Character | A Life of Character

Character

I Do Not Want to “Crush” 2021

bright potential of 2021

By Laura Crandall According to The Internet, it’s time to begin planning and making resolutions for the new year.* Social media posts and end-of-year articles are now directing our attention toward all the things we should start thinking about to maximize the next 12 months: goals for our businesses, ways to get ahead despite still

Who Are Your Influences?

By Laura Crandall “Who are your influences?” It’s a common question in movies about musicians and artists. A journalist asks the artist to name the people who influenced them so the audience can have a frame of reference for their art, style, or sound. If, for example, a classical musician was asked that question, they

Accessing Implicit Bias

How Shame Limits Self Knowledge By Kate Lingren Most of us don’t talk about bias or racism or sexism or homophobia much in our daily lives. There is often a lot of shame associated with discussing these topics, so we just don’t mention them. But avoidance doesn’t help us and doesn’t help our society, so

Finding Trust in the Middle of a Pandemic

Man leading woman on a hike

By Sandy Baker The message was brief.  “I’m sorry, you can no longer schedule an appointment with your heart failure doctor. He’s working towards retirement. We have several recommendations for you.” My husband, at the age of 43, has been waiting for a heart transplant for three years. We knew Dr. Young was getting older

Losing Relationships and Finding Yourself

Losing Relationships and Finding Yourself

By Kelechi Udoagwu  “When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?” — Bukowski I am up at 2am, sipping tea and writing this article. Why? Because I dozed off at 9pm

Finding Community in New Places

By Kelechi Udoagwu  “The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”  – Coretta Scott King I have joined and engaged with more online communities this year than ever before. As the corona virus crisis limited the spaces we could occupy physically, I have become more active online. 

When Our Biggest Strength is Also Our Biggest Weakness

My husband, Greg, isn’t just a nice guy, he’s the nicest guy. It comes from his gut—there’s no faking, no thinking twice, and no trying to appeal to the person on the other side of the conversation. He’s just nice—deeply empathetic, deeply intuitive, and able to decipher what people want, need, and mean before they

Which Do You Want More?

By Elly Mullins “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?” Sometimes my therapist would ask me, after I shared about a conflict with my husband: “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?” Some weeks when he asked this, and I’d respond that marriage

How to Be More Flexible with Your Experience and Intuition to Make Better Decisions

By Victoria Brodsky Past experiences can leave us rigid and inflexible when it comes to decision making. Though experience is helpful, intuition should not be left out of the decision-making process. Learn how to combine past experiences and personal intuition to make the best decisions for personal and professional development. Intuition vs. Gut Feeling  Intuition

When We Must Stop to Keep Going

By Elly Mullins One morning I woke up and decided I wanted to run a marathon.  This was not a latent idea that had been swirling around my brain, though I was a regular runner living in a runner’s city.  But Boston had just experienced an attack during the marathon, and I felt moved by