I am always amazed how much needless drama we create for ourselves and for others around us by taking things personally. You know how it goes. Someone says or does something that hits a nerve. We take offense and say something back. Something spur-of-the-moment, intended to injure. A vicious cycle is born. Or maybe we don’t respond at all and instead silently seethe. The poisons build within, fed by our inner diatribe – She’s got some nerve! He’s so inconsiderate! What a jerk

Some days I am overtaken by an impulse to dance to the sheer joy of being alive. There I am working around the house, music playing, when suddenly the old joy rises within me and I’m gyrating on the carpet like a madman. It’s as if a lovely lady by the name of Life has been watching me from the corner, wondering when I was going to ask her to dance – and finally she says the hell with it and grabs my hand and twirls me about the floor. When I was a child, I danced with that l

It was a Friday morning and I got the call no one wants to get. Because of a shakeup at the company where I worked, I would be losing my well-paying job. I’d been there for 28 years, received consistently glowing performance reviews, climbed the proverbial ladder to the top communications post. But now the company was restructuring and new people were being brought in. Thanks for all your contributions, Jim. Time to move out. Good luck. Now, you need to know that I was misera