Everyone talks about happiness, and everyone has their own ideas about what will bring us more of it. I think that there are four key principles that together, can create significantly more happiness for ourselves, as well as for those around us. I call these principles the “four pillars of happiness,” and they’re really quite […]
A lot of relationships end when they really could continue. I think that a major problem is the lack of communication. We make three fundamental mistakes around communication that can really jeopardize an otherwise viable relationship, and there are three important communication skills that can make the difference between an unhappy break-up and an ongoing, […]
Breaking up is bad enough at the best of times. What if the break-up came as a huge shock? What if you were madly in love with your girlfriend and counted on her for all your emotional support? What if you were happily married for years and your husband suddenly told you that he was […]
I like the idea of turning lemons into lemonade. It seems to me that there are a lot of things we can do to transform difficult, even painful situations into opportunities for growth, learning and more love. Life can sometimes be unbelievably beautiful, with everything coming together to create a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss. […]
So much of creating a good life comes from making better choices. When you think of it, everything we have in life comes from the choices that we’ve made. Whether they’re conscious and deliberate or made by default, they’re all our choices. If we make the wrong choices, or fail to make the right ones, […]
Lately, I’ve been talking to quite a few people who’ve lost loved ones. It’s got me thinking about how we cope with loss, especially the loss of a young person, and how we keep going forward in our lives in the face of such a tragedy. Grief is a weird experience; it’s not what you’d […]
Summer is here, and many of us will be heading to the beach or attending holiday parties. It’s also wedding season, and everyone will want to look their best. This is why it’s easy to get conned by unscrupulous diet promoters who’ll take our money for the promise of “instant weight loss.” I just heard […]
The Pan Am games are coming to Toronto very soon, and it’s got me thinking about how someone becomes a world-class athlete. These sports superstars aren’t necessarily born with super-human abilities. Mostly, it’s their hard work and dedication to their craft that puts them head and shoulders above the rest of us. I can think […]
When I heard that the US Supreme court had finally accorded marriage rights to gay people, it felt like one of those, “Well, yeah!” moments. Here in Canada, same-sex marriage rights have been in place for a decade. It feels like the US has finally caught up with the way things ought to be. In […]
It’s been a very sad time for South Carolina, and for the whole of the United States, these past few days. Nine black parishioners were murdered while gathered for bible study at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Church last week, and the world took a collective gasp. People are viewing this horrific act as a hate […]
