What do you do about an Abusive Sibling?
Categories life, suicide survivors
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Category: life
Deep Okayness
Categories life, mental health, suicide survivors
Like so many others, I've found that writing that could be categorized as self-help, spiritual, or new-age can make one numb with it's blandness. While this type of writing can be powerful for people who are down in the dumps or otherwise looking for motivation, 90% of the the category strikes an inarticulate chord with me.
As an engineer, words like "energy flow" and "cosmic" become a turn-off Read the article >>
Fabulous Yellow Roman Candles
Categories life, mental health
I've always loved this quote from Jack Kerouac's "On the Road":
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight Read the article >>
Where is the fire around this fire?
A few years ago, I was at a small bluegrass music festival in the mountains of Colorado. Nestled in a ridge next to a winding river, you could see a square mile of tents during the day, and you could see the milky way after the sun went down. Late at night, after the music had ended, the festival attendees would circle around campfires near their tents for warmth.
Our camp was visible on a stretch Read the article >>
Why start a Kanban board for your personal projects?
One of my struggles over the last several years has been an appetite to do too many projects but having the constraint of a finite amount of time to do them. Between living in beautiful Colorado, switching jobs, purchasing a house, planning a wedding, learning photography, it is hard to figure out where I should spend an open block of several hours.
I've written before how to manage my time Read the article >>
Leaving Simple Energy
Categories life
I’ve handed in my notice at Simple Energy and will be exploring new professional opportunities (and let’s get real, I just got a new mountain bike — outdoor opportunities too) in the coming months. Stay tuned!
Reputation and Credibility are Sacrosanct
Categories life
Late 2011, coming off the thrill of a fresh round of funding for our startup, we had made an offer to an engineer. After months enduring the drudgeries of searching, interviewing, reference checking reputation after reputation, making an offer, and finally negotiating with the right candidate, we were finally finished. We had an offer letter signed -- we finally found the the one. The day Read the article >>
Good and Bad Form in Business
I screwed up during my job hunt in 2015.
I backed out of a job offer I'd already accepted days earlier. The timeline played out as follows: I rescinded the offer before I officially started, but the other party had already bought me a laptop, told his team about me, and told his board about me. Maybe not such a big deal if you join a BigCo, but at a 6 person startup, I definitely left the Read the article >>
Optimizing for Minimal Deathbed Regret
Categories life
I announced yesterday that I'm leaving StepOut.
Have you ever spent several years working towards something larger than yourself? This was my first time doing that.
In college, you have projects that last for a few weeks. Maybe a semester. This one lasted me 5 years. You know the difference between a 5-week project and a 5-year project?
If you're lucky, if you really care, and if Read the article >>
The Art of Non-Reaction
Categories life, mind, technology
Tweet. Text. E-Mail. Instant Message.
Ring. Buzz. Growl. Chime.
By the time you are done reading this post, you've likely received multiple requests for your attention. Perhaps they came in the form of notifications on a shiny new Apple device. Or maybe they were interruptions from your office environment around you. If you are not in your office on your Apple device, perhaps Read the article >>