Too many choices

The other day I was at the grocery store trying to buy some salad dressing. You’d think this would be a fairly straightforward task: pick the type of dressing (ranch, Italian) and the brand (Kraft, Newman’s Own) and put it in your cart. But as I stood there staring at the vast array of possibilities…

Paper or plastic?

I’m paying for a handful of groceries when the cashier asks, “Paper or plastic?” I open my mouth to answer when it occurs to me that the answer isn’t “paper” or “plastic,” it’s “neither.” I can carry what I have in my hands. This gets me to thinking about how often we set up our…

Choosing the path

When I began training in martial arts, it meant a whole new life for me. It meant I gave up smoking and cut back on drinking and watched what I ate and worked out every night. All of these were good things and I felt positive about them. It was just that sometimes I missed…

On choosing

The other day, I was complaining to a friend of mine that the problem with being a neurotic writer is that neurotics hate uncertainty – we’d rather hear “no” than “I don’t know yet” – and writers live in a constant state of uncertainty. You send your book or your pitch or your proposal out…