Imagine, for a moment, that you own a house that sits on the edge of a slowly eroding cliff next a river bank. Every morning you wake up to find that the cliff has eroded a little more. So you spend the entire day trying to fill the space that’s eroding under your house with dirt that you are buying, by the ton, at the local hardware & garden store.

Everyday erosion happens - thanks to the activity of the river below - and everyday you combat it with a new pile of dirt. This is your life. And it’d be fine if you are winning the battle - if you could see any fruit in your labor, but you aren’t winning and you can see no fruit. The hillside beneath your house is still eroding.

My bet is that pretty quickly after noticing that your efforts aren’t working, you’d do something drastic. Perhaps you’d built stilts under the house. Perhaps you’d pick the house up by its foundation and move it away from the river bank. Perhaps you’d abandon the house for another one. Or perhaps you’d find any of a number of more long-term, safe, sustainable solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, I awoke at about 3:30 in the morning with one hand scratching my scalp and the other scratching the hand scratching my scalp. The reason: A mosquito had been biting my face, neck, scalp, and hands.

When I got out of bed, I so mad that the first thing I did was search for the mosquito with the intention of killing it. I didn’t find it immediately, but when I left my bedroom I saw two other mosquitoes.

I killed them. And it felt good. Then - after I’d sat down to work for a while - I went back to the bedroom and saw him sitting there. Fat and happy. I snuck up to him and smacked my hand against the wall.

Blood - my blood in the fat mosquito’s body - spattered all over my hand and the wall. I walked away, cleaned my hand off, left the blood on the wall, and began to work again. I felt good. Redemptive. A mosquito had assaulted me. It had ruined my sleep and made me itch. It deserved to pay! Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine that you are on an overnight hiking trip and darkness is on the horizon. You decide that it would be a good time to set up a shelter. Perhaps you find a dug out tree trunk. Or maybe you stumble into a nice cave. If you’re really lucky (or just prepared), you pull a tent from your backpack and roll out a sleeping bag.

The process of having an intention - wanting sleep, then taking action - finding/making shelter, and then getting it fulfilled - having the sleep you desire, is amazing. With few resources, you did what you needed to do to continue enjoying your hiking trip!

Now imagine that you’ve just returned home from your hiking trip. You’re tired and sore - after a few nights of half-sleep on the ground. You’re finally standing beside your king size bed. But you don’t crawl under the covers or grab your teddy bear. Instead, you walk outside and burrow yourself into a rotted out backyard tree. Read the rest of this entry »

When I used to wrestle in high school and college, I’d suffer with my teammates through long grueling practices. Then, often, I’d suffer through long, grueling weight loss sessions to fit into a wrestling weight class that was far below my natural weight. The only fun thing about wrestling, my teammates and I joked, was winning.

Wrestling, we were taught to believe, wasn’t supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be hard. It was supposed to be something few could endure. If any part of it was fun - the thinking went - then we couldn’t possibly be doing what we needed to do to achieve our dreams. We had to suffer our way to victory.

Those of us who became the best in our states and our countries bought fully into this belief. We learned from experience the law of attrition. Work harder and suffer more than anyone else has the capacity for, and we will become champions. This mantra worked so well that we taught it to younger wrestlers… and thus perpetuated one of the biggest myths in wrestling, and in the world:

To achieve our dreams, we must suffer. Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, I met an eighteen year old girl who has already written and published a book that sells in book stores across the Bay Area. Every dollar earned from her book is donated to a charitable cause. This past year, she even used the funds to endow a scholarship for a nonprofit organization.

Perhaps you’re imagining that because she’s so young and has already accomplished such amazing things that she got all the breaks in life. While the rest of us struggled as children, she was able to receive the scholastic and parental support to not just develop her writing skills and business sense, but also a strong moral foundation.

