Self

It starts with a series of words and the simple question, “Positive or negative?” Words like family, spirituality, work, religion, Jesus, Buddha, prayer.  Positive or negative, what is your experience? What is your story? In Crave: The Documentary author Erwin McManus interviewed people from all walks of life looking for the stories that connect...

Sometimes things hide in plain sight. When I was a kid, I never paid much attention to bus stop signs.  I was totally oblivious to their existence. But when I decided to start taking the bus I saw bus stop signs everywhere! When I actually started looking for them, I saw them on the same streets that I walked every day.  They did not suddenly appear. ...

I was reading in the news this morning that Switzerland has decided not to extradite Roman Polanski. He has waited almost a year to get the news that his life on the run can continue.  Polanski has had a guilty conviction hanging over his head for more than 30 years. As I read the article I couldn’t help but think that if he hadn’t run, if...

Too often people are tempted to put a band-aid on a problem instead of really fixing it. That was the thought that came to mind when I read an article in the Globe & Mail titled "Suicide barrier on Bloor Viaduct worked, but jumpers went elsewhere": The Bloor Viaduct suicide barrier, a $6-million feat of engineering that managed to marry heritage...

What implications does your family's past have on you? I started thinking about the significance of our family history recently after seeing parts of NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?”  The show delves into the family tree of individuals, revealing unknown stories linked to crucial events.  Needless to say, the results easily range from...

Success is:______. How would you fill in the blank? "That's easy," you might say. "Success is ... for an athlete, winning the Super Bowl, the World Series, or a gold medal: for an entertainer, winning an Oscar, a Grammy, or an Emmy; for a businessperson, being a top executive with one of the Fortune 500 companies: for a university student, being...

People are generally encouraged, and expected, to be strong. Driven to succeed by cultural pressure (and even family pressure) the means to become a success is understood to become strong. And being strong sometimes leaves little room for needing help. According to stats from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, women cry approximately 5.3 per month,...