Category: Self-development
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The road to one-hundred essays
The express purpose of this blog is to craft one hundred essays by the end of 2025. When I first began this journey part of me worried that I would soon run out of topics about which to write. But the opposite is true. The more essays I write the more topics with which my…
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Skillful means
Clarity of speech is like purified water. It is ideal but not always the best choice. A bath of pure water would be expensive so instead we use tap water. Skillful means are similar: imperfect but often preferred. The phrase “skillful means” itself comes from the East. It refers to how, for example, Zen masters…
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Solitude as a service
I have slowly begun to appreciate that being single has many often overlooked benefits which are lost when you are invested in a relationship. This has not stopped my heart from desiring to know and be known but it has given me patience and peace. I was recently at my niece’s sixth birthday party and…
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Christ for the Modern American
In his Letter from A Birmingham Jail Doctor Martin Luther King states that “In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.” Recently, I have committed myself to the campaign of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a way…
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Does one gender have it easier?
No, but why? To summarize my argument for equality I propose the following paradigm: The difference between the two genders is in a temporal dichotomy of advantage. Women have early advantages and late burdens, men have early challenges and late advantages. I have purposefully restricted the scope of my essay to two genders and am…
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To walk on water
There is a nuance to the miracle of Jesus walking on water that you may have missed. Any of the apostles could have walked with Jesus on the water. It was optional to join Him. Yet, of all those in the boat only Peter even dared to have faith and come walk on water with…
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The narrow gate
You may have heard the phrase “carrying one’s cross” used in a secular sense as a heavy burden unique to yourself. Walking with God and living up to the standard set out by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5 – 7) seems to runs counter to how our brains evolved. While…
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An insane date-gone-bad story
I met L in a way that I should be proud of. She (L) walked into my favorite cafe and was reading a book and so was I. I introduced myself and we ended up talking for three hours. During that time L invited me to a concert with her friends. I bought the ticket…
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The cure for attachment issues
I have often struggled with an annoying habit of growing attached to new potential partners way too quickly. This, understandably, scares many of them away. I know at the level of my intellect that this is bad. The issue, of course, is that my heart seems to ignore my head in a bullish and adamant…
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The cure for loneliness
There is a jumping off point from loneliness when you internalize the truth that you can talk to anyone around you at any time. When I first developed this skill it was in order to find love but there are so many more reasons to confidently introduce yourself to strangers and dating is only one…
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ChatGPT o1 is my therapist
Chat-bots may be the most revolutionary technology in self-help ever developed. A knowledgeable large language model such as o1 can provide a balanced and healthy place for you to express your feelings and receive mature feedback that is leaps and bounds beyond what can be provided by a human therapist in a dollar-for-dollar measurement. I…
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Becoming a better man
What should be the goal of a man’s life? For the simplest and most correct answer we can look to Ecclesiastes 12:13 “Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” While that is true and worth committing to your memory it lacks some specifics and is burdened by our…
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