I see more people in my neighborhood, especially my neighborhood park—Washington Square Park—addicted to I don’t know what. My whole life, I’ve never been far from seeing addiction. I don’t think I’ve known anyone uncontrollably addicted. Lately, in my daily picking up litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park, regulars there have started conversations with me. Our longest conversation lasted about thirty to forty-five minutes. One guy made[…] Keep reading →

Looking back generations, we can’t imagine how the lived without some things we take for granted—anesthetics, vaccines, understanding about germs. Can you imagine a tooth cavity meaning pulling it without anesthesia or a cut meaning possible death? I expect people before anesthetics couldn’t have imagined something to numb pain as well as modern anesthetics do. I expect they looked back at what generations before them lacked and felt great that[…] Keep reading →

Living in Manhattan, I used to think I had access to some of the best tasting food in the world and since a long time, maybe forever. With all the restaurants, chefs, and cuisines, I figured their competition and education must drive them to ever improving quality. The longer I cook at home and shop at farmers markets, the more I find restaurants don’t compete on quality of ingredients. What[…] Keep reading →

I gave a book on men and how men experience the world to my girlfriend at the time, maybe five or ten years ago. After reading it, she asked me, “Do men have emotions?” Apparently she thought men didn’t have emotions. In fact, she clarified, “I thought men just did things.” I’m glad she asked if she didn’t know. I was surprised she didn’t. For context, she had graduated a[…] Keep reading →

A friend recommended to me an exercise I hadn’t heard of. It sounds like the Three Raisins exercise I learned from Jon Kabat-Zinn, included in my leadership book, and assign in my leadership class. She didn’t explain much about it, but my experience with experiential exercises told me that doing it would reveal more than any explanation. The exercise The instructions: Drink a hot beverage and when I think judgmental[…] Keep reading →

Have you noticed the difference between something tasting good—that you like the sensation—versus wanting more—that it motivates you to eat more, though doesn’t always taste good? If the nuance sounds foreign, I’ve written on it several times. I use it to illustrate the difference between craving and emotional reward. In my experience, the difference seems subtle until you get it. Then it’s huge. Emotional reward improves life, craving enables others[…] Keep reading →

In two days I begin my fifth year not flying. I estimate talking to about 1,000 people about not flying and that about 998 of them said that not flying would be impossible for them—not difficult or unwanted but impossible. Suddenly they’re able not to fly. Their claims of being unable to avoid flying were never a matter of reality, as they described, but a lack of motivation and imagination.[…] Keep reading →