Follow your passion. We've all heard it a million times, right? Follow your bliss. Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. The admonitions to find exciting, deeply fulfilling work--with the implied or else. I don't know where I first heard this, but I do know it was somehow embedded in me from early on. Because of...
Happiness
Edwin Morgan's Strawberries
Here's a lovely poem by the Scottish poet Edwin Morgan to wish you a luscious weekend. Strawberries There were never strawberries like the ones we had that sultry afternoon sitting on the step of the open french window facing each other your knees held in mine the blue plates in our laps the strawberries glistening in the...
On Having Imperfect Pictures of Myself on the Blog
One of the most common critiques of the social media world--a world most of us find ourselves entrenched in--is that it presents us with edited and often idealized images of other people's lives. We see more of others' aspirational lives than we do of their real, everyday lives. While we might lament this, we often tend...
Summer in Sweden: the Basics
Let's talk about summer in Sweden. The days are endless, the nights almost nonexistent, and everyone is on vacation. After a dark and grueling winter that seems to last nine months, suddenly the world is bright and warm(ish) and lush again. Swedes use this time to get out of the office and back into nature. For us,...
An Intentional Summer
The New York Times has challenged its readers to an intentional summer. Every week, they're offering a suggestion to set this summer apart from the rest of the year. The first challenge is to walk or bike somewhere that you'd normally drive, to make an ordinary trip a little more extraordinary.
Have You Ever Written to an Author?
A few years ago I was sitting in a cafe in Santa Barbara and felt an overwhelming urge to write to David James Duncan. I had just read a piece by him in The Best American Essays 2009 about birds and extinction and disintegrating marriage, which left me weeping at my table.
Starting a happiness project
Have you heard of The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin? I stumbled across the book, and then Rubin's website, a few years ago. I was really taken by how clear and, well, smart her writing was. I tend to shy away from anything overly self-help-y and anything that relies on positive thinking to make life changes, but I felt that...