Today I'm typing from the airport instead of the homestead. I tend to be extra contemplative when I fly and this morning, as I made the two hour trek to the airport, wove through traffic, found a parking spot, stood in line, and stood in line some more, one thought kept dancing through my mind: Figure out what everyone is doing and then do the opposite. This idea served me well at the airport today: If
Dichotomies & Bandwagons
I’ve been thinking a lot about false dichotomies lately. They seem to be all the rage these days. A false dichotomy is when a choice or belief is incorrectly presented as EITHER/OR. It presumes there are only two options. “In philosophy, “you’re either with us or against us” is considered a false dichotomy or a false dilemma,” writes Brene Brown in Braving the Wilderness. “It’s a move to force people to take sides. If
Just Like Us
I don't know what normal people read over their holiday break, but I dove into a book about the Donner Party-- the infamous wagon train that got stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1846 and resorted to cannibalism. I'm weird like that. I needed an audiobook to help pass the 15-hour drive to visit my family over Christmas. And the story seemed strangely fitting as we rolled across Montana in the middle of a blinding
Torch Carriers
“What’s wrong with us?” My friends and I looked at each other and laughed, but the question lingered in the air. No one had an adequate response. It was 10:22 p.m. on a Friday night in July. It was the kind of summer evening when people are at the lake, or camping, or sitting on the front porch listening to the crickets. But not us. Instead, we sat shoulder to shoulder around a round plastic table in our
Intensive Grazing for Your Brain
So I wrote another book. Or I’m in the process of writing it, I guess. I recently turned in the first draft of the manuscript, but it's far from done. There will be structure edits, copy edits, line edits. Then proofs. Then cover discussions. Then the pre-launch. And then the actual launch. Needless to say, it’ll be a while before I get to hold it in my hands. But for now? I’m celebrating 85,000 mostly