“Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact…Anything that causes you to overreact or underreact can control you, and often does.”
– David Allen, Getting Things Done
Mizu no [...]
Interpersonal conflict resolution can be tricky. Changing your own behaviors in reaction to conflict is no less so.
Changing your interpersonal conflict behavior is a form of learning…you’re finding and learning new habits to replace ones that aren’t as effective for you.
In one of my favorite books, The Art of Possibility, author and world renowned [...]
One morning, brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor realized she was in the midst of a massive stroke. As she began to slip away, losing her movement, speech and cognition, she had what she now calls “a stroke of insight” about how we live our lives.
Her stroke marked a functional loss from which it took her [...]
This traditional Zen story is called The Gift of Insults.
There was once an old man known for being able to defeat any challenger. His reputation extended throughout the land and many gathered to study under him.
One day a young warrior arrived at the old man’s village. He was determined to be the first to defeat [...]
Autobiography in Five Chapters
by Portia Nelson
I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost…I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street.
The setting is Manitoba, Canada. The photographer is renowned wildlife photographer Norbert Rosling. The central characters are a husky sled dog and a wild polar bear, who approaches the chained husky from the tundra. Their exchange extended for more than twenty minutes.
As you watch, consider this: When someone with whom you’re experiencing tension approaches you, [...]
A number of readers have asked me to post instructions for folding an origami crane.
The first origami crane I’d ever seen was given to me by a dear college friend, Maura. Maura had survived two rounds of childhood cancer and had begun folding cranes after learning Sadako Sasaki’s story of cancer and cranes.
I still have [...]
