"I'm not the strapping young Muslim socialist that I used to be." -- Barack Obama

"One of my favorite quotations about age comes from Thomas Jefferson. He said that we should never judge a president by his age, only by his work. And ever since he told me...

As the old saying goes, you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose. That is, unless you've developed some really close friendship!

We need friendships in our lives to supplement our existing romantic, marital or family relationships. Yet most adult...

Whenever I encounter conflict, something in the pit of my stomach turns and I feel a burst of adrenaline shoot through my body. It's that instinctual fight-or-flight mechanism preparing me for battle... or to run.

If the conflict occurs in a dark alley and involves more than a dozen people,...

I like funerals.

I don't like them for the sadness or for the realization that we have lost someone we love. And I suspect that I won't like my own funeral as much as I like the funerals of others (just saying).

I like funerals because they remind me of...

It's that time of the year again. New resolutions, goals and to-do lists.

My life goal is death. I don't mean that in a morbid sense but in a that's-where-we're-all-headed sense. It's what Stephen Covey meant when he said to "begin with the end in mind." Ultimately, our life goals...

There's a holiday song that says you have to go "over the river and through the woods" to get to Grandma's house. That seems like a lot of work to me and often, so do the holidays. I don't know about you, but whenever November arrives, I look toward the...

I'm a big fan of Thanksgiving because the focus is so simple. It's all about the food and the fellowship. Unlike Christmas, there are no Thanksgiving gifts, no special decorations, and no fear of offending someone who might not believe in turkey when I say, "Happy Thanksgiving."

This year, however,...

Stress is all around you. Can you see it?

Or is stress all around you because you see it?

I ride a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and when I tell people I ride a motorcycle, they often want to tell me about someone they know who died on a motorcycle.

That's...

There are certain things I'm just not good at.

For instance, I'm not very good at household repairs, knitting, or interpreting the meaning of a movie like Citizen Kane. So, when it comes to these things, I let the professionals do their job and I simply admire their work.

But...

The basis for my work is a concept called "Do IT well and make IT fun." And when I refer to the IT, I'm not referring to information technology, but rather that IT in our life that is the basis of all that.

It's the essence of the phrase, "You've...

I've been fascinated watching the backlash against Chick-fil-A's president's public comments lately. And I think that regardless of which side you're on, the discussion is healthy.

Initially, Chick-fil-A was criticized for donating money to organizations that support marriage and families because some also supported anti-gay programs. My question is this:...

Did you know that stress is not inherently stressful?

Sounds impossible, right? Well, it turns out that if stress were inherently stressful, we would all be stressed by the same things. And we're not.

Some people are stressed by traffic. Some aren't.

Some people are stressed by their families. Some...

The Democratic and Republican conventions are a fascinating study in communication. While most of the speakers are communicators, they're also saying what their constituents want to hear. There's a lot of "he said, she said, we all want some ice cream" (or something like that).

The challenge with political speeches...

It's Thursday, and our week has been a flurry of activity. Our traditional end-of-the-summer meal was on Tuesday. My son and I played golf yesterday, and last night the whole family attended a baseball game. My wife is taking my daughter to a concert tonight.

You see, we're frantically preparing...

As a hospice social worker, my role was to provide psychosocial counseling to terminally ill patients and their families. Once, I was on my way to visit a patient and, unbeknownst to me, I was given the wrong directions to the patient's house. I should have taken the second left...

You see them the minute you get out of your car. The bell ringer. The Girl Scout. The political activist. They stand between you and the door to the grocery store. There is no side entrance and no way to pole vault over them. You're stuck.

So, you probably do...

When I was a hospice social worker, I had a sign on my desk. It said, "Live each day as if it were your last... because one day you'll be right."

That was the greatest lesson I learned when working with people who were dying. Life is precious. Take advantage....