The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: mistakes

  • Abulia

    From dictionary.reference.com: abulia /əˈbuːlɪə; -ˈbjuː-/ noun 1. (psychiatry) a pathological inability to make decisions I love it when I come across a word I’ve never heard before, and this one is a beauty. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? And it is a very pretty word for a type of personality trait that drives me up…

  • “Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.”

    That’s a quote from the movie Love Story, and after that movie came out in 1970, you saw it everywhere. I mean everywhere. It’s one of the top movie quotes of all time, and because of that, I think Erich Segal did us all a great disservice. I mean, give me a break. If you…

  • Seventeen Fatal Mistakes Managers Make

    I have been working since I was 10 years old, and have experienced every type of manager conceivable. There is quite a bell curve on the spectrum of competence. I’ve seen many of the same mistakes made over and over and over again. These professional landmines should be easy to spot and avoid, but apparently…

  • The Dark Side of Achievement

    I’ve always been a huge success in the academic world. Top of my class. The envy of my peers. So everyone, including me, assumed I’d be a huge success in the real world as well. I’m fairly certain my mother believed I’d be the CEO of a fortune 500 company by the time I was…

  • Gaining Your Temper

    Temper [tem-per] noun 1. habit of mind, especially with respect to irritability or patience, outbursts of anger, or the like; disposition: an even temper. 2. heat of mind or passion, shown in outbursts of anger, resentment, etc. 3. a substance added to something to modify its properties or qualities. Everyone loses their temper once in…

  • Why can’t People be Saved?

    Okay, before you get all worked up, let me start by saying I’m not talking about religion here. I’m not touching that third rail. At least not in this particular blog entry. I’m referring to the fact that the older you get, the more often you can see some people’s lives as slow motion train…

  • Learning your Lessons

    Every one of us has certain lessons to learn throughout his or her life. Some lessons we are doomed to repeat over and over again. Other lessons impact us on such fundamental levels that it only takes one time to get the message. It doesn’t always feel very good when we get schooled, but like…

  • One of a Kind

    I intended to start this blog entry by writing about snowflakes, a subject near and dear to any fractal artist’s heart. I was going to say that we’ve always been told that no two of them are alike, but then I thought about the absurdity of that statement. How the heck can anyone really know…

  • Will You Marry Me?

    Marriage and I have a fragile relationship at best. At 19 I was told by someone I was in love with that I was “not the kind you marry.” That was cruel enough, but what was worse is that he would not elaborate, and that gave me infinite ways to interpret that statement. In fact,…

  • Riding the Planet

    Today is my birthday, and yesterday, my grandnephew Carter was born. Naturally, this has given me ample opportunity to compare our two situations. Having spent almost half a century on this planet, you might think I know a thing or two, and I suppose I do. I can pat my head and rub my stomach…