The premise is simple: you can’t change your friends, but you can change the way you deal with them. A toxic friendship can be dealt with once you understand what is going on and your contribution to it. Once you figure out your part in starting and sustaining it, you will be able to take… Read More Book Review: Toxic Friends by Susan Shapiro Barash
The world has the potential to be amazing, but apart from glimmerings of awesomeness here and there, the overwhelming conditions are pretty terrible (sorry, Mother Earth). One of the reasons behind such a terrible state of affairs is the pervasive effects of both individualism and consumerism, which has led us away from what human nature… Read More Book Review: The We Generation: Raising Social Responsible Kids by Michael Ungar
The question of gender equality is a fascinating one, to say the least. I recently had a great chat on Facebook with one of my friends on the implications of the advice given in this post about men encouraging women’s quest to be modest in their dress to help decrease the level of objectification of… Read More It’s Quicker to Get to my Service Project with a Car that Works: Some Thoughts on Material and Spiritual Progress
As the world becomes smaller, be it with the help of intercontinental traveling or the Internet, it is becoming more and more evident that an easily definable identity is a thing of the past. If music is a good reflection of an individual’s identity, the increasing number of crossover musical genres testifies to this coming… Read More Book Review: Post Black: How a New Generation is Redefining African American Identity by Ytasha L. Womack
Someone recently mentioned that there is no institution older than that of marriage, which really got me thinking. If this institution has been part of human society for millennia, why are we still so terrible at maintaining it, with divorce rates in North America so high? No wonder, then, that so many conversations revolve on… Read More From Governing One’s Family to Governing the World: Learning to Use the Vital Instrument of Consultation
As a blogger, I have gone through many phases. A recent one was defined by anger at the various and unfortunately numerous forms of injustice that exist. Long-time readers have commented on it before, and it has led to many an interesting, if not heated, discussion. While anger might light a fire in someone’s heart… Read More Reaching Over the Anger: Building on a Common Desire
Just like with anything else, reflection is an instrument that has to be used with great wisdom, for it can both fulfill its higher purpose, or lead us astray. Need I point out that the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Our purpose in life is to know and worship God, which means… Read More Reflecting on Reflection: How to Make the Good even Better
Until a couple of weeks ago, I had never even watched a single one of its episodes, and was already horrified by its central concept: TLC’s show Toddlers and Tiaras documents pageants in which little girls, some as young as one, dress up (or down, at times) and, their faces caked with makeup and bodies… Read More These are Not the Tiaras You Would Want Your Toddler to Wear: Why the Sparkle of TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras Worries Me
And voilà: Fringe seems to have bounced back. I hate to admit it, but Etta’s death last episode did seem to bring a je ne sais quoi back to the show that had been a little lacking in the last couple of episodes. My friend Monica is completely right in saying that with Etta’s death,… Read More TV Review: Fringe, Season 5, Episode 5: An Origin Story
So-called nice people are usually considered a pleasure to work with, because they will rarely, if ever, say something that makes others uncomfortable. They will often do everything they can to not intentionally insult anyone or bring up sensitive topics that might upset others. But this niceness can be superficial, and create festering passive aggressiveness,… Read More Am I Actually Being Mean? Not Judging Our Actions Solely by Other People’s Reactions