On My Mind - Thoughts on Learning, Growing and Evolving

We Need a Comeback Election for the Ages I don’t usually write about politics or sports here on my blog but I watched the final game of the World Series last night and when the Washington National’s won I thought that’s the kind of good news, that is, the kind of miracle we need in the upcoming presidential election. According to Dave Sheinin and Sam Fortier of the Washington Post  "With one more comeback win, at the end of a comeback season for the ages, the Nationals became World Series champions. A 6-2 victory over the Houston Astros in Game 7 on Wednesday night sealed it, delivering the first baseball title for the nation’s capital since Walter Johnson’s Senators won their only one in 1924." When I read that I thought that's what we need - A Comeback Election for the Ages . Without going into the details of why I believe we need a new president – it is clear to me and all of the thinking, growing and evolving people I know - is that the one we now have simp...

Way back in the 1800's Sigmund Freud said " Love and work... work and love, that's all there is."  I totally agree.  And now after well over twenty years helping people find loving relationship and developing productive meaningful work, I will add that you have to love your work and work your love.    What Does Loving Your Work Mean? Once back before I got my master's I was complaining to a friend that I hated my job, that it was no fun and he said,  "It's not suppose to be fun, that's why they call it work."  Well, I totally disagreed with him and that is why I quit that job and went to graduate school.  I knew in my heart that work should bring you both satisfaction and a sense of purpose and anything that does that will be, if not fun, then meaningful to you and in that meaning you will find joy.  What this comes down to is purpose.  If the work you do makes you feel you are engaged in work that has purpose and meaning both to you an...

The other day I spent some time in a classroom of severe needs students - many of them on the Autism Spectrum and some who had Downs Syndrome  and others who were otherwise unable to do most conventional academic work but what I found was they could all dance, play the guitar or mimic playing one or banging on a drum and having a delightful time using what they did have - enthusiasm, joy and energy of the human spirit - in that moment -  in that classroom.   What hit me about this, beyond the fact that I too had a terrific time dancing and singing to the music and watching these kids go for it, was the teacher in this classroom who got out his own electric guitar and amplifier and played his heart out.  He was doing what Yo Yo Ma said in an interview I watched that same night on PBS - "Whatever you do, make it count."  That teacher was making what he did as a teacher for these kids, count.  He was inspired and he was inspiring. Those kids loved what...