Fear lives inside us all. It is part of our existence, and it influences our decisions in many ways. Sadly though, it often keeps us from reaching our potential. It is understandable to be afraid of getting cancer, or of taking precautions to avoid a car accident, or deciding not to jump on a longboard down a canyon. Fear has a place in helping us stay safe and navigate our lives by avoiding some of the bad that may otherwise come.   However, to achieve some things, we must g

The world needs more kindness. The live-action Cinderella movie had the inspiring theme, “Have Courage and Be Kind”. That message struck me as profoundly important, and I pondered for a long while about what it meant to be kind. The first question I asked myself was if there was a difference between being nice and being kind. I believe that there is absolutely a difference between the two. An easy way to understand what it means to be kind is to think of the kindest person yo

Sitting at his 6-year-old son’s soccer game, Jim watched as his son’s coach started yelling at the referee and the coach on the opposing team about a claimed rule violation. This season, the league was experimenting with a rule that required keeping a goalie in for the entire half. This rule came about as it often took the younger kids a fair amount of time to substitute goalies since they needed to put on the goalie jersey and gloves. The other team had a goalie on the field

There is a story of an old horse that fell into a dry well. The old horse was mildly injured from the fall, and, due to the shape and size of the well, the people trying to help the horse could not get it out with the limited tools they had. After some discussion, they decided it would be best to put the old horse out of its misery. They could not safely fire a gun into the well, as they could not see the horse or the bottom of the well and the chance of a ricocheted bullet w