*but I’m trying Charlie, my beagle, is 14-years-old. His vision is failing some. I have to speak more loudly, in order to tell him how much I love him (which I do quite a lot). And his miraculous sense of smell must be a little less than it once was, because it takes him a […]
Selina Soule deserves to be recognized as a Pain-2-Power Person of the Week because she is willing to stand up for her beliefs and fight for the truth against those who would destroy others for doing so. Ms. Soule was a senior at Glastonbury High School in Connecticut when she became the lead plaintiff in […]
Canceling people taps into the most primitive and destructive of human impulses—dark, destructive, murderous psychological forces that, unleashed, have been manifested before in historical horrors like burning witches in Salem and burning Jews in the Holocaust (not to equate the scope of the two, at all). And while “canceling” human beings may not stop their […]
Too often, self-love is confused with an unwieldy ego or a pathological degree of narcissism. In fact, genuine self-love is the opposite of those. That’s because loving your true self means burrowing to the core of who you actually are—which values you hold dear, which goals you cherish, which talents you most need to express, […]
There’s something inherently wrong with Snapchat—and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The use of social media is associated with increased anxiety and decreased mood. That’s no surprise: When we interact with others through apps, instead of with empathy, even (old fashioned as it is) in person, we use the app’s language and platform. It’s impossible, therefore, […]
It has become crystal clear in recent months that big technology companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter have a virtual strangle hold on large swaths of the American population. First, those platforms have helped create a tech addiction in Americans who turn their lives into mini-reality show versions of real life and post those on […]
This week I introduce a new feature of Pain-2-Power—the Pain-2-Power Person of the Week. Every Monday’s blog will speak about one such individual who exemplifies the qualities of courage, endurance and truth. I hope that by highlighting these examples of refusing to live a fictional life, we all can dedicate ourSELVES to the same high […]
Wait for It was recently made famous by the Broadway musical Hamilton. The song revolves around Aaron Burr’s decision to wait for his time to prevail, despite the stark difference between his current difficulties and Alexander Hamilton’s successes. I think that Wait for It has wider application as a reminder to us all that when […]
The world does not have unlimited power. I am not speaking here of oil or natural gas or electricity. I am speaking of the power to exert influence and bring about change—in one’s life or the world. The truth is that when a government becomes more powerful, that power has to come from someplace—specifically, from […]
In my view, being human means having the capacity to experience and to give love (often, through a miracle called human empathy) and to reason and make choices. It also means having the opportunity to embrace the truth about oneself, including one’s life story, back to its early chapters, in order to make sense of […]