Just look in the mirror.
Other people can't feel your pain. They will only know about your issues if you tell them about them. Otherwise… it’s only you who has to keep all that negative energy stored up. This is why we vent. So we can take all that stored energy inside us and offload it onto someone (who's usually) unaffected by the situation.
Read more about How to Live Your Life Freely
When most people hear the word “sensual,” they often picture something sexual. The term sensual doesn’t necessarily have to be used in such a way, though; in fact, it can mean “devoted to the senses,” or simply, “sensory.” Last year I purchased Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Romancing the Ordinary with the intent of making my life more sensual, and I must admit that it did help. From bathing in sake and tangerines to cooking up truly decadent mini-desserts for one, it’s a pleasurable book that most people could probably enjoy and implement into their lives.
But I want an even more sensual life, and I have added the task to my list of 100 things to do this year. We are only on this planet once—well, depending upon what belief system you use, it may be much more often than that—and we should make the most of it rather than simply going through the motions and working each day. Care to join me in my sensual quest? Read more about Live a More Sensual Life
If one of your goals in life is to make a difference (even if your current living expenses wouldn’t allow for you to provide money to a charity and/or your contribution is small) in the way our country is run. Turn your attention to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union).
The ACLU is a collective of people who have formed as a result of attempting to protect our (as American citizens) rights and liberties. The ACLU is working in congress, in legislature, in the judicial court system and in your community.
Read more about Make a Difference in Your Country 
We seem to hold onto a lot of things in our lives out of the sheer habit of holding onto them. Maybe it’s comfortable, or maybe it’s just easy. Sometimes it’s simply hard to let go of, so we avoid it. But there are many things in our lives that we simply outgrow, and that’s okay; we just need to acknowledge that it’s okay, and to give ourselves permission to let go. Read more about Just Let It Go
It has recently come to my attention that I have an extremely irrational fear of getting “in trouble,” something that has obviously carried over from my childhood. I haven’t stolen a thing since I was four and took a toy from a babysitter’s tween daughter (which I felt guilty about for years, even after returning it), I’ve never been in trouble with the law, and I’ve only gotten into trouble at school a few times over stupid things, like running in the hallway or speaking during “silence.” As if children weren’t asked to be quiet for long enough.
I’m not Catholic. I wasn’t really even raised Christian, though I did attend church now and then. I just have this horrible sense of guilt or foreboding, and I think much of it is due to growing up in a very poor trailer park—the poorest in our semi-rural town—surrounded by drug dealers and meth heads and frequent cop visits every week, and part of it’s probably just due to the fear instilled during the whole “educating” process that most kids are subjected to. Stay in line or you’ll go to jail! Read more about Overcome an Irrational Fear
A few years ago, I checked off items from my Living To Do list that were only partly done. For example, I knew that “Walk on a cobblestone street” meant somewhere in Europe in my mind, but I checked it off after eating at a restaurant that featured one. (The joke was on me; I won a scholarship to teach in Europe the following year!) I can think of at least a dozen things on my list that I checked off this way, just to feel as if I’d done more than I really had.
But there’s no honesty in that—and your list is really for you, and no one else. So what if you don’t get it done, or if you don’t get to it this year? It’s your dream. Don’t alter it or minimize it just to check it off. Read more about Do You Check Off Partially-Done Tasks?
If one of the goals on your bucket list just so happens to be “partake in dance party”, I have a story to share.
Last night I went to a club in the Pioneer District neighborhood in Seattle. I love Pioneer District. Not only is this home to the ever popular underground tour, there’s also a bustling nightlife scene as well.
Read more about Partake in a Dance Party 
Where the hell did we come up with this stupid “It is what it is” comment that I hear coming from every other person’s mouth? Is it like “Whatever” or “Really?” or any other catchphrase that just ends up being a hip way of communicating for a temporary period? Is it some mindless attempt at Yoda speak that someone came up with to obviously state…the obvious? Whatever it is, I am sick of it. And it’s not even true. Read more about It’s Not What It Is
Stay at home moms, witchdoctors and mannys alike… if you’ve dreamt of spinning around in circles like a child in greener pastures beyond the microlawns and square inch wide backyard behind your McMansions. If you’ve imagined traveling like a gypsy or maybe just meeting some people outside your neighborhood/normal social circle (if you’ve laid awake at night itching to drive on the open road looking forward to chasing the sunset like a poet or a dreamer instead of heading to the well-worn interstate looking forward to gridlocked traffic) have I got news for you!
Read more about How to Live as a Gypsy
David Brooks of the New York Times recently ran a column in which he requested a life report or a kind of accounting of a person’s life. In his column, he mentioned a variety of people, many of whom who had had regrets about their own lives. Of the people who regretted their lives, many of them were people who felt stuck in dead-end jobs their entire lives or who hadn’t taken the risks they felt like they should have.
In part, here is a bit of my letter to the New York Times giving an accounting of my own life.
Read more about My Life Report