Don't be stuck in Groundhog Day

Don't be stuck in Groundhog Day

This past Thursday night, my wife had a call from her doctor about some blood tests she had done earlier that day.  The numbers were extremely high and concerning enough that the doctor asked her how quickly she could get to an emergency room for a CT Scan.  The scan did not find any of the suspected issues but uncovered some concerning fluid build-up around the heart and lungs that led to an ambulance ride into one of the Boston Hospitals.  As we sat and waited in the small emergency room, the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Angie McDowell was playing on the screen.  I had forgotten that today was groundhog day.  While the movie is a comedy, it actually has some deep messages about life.  If you have not seen it, it is worth checking out. 

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Two lives - one choice

Two lives - one choice

In many ways, we have become a society of many symptoms, and short-term remedies for those symptoms.  More and more individuals seem to have lost their sense of meaning and purpose, gravitating more toward relative truth based on personal feelings and desires.  We treat the increasing anxiety, depression, and unhappiness with the many forms of medication and diversions available to avoid dealing with the actual cause driving the issue.  We try to solve social and economic issues with large centralized programs that often create unintended consequences and dependencies for generations to come vs. understanding issues at the human level of both enablement and responsibility.  We often ignore any facts that could undermine the things we want to believe or make us feel personally uncomfortable about what we want to do.  As a humane society, we aspire to act as such, protecting the rights of the often innocent and voiceless.

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Has the weight of the world been on woman's shoulders alone?

Has the weight of the world been on woman's shoulders alone?

I was talking with one of my daughters about the last blog I wrote on Masculinity and intentionally raising our boys to become good men.  She thought it was an important topic, but asked, “So, are you going to write a blog on how to raise girls to be women?”  I hesitated, thinking that I would not have the same insights and experience to write about this in the same way, but I will give it a shot.

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Masculinity - a thing of the past?

Masculinity - a thing of the past?

When you hear the term “masculinity,” what thoughts come to mind for you?  Are we still raising our boys to become men and what does that mean?  There has seemed to be a negative connotation being masculine, possible when it is defined by dominance, oppression, superiority or even aggressiveness.  In recent decades, the media and other groups have worked to make men almost irrelevant in society.  Television portrays male characters as either buffoons or playboys, and less so as characters to take seriously

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