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

“In any situation in life, you only have three options,” writes Naval Ravokant, one of my favorite observers on how things function best in business and in life.  “You always have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit…

I was in Ann Arbor yesterday and visited Zingerman’s Deli, considered one of the finest in the counrty.  Zingerman’s was founded by Ari Weinzweig who is also known for his insightful observations on life and leadership. He publishes his ideas in lovely, old school pamphlets Yesterday I picked up Ari’s pamphlet Making the Most of our Lives where…

Did you know that Google pays Apple more a million dollars an hour to be the default search engine on their iPhones? I’ve been thinking about that extraordinary amount in terms of what any of us might be willing to pay for something – a ticket to a concert, a meal at an airport, cage…

Susan Ogilvy is a botanical illustrator who became fascinated with bird nests. In her lovely book Nests she paints renderings of nests of various birds from the Collared Dove to the House Martin. She explains how she learned that “each species has its own method, favoring certain materials – twigs, roots, lichen, feathers.” One that caught my…

Amanda Petrusich wrote a lovely article about Paul Simon in the New Yorker describing his latest album Seven Psalms, which is an exploration of life, faith, and Simon’s “expansive, open-ended notion of God.” What also intrigued me was a letter to the editor about the article from a childhood neighbor of Simon who described growing up Jewish,…

Perhaps you’ve read about concerns regarding the homeless and immigrants in New York City. It can be unsettling to have someone suffering from mental illness walk next to you talking to him or herself enraged about a past event playing in a loop inside their head. But last night a homeless man walked in front…