How I Wait (For Love, Marriage, and all the stuff in between)
In Jane Austen’s Emma, one of the best exchanges of dialogue comes from Mr. Knightley responding to the ever irritating Mrs. Elton. When the recently married woman offers to form the guest list for Mr. Knightley’s house party, since he’s a bachelor, he gives this great response.
“No,” he calmly replied, “there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and the one is — “
“Mrs. Weston, I suppose,” Interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.
“No- Mrs. Knightley; and until she is in being, I will manage…
You probably hated 2020, and who can blame you? It was a year where most found themselves quarantined on and off, constantly in the midst of an argument between science, politics, and ideology, hours cut, job’s reduced, and everyone uncertain what exactly would happen next. Murder hornets not included, it has been a year peppered by uncertainty and tensions as high as the tight rope you walked to get through it all.
Admittedly, my year was far better than it deserved to be. There were good and bad moments as there were in any other year. Stress and uncertainty, just…
Answering the most important questions of life.
Navigating life is a matter of navigating questions and they are rarely clear ones. The questions are usually only half formed, requiring us to guess at both the answer and the question itself at the same time. Despite this perpetual ambiguity, when we reduce the complexity of the problem at hand, it usually devolves into a single word question: If.
Life is a matter of If’s, if this happens or that; if we do or do not; if they do or do not; if, if, if.
In that simple, two letter word we find contained the essence of uncertainty. It…
In the deed, the glory.
Last week I was challenged by a friend of mine, Evan Thomsen a business consultant, to apply what I write and talk about. His claim was, justly, that I tend to focus on accumulating knowledge but rarely exercising it to practical effect. As much as I would like to excuse myself, to claim the pursuit of knowledge is the all-sufficient purpose to learning, he’s right.
Knowledge, without the action to bring it any degree of vitality or life, is worthless. Or as another friend has succinctly said, “Training without execution is useless.”
We live in a time where information has…
I am now twenty five years old, an unimaginably old age when I was a child, and one which will seem incredibly youthful when I am old. Balancing both the past and future, my present thoughts are I am at the middle of the middle, with a quarter life crisis constantly hovering around the corner waiting to pounce.
Meg Jay wrote a book called, The Defining Decade in which she stressed the importance and critical time your twenties are to the rest of your life. It is, to date, the only book I can remember actually hurling against the wall…
KiSS Overthinking Relationships Goodbye
Hi, my name is Terrance and I overthink everything in my life. Don’t believe me? Ask my closest friends who are tired of me not just beating the dead horse, but carefully autopsying it and evaluating each inch of the deceased beast.
Never do I spend more time in the pathology lab than when it comes to my love life (or lack there of in many cases). Fortunately, I have also discovered I am not the only person who overthinks life, either in general or in particular. …
The Introvert’s Guide to Becoming Cool
Recently, while traveling via airplane, I came across a film I hadn’t seen in a while. Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) It’s an amusing, and inappropriate film, where Steve Carrell plays a Dad who’s wife decides to divorce him after admitting she had an affair. This sends Carrell into a slump, making his already schluby appearance even worse.
He is rescued by Ryan Gosling, who plays a ladies man extraordinaire. He takes Carrell under his wing and teaches him not just how to speak to women, but also how to exude the same confidence and style he does.
It’s a very…
More than bumper sticker theology? Learning from the story of Esther
A recurring phrase I hear when I’m stressed and trying to manage the mess known as my life (or my living Hell, whichever you prefer), is, “Let go and let God.” To which, I usually turn on the poor soul who uttered those words with a withering look (sorry Mom).
Bumper sticker theology goes against my grain. Life is complicated and no matter how catchy a five word phrase can be, it can’t account for all of life’s pains, trials and complex misery.
Typically, this advice isn’t offered when things are going well, far from it. When we’re on top…
The Philosophy of Preparation (and Barney Stinson)
It’s not about comfort, it’s about looking good all the time. — Barney Stinson
In how i met your mother, season 4 episode 17, The Front Porch, the gang holds a pajama party to wake up early and watch Robin’s morning show, we discover Barney not only wears suits everywhere in public, but also wears a set of suitjamas to bed.
His reasoning for the classy bed wear is simple and very Barney. If in the middle of the night there’s a knock on his door, and opens it to find from two beautiful women in bikinis asking him to…
More than Fate is Inexorable
The philosophy and worldview of Uhtred of Bebbanburg has remained consistent, despite becoming a thirteen book series and an acclaimed Netflix series. Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom series, offers a near barbaric perspective which is as sophisticated as anyone’s today.
The world of Uhtred is one with thatch roofs, swords, shields, war and war lords. At the beginning of series, he is kidnapped after his father’s death, held captive by Danes and adopted as one of the Northmen. As an adult, he finds himself oath sworn to Alfred of Wessex, a king he respects but hates, and fighting the Danes…
