Category: Life Lessons

Synchronicity is a term coined by psychotherapist Carl Jung to describe the simultaneous occurrence of events that are meaningfully related but lack a clear causal connection. It refers to the sensation that coincidences are more than just chance. I’ve been reading about the word in the Artists’ Way by Julia Cameron, and once I understood …

I posted a story about a week after Ruth died about the things I had experienced the night of her accident.  If you want to look it up, it’s called Something More. Near the end of the story, I wrote this. I don’t believe in heaven, or hell, but honor the beliefs of those who …

I took a journalism class in high school.  I don’t recall anything about it but this: who, what, when, where, why and how.  We called this the “five w’s and the h”.  Google says this. Who? – asking about a person What? – asking about an object When? – asking about a time Where? – asking about …

If you’ve been around long enough, you have a lot of things.  With two places to live, I have a ton.  Most of it was acquired during my fifty-one years of marriage although I do still have a few items from my college days.  A fraternity paddle, a couple of mugs and my Lambda Chi …

I played poker with my Jackson crew last week.  Tom hosted.  It’s the first time I’ve seen him this summer.  When Covid hit we didn’t play for several months.  When we did begin, we cut way back on snacks and drinks.  We went from elaborate meals to individual bags of chips and drinks. We’ve gradually …

I fancy myself a bit of a romantic. I used to write poetry. I didn’t write a lot of poems, but enough to give the medium a shot. They were simple because that’s how I chose to write. I still do. I stopped writing poetry after I got married. It’s not that I didn’t have …

I saw a video clip on Facebook the other day that compared one’s life to riding on a merry-go-round.  You get one trip around. New people get on as riders depart.  The departing part is dying.    The comparison emphasizes the fact that life is short.  We get a turn to live it but we’re …

When I was a kid, I took a lot of turns. Some were fun but not all.  Sometimes I got to choose, and others were cast upon me. I preferred those that involved a choice but that’s not always possible. My mom gave me my first instructions about taking turns. If we didn’t discuss it …

The first time I recall having a thought about oatmeal was on one of the trips that our family took to visit Old Granny Barner in Bowling Green, Kentucky. We drove in my dad’s 1953 Ford about a year and a half after my sister, Jackie, was born. Dad packed the suitcases on the floor …

I published the following story on November 22, 2017.  It’s the second story I posted. My first was about my friend, Ed. I tried to point out that the opportunities that come our way are numerous.  It’s up to us to make the most of them.  I was writing about economic opportunities I failed to …