Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should do it.  I, for example, was once a truly excellent administrative assistant.  Shockingly, nobody seemed to care that I found this job so boring that I wanted to eat the paper clips.  The people around me would have been happy to see me function […]

Ah, spring.  They say that the bravest thing in the world is a flower, because it lives “balls out.” (Literally.)  This month, take note: What is sending up new tendrils in your life?  What secret longings are nudging you? What ridiculous dreams are ready to see the light?  Now quick, without thinking about it, write […]

Recently I have been thinking a lot about criticism.  Well, not so much thinking about it as smarting from it.  In March I had an epiphany on a crowded Tokyo train.   I clearly saw, through my streaky goggles, that I was carrying around some old beliefs about being a foreigner in Japan that were as […]

Here is a big secret: you really don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.  You are totally free.  You’re even free to make terrible choices!  You could kiss your boss, abandon your kids,  cheat on your taxes.  You could lie, be destructive, break a promise.  (I’m glad you don’t want to.  But […]

Most of us spend a lot of time trying to fix what’s wrong with us—to round off our rough edges, so to speak.  (New Year’s resolutions, anyone?)  Dave Rendall says that’s exactly the wrong tack to take.  In his manifesto “The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness By Flaunting Weakness,”  he says that our supposed flaws are […]