If only the rest of us were blessed with her breaks in life, right? Then we too could have written a book at sixteen and donated the proceeds to charity. Then we too could find ourselves standing in front of audiences of our peers and delivering inspirational speeches about what is possible when we decide to pursue dreams. Read the rest of this entry »

I know a guy who’s a brilliant pianist, and who has had a dream - since childhood - of playing piano at the Hollywood Bowl. Yet, despite having the talent to pull it off, nobody has heard of him. “It’s not a very realistic dream,” he’s told me. So he spends his days working with computers and doesn’t play piano for anyone besides his family and close friends.

I know another guy who’s also a brilliant pianist. He’s recognized as one of the best Jazz musicians in the world. He travels the globe to play in front of adoring audiences everywhere, and has played with many of the world’s top Jazz bands. “I didn’t have any other choice,” he says of his decision to become a Jazz musician.

In life, there are so many talented people, but only a few of us play out our dreams. And those of us who don’t achieve our dreams are apt to call others lucky - if we’d gotten the same breaks, we’d be in the same place. And sure, sometimes that’s true. Sometimes people just fall into success. But much more often, that’s not at all how it happens. Read the rest of this entry »

I spent some time with a Holocaust survivor a few days ago. Since losing his whole family in Germany, he’d come to New York and accomplished the American Dream. Thanks to hard work, determination, and talent he’s become a very rich man and a giving philanthropist.

Yet he carried with him an unmistakable gloom when we talked. A heaviness that he wore like a coat that he was unable to take off. And for a little while he spoke to me about it. “There is no rationalization for what happened,” he said. “None. And so there’s no reason to try. I live. Despite. I go on. Despite.”

His words stuck with me for a long time afterward. Especially as I find myself dealing, again, with a return of incapacitating weeks-long migraines that seem unending - no matter how much I deprive myself of a life and an outside world that others so often take for granted. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a friend who regularly goes to rallies to speak out against animal abuse. I have another friend who, in her spare time, teaches people how to “Live Green and Cheap.” And I have a third friend who volunteers as a Sunday school teacher every week. All of them are helping to make this world a little bit better with their work.

Yet each of these friends has, at times, spoken to me at length about the importance of their cause relative to others. For instance, the Sunday school teacher recently argued: “Sure animals are important, sure the environment is important… but faith is what really drives a person to make herself and the world better.”

The truth is that an argument can always be made for the relative importance of any good work. For instance: Sure animals and faith are important, but neither will change the devastating impact our consumption is making on the environment. Or… sure environmental issues and faith are fine causes, but if we don’t protect animals that can’t protect themselves… can we even call ourselves human?

Making the argument that some good work is more important than other good work is detrimental to ourselves and the world for a few reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Five years ago I had a dream in which I went for a run. While on that run, I saw an alligator who smiled at me and said, “Come here for a minute.” I stopped and walked toward the alligator because I was surprised that it spoke English.

“Where are you going?” the alligator asked. I told it that I was going over the bridge, past the street sign, around the lake, and finally back home. The alligator looked agitated and asked again, “Where are you going?” I gave it the same directions. But again, the alligator wasn’t satisfied. “Where are you going?” it asked.

I got flustered, and wanted to run away. Or kick the alligator. Or tell it to shut its big alligator mouth. But instead, I more deeply considered its question. Perhaps it wasn’t asking where I was running to… but rather where I was going. Like in larger sense. Like where was I going in life. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to leave the lights on wherever I went. I also used to steal towels from hotels. And I used to tip waiters badly. And not follow through on promises that I made to people. And even though I’ve never *inhaled* a cigarette, I used to steal them in junior high so I could sell them to kids who did.

When people questioned me about my bad behavior, I responded to them with what I believed was bullet-proof logic: The transactions that I made with people and the world were all a net positive. I was gaining more from the stupid things that I did than the world was losing.

So what if I forgot to turn the lights out – it wasn’t expensive for someone else to pay. So what if I didn’t follow through on promises – nobody did. So what if I tipped waiters badly – I’d use my money more wisely than them. And so what if I stole and sold cigarettes to my peers – someone else would steal and sell them if I didn’t! Read the rest of this entry »