of weird but interesting research comes some research into Botox and happiness. Researchers studied women who underwent Botox injections in their face and compared them to a control group. What they discovered was that the women who had the Botox work done, generally felt happier. What’s interesting is the reason. The women who had the Botox are physically less able to frown or have a “sour” face. So, that old adage to smile and you’ll feel better seems to have been... Read Full Story

Many people have experienced crime of some sort.  Perhaps you had something stolen from you.  Hopefully nothing worse. I was thinking about a crime the other day that likely goes unreported.  And, I expect that it may be prevalant. The crime that I’m talking about is loss of dreaming, the disappearance of aspirations.  I think it is a terrible when people loss their ability to dream of what else they can experience or become.  And, I wonder if there are not a lot of people who over time... Read Full Story