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Showing posts from January, 2017

New Year's Eve Message (12/31/16)

It is deeply instilled by evolution into the wiring of the brain, not to mention embedded in all our cultural institutions, that we should seek security and meaning by producing, achieving, and accumulating. The ethos in a nutshell is ‘ work and shop until you drop ,’ an approach to living that lands us in what has been referred to as the rat race, the hedonic treadmill, the daily grind, the drudgery, survival of the fittest, the battle of life. Given the nature of these summaries is it any surprise that the Buddha noted in his first noble truth that life, as it’s commonly lived, is often stressful? We’re set up to be enthralled by the rich neural rewards of the cheesy slices of pizza, yet we seldom recall the gastric discomforts that may well follow; we may feel magnetically drawn into the Apple store, hypnotized by the array of beautiful, thin and light gizmos, but the possibility of buyer’s remorse rarely comes to mind. A pair of jeans might look perfect in the store mirror,