Alan C. Fox's Blog, page 7

We live in a world of structures – offices, homes, and buildings of many types. Structures provide shelter and comfort. But they can be a trap.  When I met my second wife Susan she had been living for eleven years in a house she disliked.

“We thought we would just live there for a year, then sell it and buy the slightly more expensive house we really wanted,” she said.

There are other structures that invade and pervade our lives – the habits which are imprinted on us through repetition.

A hab...

I occasionally watch poker on TV.  Some players are professional, some are amateur, but they all share the same challenge – to play the hand they’re dealt.  If their first two cards are aces, they play two aces.  If their first two cards are a two and a three, they start with a weak hand.  Regardless, no one can ask for a different hand.

That’s exactly what we face every day.  We don’t control what happens to us (the hand).  We do control our reaction to it (how we play).

This morning I read...

I’ve been in a hurry most of my life.

I was in a hurry to grow up (at age 4), get married (at 21), and start a family (at 23).  As an accountant I prided myself on preparing an income tax return in four hours when the person who prepared it the year before took ten.  I want to finish writing this blog as quickly as I can so I can start on my next project.  I even justify vacations with the thought that I’ll be much more productive when I return.

Rereading the above paragraph I feel tired alre...

ADDICTION is defined as the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, such as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

MONEY, is defined as any circulating medium of exchange, including coins, paper money, and demand deposits.

Last month I flew to Monterey, California for a seminar held at a beautiful conference center on the Pacific Ocean.  Unfortunately, both my wallet and my cash remaine...

I have many rules for myself.  One is that I don’t initiate conversations with a stranger in either an airplane or an elevator.

I made this rule when I was young because I was afraid to talk to strangers.  I never knew what to say and “Nice weather” seemed too obvious and too generic.  Small talk didn’t work for me.  It still doesn’t.

But always I like to reconsider my old rules, just in case they may not work for me today, and I suggest you do the same.  If you are aware that you have been o...

I posted my first blog, “Experiencing Joy,” on July 23, 2013.  In two weeks we will celebrate the fifth anniversary of that earth-shattering occasion. I have posted a blog every Tuesday morning for the past five years.  That’s more than 250 individual personal essays averaging five hundred words each, or more than 125,000 words total – enough to fill a four hundred page book.

If a journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step, then writing a four hundred page book begins with a sing...

I once gave a speech in my Junior High School Social Studies class.  The entire class found my talk hilarious.  They laughed from beginning to end.  The reason was that my fly had been unzipped throughout my presentation. I learned this later from my best friend who hadn’t said anything before I stood up in front of the class.

We are often reluctant to risk offending other people because we want them to like us. But are we doing them a favor? We can all think of times where we wished someone...

Is the drinking glass of your life half full or half empty?

Neither.

When you feel gratitude as a way of life your glass is always entirely full.

I recently read an article on how to achieve happiness. It cited pivotal research by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Kahneman concluded that beyond a certain level of income (the study said $75,000), self-reported happiness does not increase with greater income. So happiness does not necessarily depend...

I pay attention to words, and I’m especially sensitive to the subtleties of the positive and negative.

For example, the other day, I caught myself writing to a friend, “I can’t have lunch with you until I finish my next children’s book.”

I imagine that most of us would read that sentence without a second thought, but I revised it because I’d rather express myself in a positive way. I changed the sentence to:

“I look forward to having lunch with you as soon as I finish my next children’s book....

All of us are tempted to live anywhere but in the present moment.

We often dwell in the past, remembering triumphs or tribulations, pain or pleasure, from yesterday or years ago.

We are lured by the future.  We look forward to or dread what might happen tomorrow, next week, or years from now.

For several decades, however, I have practiced living in the present. It’s a state of mind, focused on being in the here and now.

Do I remember the past?  Of course, but only as a guide to the future. I...