Last night, while searching “the significance of 38,” I landed on a Yahoo! Answers page. It was not the first time I’ve sought comfort in strangers’ answers to other strangers’ questions.

In fact, the most useful information I’ve obtained since the internet was usefully searchable has been from message boards, from people with questions professionals couldn’t answer or from people with questions for which there are no designated professionals. (This practice is so common now that, as I write this, there are 837 million search results for “My medical degree is from Google University.”)

The question I had last night…

I love the term “creator economy.”

I don’t know who first coined this phrase, but kudos to them. As a marketing professional, I’m pretty critical when it comes to slogans and jargon. I’ve been naming products and businesses for 20+ years. It’s tough to come up with a new, original, descriptive, and memorable term or name. (Commercials for pharmaceuticals prove this point, while new car makes and models tend to disprove it.)

Despite the current well-deserved buzz for the creator economy, it’s not a new concept; the idea of artists, writers, musicians, and other creators trying to make money off…

It’s been a few months now I’ve been seeing Time. We started off as friends; although there was a bit of an imbalance between us. Time seemed to know so much more than I did. He was aware, for instance, of secret wisdom, passed down to him along a river where the pink salmon swim against the flow on purpose to make a point. Time could access the Past or the Future in ways I couldn’t. For me, Past was a memory and Future a dream. …

It’s been about a decade that I’ve been actively researching and writing on the topic of love. Over the last few months, however, I finally discovered the solution to the elusive challenge of loving myself.

Time.

If you are someone who has done any personal development work, has ever had at least one therapy session, or sat for a yoga class, you must also be familiar with the phrase “self-love.”

I’ve had a lot of conversations with friends over the years about this phrase, about this idea of loving ourselves: is it right? Is it necessary? …

Who are the healing professionals in your life? Over the course of my own life, I would include the following without hesitation:

- Pediatrician

- Allergist

- Gastroenterologist

- Nurse practitioner

- Nurse midwife

- OB/GYN

- Dermatologist

- Psychiatrist

- Radiologist

- Chiropractor

- Reiki-master

- Acupuncturist

- Naturopathic Doctor

- Herbalist

- Yoga Teacher

- Psychic Massage Therapist

If you know me even a little, you know I am someone who extends the title “healing professional” broadly to include what’s considered by others to be more alternative therapies for diagnostics and care. …

Last year, I moved into my mother’s house with my three teenage children. She had been considering downsizing and moving into a retirement community, and we had been homebound in our smallish apartment since the start of the pandemic. Buying it from her seemed like a boon for both of us.

This wasn’t my childhood home, but we had a connection to it nonetheless, as it’s the only place my mother lived throughout my children’s lives. We’d spent summers here in New Jersey while visiting the States when we lived overseas in Israel.

But this story is not about one…

If you have ever quit an addictive habit, substance, or relationship, you know what happens at some point: the fog starts to clear. Suddenly, and in only small ways at first, you see or experience the world differently.

In the case of removing chemical substances like cigarettes or sugar, there are often sensory indicators that you’ve changed. Maybe your clothes smell different, or the physical signs of cravings lessen or stop.

I quit something 19 days ago: journaling.

Nineteen days later, I’m not free or clear of withdrawal symptoms — I find myself bending the rules here and there, scribbling…