You see a lot of pass-alongs on Facebook or elsewhere on the internet that ask if you would live alone somewhere or perform a socially unacceptable act for $250,000, $500,000, $1,000,000, or even more. The place can be a haunted house, a remote island or a cabin, or another isolated…

What are boundaries and why is it important to have them? Boundaries are limits in a relationship that your friends, partners (and relatives) need to observe. They can be simple or complicated. They can address different aspects of a relationship — social, emotional, or physical, for example. …

Nowadays, many workplaces have a toxic culture or at least a dysfunctional one. They demand — not just expect — more from their employees than any human being should have to, or be willing to, give. Sixty-hour weeks. Twelve-hour days. Giving up weekends and holidays. …

Much as I hate acronyms, one that has wedged its way into common parlance is YOLO. It stands for You Only Live Once. What it means is open to interpretation — by me at least. Is YOLO a mindset, a lifestyle, or a philosophy? It’s a slippery concept, one that…

My friend Martin Baker (https://www.gumonmyshoe.com/) recently posted a series of prompts for mental health bloggers. Number 29 was: Can you ever really understand if you’ve not experienced mental ill health yourself? Here are my thoughts. In general, I do believe that having a mental illness yourself is the best and…

Last week I wrote about our trials and tribulations getting to and from Ireland. This week, I’m going into the more enjoyable parts of the vacation. And there were many. In the Boyne Valley, we wanted to see Newgrange and Knowth, two ancient stone tombs. We had booked a tour…

Over the last couple of months, I’ve written about the anxiety I’ve been having regarding our vacation in Ireland. There’s been the overplanning, overscheduling, overspending, and the trying to make sure that everything went perfectly (like that was going to happen). I had anxiety about whether I would pack too…

Our recent trip to Ireland was a combination of the sublime and the ridiculous. Ireland is a marvelous country and our time there was sublime. But getting there and back was ridiculous. It all started (or didn’t, actually) when we got to the airport in the evening to discover no…

We already know that in war, disenfranchised people suffer the most — dependent women and children, disabled persons, and the mentally ill included. The war in Ukraine is no different. During World War II, mental patients and disabled persons were among the “subhumans” that Hitler sought to annihilate. He felt…