If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.Charles Darwin, naturalist (1809-1882) There is a survival-of-the-fittest mentality that we have all been adhering to—unless, of course, you are not one of the fittest, are living in a crowd of billions and have…
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It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. « Gautama BuddhaThe news this month has been filled with journalists, news personalities, politicos and average Joes alike grading President Obama and his…
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I promised myself that this month I would not mention the “E” word. I would not subject you, my dear readers, to any more pep rallies or sales mantras dedicated to getting us all through the “R” word, which I also promised myself I would not mention.
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The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can be normally unhappy.
Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist (1856 -1939)
We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. Iris Murdoch, author/ philosopher (1919-1999)
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Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working 24 hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force. « Irving Berlin, composer and lyricist (1888 – 1989)
Brace yourselves. It is going to happen. Things are going to get better. While I am well aware of the doom and gloom constantly being
reported on both network and cable news—that 2009 is just going to continue the economic slide—I have decided to toss the fear aside and take a different approach to the new year. This is
Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic; it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation. « Vannevar Bush, American scientist (1890 – 1974)
Like many Americans, I have been watching the national news a lot lately. On CNN recently, there was an interview with Suze Orman,
personal finance expert. In this interview, she answered the question: Is the financial fear and panic occurring on Wall Street and throughout the nation counterproductive? Her answer, “It is not counterproductive, it’s real. It’s how people feel and the markets are made up of how people feel. They buy or they sell
All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul. —Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi
It is true, we are all guilty. Industrialized nations on the whole have enjoyed an expansive (and ultimately, expensive) period of self-centeredness. Famed Victorian-era psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud would have diagnosed mankind as being severely orally fixated. Trapped in the earliest stages of child development, we’re stuffing ourselves with as much as our mouths can handle—we have been needy, fiscally greedy and most seriously focused on our own self-gratification, regardless of
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“A woman must have money and a room of her own.” – VIRGINIA WOOLF
Now it’s time to get creative, economically speaking. When living inside a sliding economy, one where the media delivers more bad news with every passing day, it is impossible not to feel a responsibility to tighten up on spending.
So one day in the not-so-distant past, while I was driving home from work in my gas-guzzling SUV, I was challenged by an economic strategist on the radio. He explained that we care for our bodies through exercise, so why wouldn’t we do the same for our wallets. I decided
» Americans have discovered the fragility of life, that ominous fragility that the rest of the world either already experienced or is experiencing now with terrible intensity. « JOSÉ SARAMAGO
Our lives as Americans are changing. I remember vividly, as a child, visiting the Norman Rockwell Museum. I was enthralled with the “charmed” lives of the people in his artwork, the simplicity, the joy. His work captured the innocence and mores of post-WWII America.
But even as a child, I knew these pieces of work did not depict my America. Twenty-five years later, I can say with great certainty, there will be