a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

If you have a project, a dream, an aspiration, something you want to accomplish, “get it done” encourages Jeff Saltz in his book How to Be an Artist. Why? As Saltz observes, “It will change your life.” Many things can hinder us from starting and then completing a goal we have in our life –…

Recently, we noticed how the navigation system in our car had changed how it framed directions. It used to say, “continue for ten miles.…” Now it says, “for about ten miles continue….” The addition of the word “about” is interesting. “About” communicates that the directions we are receiving, or least our relationship to them, might not…

Last year Abdullah Shihipar wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly about the surprising impact of thank-you notes.  He pointed to one study, “conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago, subjects instructed to send ‘gratitude letters’ worried that their recipients would feel awkward or that their writing would be scrutinized.  But actually, the people…

Yesterday I saw a clip where a couple was on a large square tilted at an angle that was rotating. Sometimes this couple would see each other on the large moving square, other times they would bump into each other awkwardly. But as time passed they eventually found each other, made a connection, became a…

At times we can find ourselves in conflict with someone at work, within a friendship, or in our family. Which raises the question, what do we do then? In Wintering, Katherine May describes how a beekeeper solves such a problem. As you read her description, I invite you to consider how a “sheet of newspaper”…

“I said pay attention to what comes naturally,” shared my friend about a conversation she had with her daughter concerning her future and what career to pursue. My friend’s point was we all have particular things we enjoy and do well compared to others. This is what we might think of as our “natural” self,…