- Parenthood makes you mature. But what if you don’t have any kids? I’ve been thinking about this a bit. Maturity. I realised I’ve not really grown up. But I’m getting there. At 44. I was swimming across Bondi beach (where good thoughts often come to me), reflecting on a chat I’d had recently with my friend Rebecca. She has three kids, a full-time job, writes books and more
- It’s called continuous partial attention… I read this Atlantic article about the dangers of screen time on kids. Yeah, blah, blah. But, no! This article turns things around. The bigger, broader, scarier issue (bigger than the direct effects of kids’ screen addictions) is the impact of parents’ screen addictions. Yeah, we’ve all been projecting. We always do when we experience shame, which reminds me more
- What I’m giving away…my new wage manifesto. Bam! Hi. Hope you are well. I’ve taken a few months to map this notion out in my noggin and in my heart. As you might know, when I closed my business, I sold off some of the assets and gave the lot to charity. I set up a philanthropic trust. See below for the gist more
- Kanye is bipolar. And he’s a narcissistic bigot. I’m being asked a bit about Kanye’s recent album Ye, which I listened to over the weekend as part of my “remain pop culturally relevant in my 40s” project. (I read recently we stop exploring music in our 30s…I wish/beg to differ; I’m also resisting increasing the font size on my phone, but that’s another more
- It’s hard for me to love a weak character Existentialist Hannah Arendt famously coined the phrase “the banality of evil”. She used it to describe what she felt was the most extreme failures of personal moral awareness – not thinking and not responding adequestly when the times demand it. You know, sitting back and doing nothing even though the world is falling apart. And more
- I’m doing “cool loneliness” I’ve had cause to think about loneliness again lately. A journalist acquaintance brought it up over breakfast – she was surprised to read in first, we make the beast beautiful that loneliness is such a theme in my life. “But you come across as someone who doesn’t need other people.” Which is a lonely person’s more
- A note from a 16-year-old that blew my mind Do you mind if I share this lovely note with you? Sarah L. reached out to me with the letter below. I get hundreds of letters and messages daily in response to first, we make the beast beautiful. I’ve had to employ someone two days a week to help me answer the questions and provide more
- As you make 2018 resolutions, remember this my anxious friends… …we’re not all that bad to have around. And we might not have to turn ourselves completely inside out to become better people. We come with a swag of good points. You know? It occurred to me as I sit here writing my next book that we need to remind ourselves that we don’t have more
- The #1 thing to share with loved ones (if you have anxiety) This is a quick little tip from first, we make the beast beautiful. I’ve found it to be one of the most popular and follows on from the post “Three ways loved ones can actually help us when we’re anxious as f*ck”. I followed a thread on an anxiety site one day that discussed the more
- Three ways loved ones can actually help us when we’re anxious as f*ck In this post last week I follow up on an edited extract from first, we make the beast beautiful in which I outline all the contradictions inherent in why we need people, but push them away, when we’re anxious. Today’s share is the antidote, geared at at our loved ones; you might want to tag them in the more
