One thing I know about happiness is that it comes from the narrative of our life. The story we tell ourselves. But too often, we let others write that story for us. Unhappiness and discontent inevitably follow. The only person who can write the story of your life properly is you. In order to change our narrative to an authentic one, one we write ourselves, we must change our perspective, and thus our perceptions of our world. This is not a new idea. Plato explained it in “Allegory of the Cave” over 2,300 years ago. A small change in perception can mean a huge change in what we see. And changing how we see lets us write a new narrative. The Dalai Lama also explores this idea of the relationship between perception and a good life in his book The Art of Happiness (99¢ in the remainder bin . . . maybe you can buy happiness after all!).
As part of learning my craft as a writer, I belonged to the Rocky Mountain Writer’s Workshop in the seventies and eighties. It was an invaluable experience that took me from a bumbling wannabe to a confident albeit part-time professional. The writer-in-residence for the monthly workshop was the award winning Denver author Ed Bryant. Ed’s […]
George R.R. Martin’s Best Story Read More »
The bat hit the ball with the crunching sound of an axe splitting wood. I couldn’t really see it, but everyone’s head swiveled in my direction, so I knew that in spite of the odds, a right-handed batter had just hit a ball to my position in right field. “Catch it!” people started yelling, more
A Nose for Baseball Read More »
It was a rainy night, and my wife and I were on our way to Vail to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. I crested a hilly curve. and on the other side was chaos. A small pickup truck had skidded on the wet road into the guard rail and rolled several times. Emergency vehicles hadn’t
Death as Performance Art Read More »
We had just spent two days going over every bench mark for the elementary and junior high portion of our school district’s math curriculum when the high school Calculus teacher stunned the room. “We don’t need any bench marks for high school,” he said. “Some kids just can’t do math and we shouldn’t prevent them
Common Core Math Issues Read More »
I remember the moment I learned that teachers get no respect anymore. “So what are you going to do to help him, Mr. Parent?” asked the mother of a student failing my eighth grade physical science class. My principal then repeated the question, leading to my stunned silence. The child failed my class because he didn’t
Teachers Get No Respect Read More »
It was 1966 and I sat at my desk listening to my ancient, (even for those days) red GE radio with white dials. The AM station (FM radios were way too expensive for my dad’s wallet) KYSN (1460) was playing a version of the rock and roll classic song Gloria. I was making much better progress
The Myth of the Mathematical Mind Read More »