No one ever welfared their way to success! When I was young, I worked one summer for a landscaping company. In his pickup truck on the way to one of our jobs, the owner told us about a phone call he got from a guy responding to his Help Wanted ad. The guy asked the … Continue reading Life Tip #97
Fake Living
Life Tip #48
Always put your family before money. Scenario: Your great-paying job forces you to be on the road 100 percent of the time, but at the same time your middle- to high-school kid is having difficult, even dangerous, times back at home. Then you get an offer for a new job where you can be back … Continue reading Life Tip #48
Earth: “See, this is why we can’t have nice things…”
This article speaks for itself: Dutch fence off tulip fields to stop selfie-takers crushing flowers. Come on people! We can do better than this! It reminds me of a great quote from the Simon Pegg movie Hector and the Search for Happiness: “There’s a big difference between being here, and being here to be photographed … Continue reading Earth: “See, this is why we can’t have nice things…”
Keep an Eye on the Ivory Tower
Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but it looks like we need to keep a closer eye on the ivory tower. Click to read this recent story about an unethical university researcher fabricating data in order to garner research funds. Should we be concerned that this was one of those that got caught, yet there … Continue reading Keep an Eye on the Ivory Tower
Life Tip #11
While you’re trying to look like them, they’re trying to look like you. A New York Times story from 2006 described how Asian women were endangering their health with illegal creams. A survey in the story showed that four of every ten women in major Asian countries (Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, and … Continue reading Life Tip #11
Life Tip #4
Your life isn’t limited to six steps. Our lives don’t have to go like this: Step 1: Survive youth and high school. Step 2: Get a college degree, and/or… Step 3: Get a job that turns into a passionless career. Step 4: Get married, have kids, then get a house and lots of other stuff. … Continue reading Life Tip #4
Life Tip #151
Don’t be a boiling frog slipping down a slope. I am sure you have heard the “boiling frog” fable. If not, it is a brief fable that can be applied to many areas of our life. The fable tells us that if you try to throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it … Continue reading Life Tip #151
Question Everything
How many of us have ever had a "Truman Show" moment? If you've seen the movie The Truman Show, which stars Jim Carrey, you'll recall the end of the movie, when Truman discovers that all his life has been a façade. It was a very powerful scene, where most of the TV show viewers were … Continue reading Question Everything
Life Tip #127
“Go West, young man” still applies. In many of his books, but most notably in The Americans series, historian Daniel Boorstin chronicles some of the famous and not-so-famous risk-takers who helped to build up our country. In the book The Americans: The National Experience, Boorstin compares the social classes of early America with the social … Continue reading Life Tip #127
Life Tip #142
Instead of focusing on living longer, make the years you live more meaningful. When I was a young adult I used to look forward to insightful and inspirational columns by a Catholic priest, Father Lou Guntzelman, in the county’s weekly newspaper. In one column, Father Lou was reflecting on how we are desperately focused on … Continue reading Life Tip #142
Life Tip #130
Your passion is your passion. Ignore what anyone says about it. What is my life’s passion? I have always been fascinated with learning how and why individuals, people, societies, and nations behave the way they do. So, I have spent my life observing why people think and do the things they think and do. This … Continue reading Life Tip #130
Life Tip #263
Travel to places and have adventures that are both unique and awe-inspiring. This should include adventures that are a little kooky and off the beaten path. That’s where we really learn about ourselves, by experiencing very different scenarios than we are accustomed to. That’s when we learn how different parts of the world function, how … Continue reading Life Tip #263
Life Tip #202
Write your own script. Don’t let others, or circumstances, or your past set the agenda for your future. Don’t let your mom, or your dad, a friend, or a sibling write it for you. Don’t even let your significant other write it for you (although I strongly suggest that you include your significant other in … Continue reading Life Tip #202
Life Tip #18
You can’t buy your kid love and happiness. On a morning news program several years ago, on December 26th, there was a news segment entitled “Getting through the Holidays” that had been running for several weeks. On this particular day, the newscaster and a guest were discussing the problem of entertaining your kids during the … Continue reading Life Tip #18
Life Tip #89
You don’t have to participate in the norm. Why is it the “norm” to root for your city’s baseball team in the summer, football team in the fall, basketball team in the winter, and then start all over again with baseball in the spring……for years and decades until we die? Why is it the norm … Continue reading Life Tip #89
Life Tip #87
Go ahead, be misunderstood. I simply must drop one of my all-time favorite inspirational quotes right here and now. It comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America’s greatest writers and philosophers, in his essay Self-Reliance, which I recommend everyone read…twice. Emerson writes that to be consistent in one’s thoughts and actions, just for consistency’s … Continue reading Life Tip #87
Life Tip #212
The following quote stands as its own Life Tip. It rings true as much today as it did more than 30 years after it first appeared: “Nobody really believes in anything anymore, and everyone spends his life in frenzied work and frenzied play so as not to face the fact, not to look into the … Continue reading Life Tip #212
Life Tip #59
God’s dream is not the same as the American Dream. One of my favorite American pastors, David Platt, really woke me up to a new reality just a few years ago as I listened to one of his sermons on YouTube. He said that God’s dream for us is wholly incompatible with the American Dream. … Continue reading Life Tip #59
Life Tip #247
What motivates us in our career moves? Let’s start with that. Do we allow the base desire for “more money” determine our career path, from a materialistic and worldly mindset? Do we choose our career simply for status, to feel more important? Does a need for approval drive our career choice? Approval from friends, parents, … Continue reading Life Tip #247
Life Tip #15
Leave the cave and come to the light. Many of us learned about Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” in high school or college. If you didn’t, I strongly suggest you look it up and read it in its entirety, because its lesson is as applicable today as ever. It occurred to me that today’s young … Continue reading Life Tip #15
Kurt Borne 