Did you wake up an hour earlier to do that run or forgo that cookie after dinner? Yeah, me either. The excitement and prospect of starting anew is so intoxicating…until it comes time to do it. I went to the gym today – not because it was January 2nd, but because it was Wednesday. The parking lot was full. By now, we are all familiar with the peaks of gym memberships in January and then the nosedive for each subsequent month after that (with the exception of April/May when tho

Every year around this time I have a moment where I think about the thoughts that I have going into the new year. And this time around, all I can say is that my main thought is to not have any. Though completely unrealistic, let me try to explain. I don’t know about you, but at the start of every new year, regardless of whether I want to admit it or not, I fall back into the same pattern – reflect on the past year, think about the next. These thoughts rarely help with depress

Last night was a New Year’s Eve unlike any other. I certainly have spent New Year’s eve before unencumbered by the fervor of loud music and flowing booze but never quite to the extent I did for a couple of hours at the Buddhist Sangha (community) to which I have been attending for about a year now. Though I look forward to the Monday evening meditation and discussion, I was very hesitant to go there last night. Firstly, I had envisioned a night with my kids including games, m

I don’t want this to sound all melodramatic but I had a terrible night’s sleep. I woke up with a profound sense of loss and despair. I am committed to meditating in the morning before my day gets started whenever I can and did so again this morning. It was hard. As many times as I tried to return to my breath and the present moment, my mind had other plans. Meditation practice teaches us to acknowledge what we are feeling by simply naming it without judgment. I was sad. Reall

It’s true. It happens every day, numerous times every day. I hope it wasn’t anyone you knew though one day in your life, it probably will be. This is the tug of impermanence – the truth that all we have is this moment. My dad used to say that the only guarantees in life were death and taxes, (and quoting Ben Franklin, apparently). I’m not going to comment on the taxes part but let’s just say – “message received”. I have been very stressed lately about a house that will just n

Is it me or does he look like Eric Roberts the younger years? Of all the things that was the strangest over the past three years of living through the hell of divorce and separation, it was the cessation of something I have done for as long as I can remember that has struck me the most. I stopped doing it when, now I realize, it probably would have helped me a lot. No, it’s not that. (Yes, I know what you’re thinking.) I stopped doodling. For as long as I can remember, I have

It could happen. Every comic I know that has been at it for a while and that I respect has told me that if you are not bombing once in a while, you really aren’t pushing yourself. Well, if that’s the case then I may be pushing myself right off a cliff. I have had two experiences this year alone where I was “eating” it from the start. The good news is that I was able to recover but no matter how much I tell myself that this is “supposed to happen”, it feels like absolute shit.

Your Brain Capacitor. (Before you comment, this comes in various shades.) I heard a really interesting Fresh Air program today on NPR. It was about pain, placebos, meditation and the intersection of all three. The person who was being interviewed, author Jo Marchant, (who had a fantastic female British accent so she automatically sounded knowledgeable), was talking about, among other things, something called “immersive virtual reality”, which is the use of virtual reality wit

I think therefore I am (anxious). In honor of this past Independence Day Holiday, I am writing about me – again. I spent this past weekend back at my parents home with my kids and my sister and her family. As luck would have it, my neighbors growing up were also all home and it turned into this fantastic ad hoc reunion with lots of kids and fun and no timelines. It was fantastic and just what I needed. It was a physical and mental independence day from myself. It was at the e

I have been reading a book by Pema Chödrön, “a notable American figure in Tibetan Buddhism” in which she talks about the benefits of hopelessness. That’s right – not hopeFULness…hopeLESSness. This is not what I had expected at all, as you can imagine. In fact, I thought that in the practice of meditation and being one with  the present, that it was hope I would find. Rather, hopelessness is the beginning. Here is what she has to say on the subject: “The difference between the

It is sort of ironic. You know the familiar quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt – “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” It’s a great quote but truthfully, I’m not sure it really applies to me as i have a long list of things to fear. However, it is a quote by his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt that does resonate with me: “We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot. Without

What if there was a simple equation you could apply to your life to make sure you were maximizing your happiness potential? Seems silly, I know, but according to Jonathan Haidt of “The Happiness Hypothesis”, there is. Let me say right up front that I am no fan of the self-help movement. I think, like most things, there are probably a few gems out there but most of it is just a way to try to make money off of the fact that everyone has something they would like to improve. “Th

Until recently, I rarely ever made my bed. It wasn’t for the reasons you may imagine: “what’s the point, it’s just going to get unmade at the end of the day?.” It was pretty simple, actually. There were a ton of blankets and pillows and it took a long, long time. And I was the only one who would make it. That, and I, too, admittedly, didn’t really see the point. My wife had 3 or 4 blankets, an assortment of pillows and lots of other stuff. That is typical, I realize but it wa

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I started meditating a few times a week (or trying, at least). One of the mediations I have chosen to do involves visualizing your perfect day and ultimately your ideal future. This is a fairly new concept for me. I am not sure if it is conditioned via my upbringing, cultural, genetic or otherwise, but I have spent the better part of my life planning contingencies for what if things don’t work out – including finding a job, graduate schoo