I love summer! I don’t have to wear a bulky coat, days are longer, and there’s more time to enjoy things I love like bonfires on the beach. It’s a perfect opportunity to slow down and enjoy what’s around us and recharge our batteries! Here are some of the ways I rewire myself during the summer. Don’t work so hard,…
Once upon a time, when stationery was pastel and melon-scented, I closed all my correspondence with “love.” An unexpectedly fastidious gene prevented me from making the transition to “Luv ya!” a few years later—a failure that pretty much describes my entire middle school experience, socially if not academically. My pre-Internet-age education did ensure that I’d graduate knowing the proper way…
People collect many types of things, for many reasons. My choice is rhinos—that is, rhino figurines. It’s an odd thing to collect, I guess, judging from the bemused reactions I get when guests see them perched around my house. I’d like to say I began accumulating them to support their protection (they are in danger of extinction), but that wasn’t…
In our age of overbearing parents and high school students driven to the point of exhaustion because they define success by the number of extracurriculars on their resumes, it’s no wonder the life of an adolescent has sped up light-years. Fifty years ago, being young was associated with contemplation and rebellion, but today the free time needed for such luxuries…
When I was a teen growing up outside New York City, my mom was a big country and western fan. I remember the collective groans from my brother, Bret, and me as she ferried us and our friends to after-school activities to the honky-tonk sounds of what I heard as hillbilly twang. One of my mom’s favorite songs was about…
John C. Havens is a regular contributor to Mashable.com, where he has written a number of viral articles about online privacy, augmented reality, and the importance of a “happiness” economy that measures the full measure of well-being and not just profits and loss. He is a popular speaker at TED forums and technology expos and a terrific harmonica player (click…
I know a number of men who seemed to make a point of marrying women who posed no threat of outshining their achievements—or even matching them. This viewpoint is no surprise in light of research by psychologists Kate Ratliff of the University of Florida and Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia reported in a recent issue of the Journal…
